After much thought and deliberation (and more than a few beers), the Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest committee has picked Oct. 19, 2013 as the date for our fourth annual beerfest. Mark your calendars and stay tuned for updates throughout the year.

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Thank you to all who came out to the third annual Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest yesterday. We had a great time and hope that you did as well.

We couldn’t have done this without help. First, we want to thank the brewers and homebrew clubs that made the festival possible:

• Asheville Brewers Alliance
• Blackstone Brewery
• Bluff City Brewers & Connoisseurs
• Boscos Brewing Company
• Country Boy Brewing
• Ghost River Brewing Company
• High Cotton Brewing Company
• Lazy Magnolia Brewing Company
• Lore Brewing Company
• Memphis Brewer’s Association
• Red Brick Brewing Company
• Schlafly Beer
• Vino’s Brewpub
• Yazoo Brewing Company

Second, we had tremendous support for the beerfest and Cooper-Young from our sponsors.

• Cooper-Young Community Association
• Central BBQ
• Celtic Crossing
• Stone Soup Cafe
• Sweet Grass
• Goner Records
• Memphis Flyer
• MemphiSport Live
• WEVL

Some of our great, local businesses contributed to make sure that our visiting brewers had a taste of the wonderful things that Memphis has to offer.

• Stax Museum
• Bar-B-Q Shop
• Huey’s
• Ballinger’s Midtown Service Station
• Sun Studio
• The Cotton Museum
• Guidebook

Last but not least, we had dedicated volunteers that came to the festival, did plenty of dirty and sweaty work setting up the site, pouring beer, getting ice and tearing things down at the end. Thank you for your help.

We will work hard to plan the fourth annual Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest for 2013, try to keep the great things and improve the shortcomings. If you have any suggestions, we would love to hear from you.

We hope to see you in 2013!

-The Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest Organizing Committee

Today is the day. It looks like the weather is going to be great for the third annual Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest. Online ticket sales have ended, but we still have about 100 tickets left that we will be selling at the gate for $40.

For more information, please visit our Information & Tickets page.

Here’s a list of 10 things to bring that will enhance your festival experience:

Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest 2012 now has a guide on Guidebook! Improve your experience at the beerfest by getting the app on your phone or mobile device. Available for iOS, Android, Blackberry and web-enabled devices, completely free. Get it for your device now.

In partnership with Guidebook, we’re excited to announce that 500 festival goers will have access to a mobile app with information about the brewers, descriptions of beers and a schedule for the Beer Tent Revival for the 2012 CYbeerfest. Best of all, the app has a To Do function that lets you build a list of beers you’d like to try at the festival.

The app is LIVE NOW, and will be UPDATED CONTINUOUSLY through the end of the festival this Saturday. Make sure you get the updates so that you will have the latest information on the beerfest. Downloads are limited, so get it today!

One mug. Four hours.

Tickets for the third annual Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest are now on sale. Tickets are $35 in advance and $40 at the gate IF there are any left. There are no service fees when buying tickets online this year. For additional details, please see our Info&Tix page

Make sure you buy yours so that you can join us on Saturday, October 13, for an afternoon of enjoying regional, craft beers and learning about the products produced by your hardworking, local brewers. We will have quite a few breweries from the first two years as well as some names that are new to the region. Hope to see you there.

Tickets for the third annual Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest will go on sale on this site at 10:00 AM on Friday, Sept. 7. This year, we are not charging any ticketing fees for purchases online.

Physical tickets can first be purchased at the Rock For Love Overton Square Street Festival on Sept. 8, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Madison Avenue.

Rock For Love benefits the Church Health Center, and a portion of the Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest ticket sales that day will be donated to Rock For Love.

After the Rock For Love event, beerfest tickets will be available for purchase at the Cooper-Young Community Association offices at 2298 Young Ave. Check the CYCA website for office hours.

Tickets will cost $35 before the festival and $40 the day of the festival if it’s not sold out. CYCA members get a $5 discount.

The Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest on Oct. 13 features only craft beers from within a day’s drive of Memphis. The festival benefits the Cooper-Young Community Association, a non-profit organization that maintains the Trestle Art, organizes clean-ups, and does many other things in this Midtown neighborhood.

This year’s festival will include food from Central BBQ, Stone Soup Café and Sweet Grass. Goner Records will be playing Memphis music. Celtic Crossing, Memphis Flyer, Memphis Sport and WEVL are also sponsors.

“Craft brewing is growing in America and the Mid-South, and our festival is growing with it,” Andy Ashby, CYRB chairman, said. “We’ve added several new breweries this year, including several which aren’t yet available in Memphis. That said, we’re still making sure to keep lines short while focusing on educating people about good beer.”

For more information about the festival, email cybeerfest@gmail.com.

We had a beer recently with Beerfest chairman Andy Ashby during IPA Day. Come for the info. Stay for the outtakes at the end.

Celebrating the 2011 festival with a final toast.

Did you stay till the last drink in 2011? Well, your next chance to toast the region’s best craft brewers is coming soon — Oct. 13, 2012, to be exact.

We’ve started planning the 2012 Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest, and we’ll have some exciting news to post soon. Stay tuned for announcements about participating breweries and ticket sales, and in the meantime, help us out by sharing the date with all your friends.

