This is the third in our Cheers for Beers series, and yes, I thoroughly enjoyed Crosstown Brewing and Grind City Brewing, both fun places. But Ghost River Brewery & Taproom on Beale is next level.

Cheers for Beers: Grind City Brewing is a brew with a view

That’s not to disparage the others; it’s the truth — this should possibly be in its own category because Ghost River is a taproom, sure, but it’s also a Beale Street bar.

There’s a frozen drink machine, y’all. You can get your margarita on if that’s what you want.

Let’s step back a little; quick time travel here. Ghost River Brewing Co. is the granddaddy of current local breweries. In 1992, Jerry Feinstone opened Boscos in Germantown, the first new brewery in Tennessee to open since Prohibition was repealed (more on Boscos later in the series).

In 2007, Feinstone started Ghost River, and in 2011, opened the taproom at 827 S. Main, where it remains today. It’s still open and hopping; the beer selection might be a bit different from what’s on tap at Beale Street, but they mostly overlap. We’ll look at it later in the series.

Cheers for Beers: Crosstown Brewing brings the clean & easy

In February 2020, on the eve of COVID, Feinstone sold to local businessman Bob Keskey, now Ghost River CEO and president.

“The opportunity was put forward to me and I started talking to them on and off, and one month before COVID, it happened,” Keskey said. “It turned out it was the perfect time. The down time gave us plenty of time to do the things we wanted to do.”

Earlier this month, Keskey opened Ghost River at 341 Beale in the former Lew’s Blue Note, and he went all in. The outdoor space is just great, a beer garden with a bit of a New Orleans vibe in the courtyard on the west side, a stage for live music that backs up to the FedExForum, ample seating all around, including a loft that can be reserved for special events or large parties.

“You can reserve it but if it’s not reserved, it’s first-come first-served,” Keskey said.

There are 12 beers on tap; we tried them all. We didn’t have official flights like we’ve had at the other breweries, but it’s only because they don’t have the flight boards yet. No matter; we ordered 4-ounce pours and between my expert beer-drinking partner and the bartender, we created three flights of our own.

Tip: If you do these tastings, order one flight at a time (better for temperature control), and get at least two extra glasses. One is for drinking (assuming you’re splitting, which is what we’ve been doing) and the other is for surplus liquid. Also get water so you can rinse your glass between beers.

Here’s some good news/bad news/good news. The Ghost River beers are thoroughly drinkable, my overall favorite so far. The downside to that is that folks looking for a challenging beer might not be real excited about most of them; nothing caused me to make a face or cough and that’s great for me, but I know some people want a beer that’s harder to love.

Hold on. It’s coming.

“We’re going to start brewing pilot beers so we can do some crazy stuff for the real enthusiasts,” Keskey said.

Pilot, or experimental, beers will give the brewers room to flex a little, Keskey said, but they’ll come and go and Ghost River will remain a brand for people who want a beer without too many complications.

Also coming: In about two weeks, a nano brewery will start operating on Beale, turning out one small-batch beer at a time that will almost exclusively be sold at the Beale location. If a real popular beer is created, it could end up at both locations, Keskey said, but the plan is for these to be cradle-to-grave beers, born and consumed on Beale.

I’m getting to the beer, but a quick break for a game-changer.

Tip: Download the Untappd app. If you’re a serious beer drinker, I assume you already have this or maybe there’s a more serious app for you guys. But if you’re newish to beer, do it. It’s free and I liken it to the wine aroma kit I bought about 25 years ago to learn more about wine (which was definitely not free). When you log your beer, you can access a list of roughly 200 descriptive words, from acai to zippy, that help you describe — and thus understand — what you’re tasting.

 I think it’s immensely helpful, even if some of the descriptors (diacetyl, isodoform) are meaningless to me at this point. Others — geraniol, estery — required a Google search but ended up being the spot-on word. Bread? Yes! Hoppy? Of course. Earthy — who knew that was the right word for what I kept describing as “kind of dirty”? Get it; it makes tasting more fun.

OK, our top beers:

Zippin Pippin is an IPA that I found surprisingly mild for a beer with 60 IBUs (International Bitterness Units), as I’ve pegged myself for someone who prefers a beer in the 35-40 IBU range. Not so; it’s about the balance and it’s here. I even used the word “balanced” on Untappd, so it’s official for me. The beer was hoppy and sharp on the nose, but bright and smooth in the mouth. Easy to drink.

Even easier was Grindhouse, a cream ale. It was light and malty, not bitter at all (around 10 IBUs) one of the two Ghost River beers most like what I think of as a grocery store beer, but in a perfectly respectable way (the other is Ghost River Gold). A cream ale is a true American beer, sort of a mix between a German lager and an English ale. There’s no cream in it.

I approached Dreaming of Summer carefully. It’s a sour, and some of those feel like they’re punching me right under my ears, and really now: Food and drink should not cause you pain. But this was more like Skittles than Sour Patch Kids. It might technically be a sour, but tart is a better descriptive word. I found it similar to a shandy with its citrus notes, mostly in the orange family.

We had another sour that I was fully prepared to dislike; I even wanted to snub it. Brunch, Please is a blueberry pancake/maple syrup blonde ale and girl, please: I don’t even like blueberry pancakes on my plate, much less in my beer. Except that I was sort of wrong; it’s so mild you can’t really take offense even when you’ve planned on it. You can tease out the flavors, (though it had the distinctive flavor of a blueberry muffin instead of a pancake to me), but it has enough oomph so you know it’s beer. It was interesting more than something I would drink often, but good and fun to try.

Copper Cooper and Dom’s Magic are both aged in Old Dominick bourbon barrels; you can taste that oaky sweetness and I like it. I like bourbon, I generally like big and boozy red wines that are aged in bourbon barrels, and it turns out I like beer finished in the barrels, too. They’re strong, very different from the other beers on this list, much heavier and heartier. Copper Cooper is a copper ale; Dom’s Magic is dark as night. They’re also approachable and even if you decide they’re not for you, it’s worth a 4-ounce pour to find out.

When we visited the taproom, we ate chicken tenders and a chicken sandwich from Chef Sobie’s Gourmet Sandwich kitchen, listened to live music from Fuzzy Jeffries and the Kings of Memphis, and tasted some whiskey from Blue Note. You can expect the same Friday night lineup for at least the next couple of weeks as the local distillery will be on hand offering samples and the same band playing. The food is permanent, the first brick-and-mortar spot for Sobie Johnson of Flying Sobie’s Hen House food truck, and it’s good.

Keskey, who came to Memphis 11 years ago when he purchased Supply Chain Solutions, a multi-prong logistics company, loves being a part of all of it, from the business to the construction of the new place to, of course, the brew.

“I like beer, I like the process behind beer,” he said. “I was born and raised in Milwaukee, which used to be the capital for beer. And I love it here. I love live music, I love Beale Street, and I’ve loved Ghost River beer since I got here.”