As if East Nashvillians didn’t already have enough to be thankful for, there’s more great news from the neighborhood: we’ll be getting our very own beer festival early next year.
Let's raise a glass to our very own neighborhood beer festival!
The man behind the new East Nashville Beer Festival is Matt Leff, an East Nashville resident who says he was inspired to create the new festival by both his love of beer and the challenge of putting together an event. “I enjoy all the components that make something like this a reality,” says Leff. “I truly feel that our community and the greater Nashville community can help create a unique and successful beer festival. I was inspired also put this together when I realized the only large scale beer fest in Nashville was the Music City Brew Festival. I personally feel our city can support more than one.”
Leff’s plans are on a pretty big scale for a first-time festival, which should give all our neighborhood beer aficionados something to look forward to all winter. There will be some 30 breweries represented, including a number of operations that don’t currently distribute here in Nashville. In addition to all the beer, there will also be home brewing sections with demonstrations and brewing education, live music, and food and craft vendors hailing from here in East Nashville as well as the rest of the city. And while you’re feeling good drinking all that excellent beer in one place, you can also feel good knowing that 50 percent of the festival’s proceeds will go to the Ride For Reading charity.
What's better than one local beer festival? TWO local beer festivals!
Right now the festival is still running the gauntlet of city approval so location and dates are subject to change, but the current plans call for it to be held at East Park on April 9, 2011, from 12pm-5pm. General admission tickets will be $35. There will also be $10 tickets available for designated drivers – Leff says he hopes to be able to offer DDs drink tickets that they can later redeem at local bars. Of course, having a beer festival in our own neighborhood means a lot of us will be able to forgo cars altogether, perhaps opting for the luxury of a taxi ride home at the end of the day.
The East Nashville Beer Festival has a number of confirmed and committed sponsors already in place, but there is still room for more. “Being a new festival, we are tailoring agreements for each sponsor, but we do have some basic guidelines and offers,” says Leff. “Basically it’s a tiered system. We understand the need to be flexible in this first year, so we look forward to working with anyone in the community who’s interested in coming on board.” With plans calling for somewhere in the region of 1,000 to 1,500 guests, local businesses really couldn’t ask for better exposure in the community. For more details on sponsorship options, send an email to sponsorship@eastnashvillebeerfest.com.
You can keep up with all the latest details on the upcoming East Nashville Beer Festival through the festival’s Facebook and Twitter pages.