(Thanks to CYRBF volunteer Amanda Dent for the festival photo. More of those to come soon.)

Wow. Another year is in the books and it’s safe to say this year was a great success.

The second annual Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest experienced strong online ticket sales and sold the remainder of its tickets within about an hour at the site. We were blessed with perfect weather and a real spirit of festivity all day. We worked hard, but it was a great time and we raised money for an organization near and dear to us: the Cooper-Young Community Association.

However, we didn’t do it alone. We had great support from the attendees, the volunteers, the brewers, the sponsors and the vendors.

We’d like to thank our sponsors and vendors: the Cooper-Young Community Association, Central BBQ, Celtic Crossing, Goner Records, Lifelink Memphis, the Memphis Flyer, Memphis Sport Live, WEVL, Mid-South Malts, Southwestern Distributing and Sweet Grass. It’s a great and diverse group of businesses and organizations with one thing in common: they went above and beyond to make our festival a success.

We’d also like to thank the brewers. They drove from near and far to share their passion for craft beer. We had folks drive from Atlanta, St. Louis, Nashville, Arnaudville, La. and other places with truckloads of beer to donate to the cause. A big thanks to Schlafly, French Broad, Yazoo, Bayou Teche, Ashville Pizza, Green Man, the Bluff City Brewers & Connoisseurs, Boscos, Abita, Red Brick, Oyster House and Ghost River. From pouring beer to educating people at the Beer Tent Revival, they did a great job and we really appreciate it.

The volunteers also deserve a big pat on the back. They did everything we asked, taking care of every detail so that people could sit back, relax and have a craft brew. The volunteers set up tents, tables, and chairs, assisted brewers, hauled water, wrangled lost dogs, sold tickets, promoted the event, broke down tents, tables and chairs, and did many more things than we could count. Volunteers worked really hard, not only on the day of the festival, but also year-round in planning. I’d like to personally thank the beerfest committee: Josh Spickler, Mark Morrison, Toby Sells, Drew Barton, Trevor Kearney and Edmund Mackey. These guys went above and beyond so many times, it’s not even funny. Their finger prints are all over this festival. Special credit goes to the wives as well, for all their support. Also, a special mention goes out to CYCA president June Hurt and Justin Hurt, for manning the CYCA booth, and to CYCA community director Kristan Huntley and Patrick Miller, for all their support, in the virtual world as well as the real world. Adam Shellabarger also made a huge contribution with his design work.

Finally, we’d like to thank the attendees. We really appreciate you spending your hard-earned money to hear us ramble on about craft beer. The money goes straight to the CYCA, which publishes the Lamplighter, maintains the Cooper-Young Trestle Art and does many things big and small throughout our neighborhood. Your support makes this work possible. We hope you learned a lot about craft beer and we hope to drink a few with many of you if we see you around town. We’re almost always up for a pint of fresh regional beer. We truly thank you from the bottom of our hearts and we hope to see you again next year.

Take care,

Andy Ashby

festival chairman

If you’re reading this, then chances are you’re planning on going to the second annual Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest. This is a good thing. A lot of thought and work went into making sure beerfest attendees are going to have a good time while drinking and learning about craft beer from throughout our region. If you want to read more about what we’re about, check out our mission tab on the home page.

This post is a few news and notes about this year’s festival, which is 1-5 p.m. at the corner of Walker and Fleece, behind the Lifelink Memphis building.

First, we do have some tickets available. Tickets can ONLY be bought at the door for $35. Cooper-Young Community Association member get a $5 discount. Last year, we sold out on festival day, so get there early to insure you get a ticket. Beerfest attendees will get a 12 ounce plastic beer stein and a wristband. You need BOTH of these to be served beer. You will also be carded at the door.

Designated drivers can attend the festival for free. They will receive a different wristband and no mug. There is water available. Some of the food vendors will be selling beverages as well. ANYONE SEEN DRINKING BEER WITH A DESIGNATED DRIVE WRISTBAND WILL BE EJECTED FROM THE FESTIVAL. I don’t know why, but our legal guy wanted to make sure that last sentence was in all caps.

Chairs. Last year, people said we needed more chairs. We ordered more chairs for this festival. However, we also encourage people to bring their own folding chairs if they want to make sure they always have a seat. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR LOST OR STOLEN CHAIRS. Again, the legal guy insisted. We also have more tents for shade, but seeing as last year’s festival day was 95 degrees, we think that will be less of an issue. That said, the site is in full sun, so take precautions.

Beer Tent Revival. The beer education area will start at 1:30 and the schedule will be posted at the tent.

Last call announcements: We’ll be making announcements when there are 30 minutes left and 15 minutes left in the festival. We’re also going to try to do a beer toast to close the festival out. We’re trying for a world record in the “Biggest toast at the Cooper-Young Regional Beerfest.” Since this is only our second year and we didn’t do it last year, we like our chances.

That’s all I can think of this morning, but if you have any more questions, feel free to a volunteer. If they don’t know, they can find someone who does know.

Thanks for attending our little festival. We hope you have a good time and learn a little bit about good beer. The brewers work hard to make it and are very passionate, so feel free to ask them questions. Finally, to paraphrase the great Charlie Papazian: Relax, don’t worry, have a craft brew.

Cheers,

Andy Ashby

Festival chairman