I’m not usually a big beer drinker, but I did watch this week’s presidential debate, and as a result I’m now reconsidering my choices. Luckily, this is the week for it … 

The First Five

Taking communal activities into virtual or limited spaces has been a necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention by-product of the pandemic. I’d imagine a lot of people are tired of virtual interactions via work-day — or school-day — Zoom calls, but there are entities out there still making it work. It seems like a virtual/distanced Gonerfest went off well last week, and Indie Memphis has an interesting “Online & Outdoors” plan for its film festival in a few weeks.

In between — this Saturday to be precise — is the first Virtual Memphis Beer Festival, a notion born out of coronavirus demands and limitations. 

I broke the news on this festival back in July, in a profile on organizer Kevin Cerrito:

Cerrito brought the idea to Taylor James, vice president of sales and merchandising for Castle Retail Group and Cash Saver grocery store, whose in-store Madison Growler Shop is known for perhaps the city’s best beer selection. 

“I’ve been a regular at Cerrito’s trivia,” James said. “He had to be very creative during this time. It’s been fun working with him. He’s got good ideas and to be a part of that is exciting. Everything’s getting canceled, but people still want to participate in things. People associate October with beer and we wanted to still have some normalcy there.”

The festival, set for Saturday, Oct. 3, will compile beer samples to be picked up or delivered and then build all-day streaming programming around the beers, including panels, presentations, live music and, of course, trivia. A portion of ticket sales will go to a local restaurant workers’ fund organized by Edible Memphis. 

The event is on Saturday, but the deadline for ticket purchases is 9:01 on Friday morning. 

The Virtual Memphis Beer Fest organizers could not have anticipated that the festival would coincide with some breaking Memphis-related beer news. From the Scottish newspaper Press and Journal:

BrewDog has lost a legal battle with the estate of Elvis Presley over the name of one of a (sic) best-selling beer.

The beer maker launched its “Brewdog Elvis Juice” IPA in 2015 and it now has annual sales of £6.4 million in the UK alone.

Bosses were contacted by lawyers from the late singer’s estate who demanded they change the name.

It’s good to see that Elvis Presley Enterprises could break away from its legal squabbles with the city and the Memphis Grizzlies to take care of business here.

I mean, “Elvis Juice”? Who wants to drink that?

Craft beer naming is an art, or at least an, um, craft, and one that the growing number of Memphis breweries take with proper seriousness. In honor of the Virtual Memphis Beer Festival and in dishonor of “Elvis Juice,” I took a spin through local brewery websites to ponder beer names present and past. 

Meddlesome Brewing’s “201 Hoplar” drew some winces when it was introduced, but has stuck around. 

We’ve honored that which we’ve lost: Ghost River’s “Zippin Pippin” and Wiseacre’s “Admiral Benbow.” We’ve honored our cultural obsessions, both hoops (Beale Street Brewing’s “Centsational IPA,” Ghost River’s “Grindhouse,” Boscos’ “Big Spain”) and tunes (Beale Street Brewing’s inevitable “Love & Hoppiness,” Memphis Made’s specialty “Gonerbrau”).

We’ve honored our icons: Even if you wouldn’t normally make a mango beer, the prospect of a “Zambodian IPA” named “Prince Mango” (Memphis Made) is simply not to be passed up. And, yes, there’s at least one Elvis-themed beer on the ledger and it’s a lot better than “Elvis Juice.” Tip of the hat to Grind City Brewing’s “Viva Las Lager.”

Arguably, the best Memphis beer name isn’t really a “Memphis” beer name: Wiseacre’s “Tiny Bomb” travels, both in concept and very much in execution. “Grab me a Tiny Bomb” just sounds right for a can of beer. 

But setting that aside, the official Memphis 10 list of the five best Memphis-themed craft beer names, past or present. Counting them down, Casey Kasem-style:

5. “Rocket 88” (Ghost River): Named after the Jackie Brenston/Ike Turner-performed, Sam Phillips-recorded single that is one of the very best candidates for “first rock and roll record.” 

4. “Rockbone IPA” (Memphis Made): One of the great ignoble moments in recent Memphis history deserved to be honored in some fashion, and a beer feels about right. Don’t have too many, or you could slip up and have your own Rockbone moment. 

3. “Junt” (Memphis Made): Standard Memphis lexicon. Yes, “grab me one of them Junts” could mean just about anything, which is the whole point of the word. But it’s absolutely something you’d want to say when asking for a beer.

2. “Memphis Sands” (Wiseacre): For the Memphis Sands Aquifer, of course, the life-giving force that supports the growing local craft beer industry and so much else. A proper and poetic name.

1. “Space Age Sippin’” (Beale Street Brewing): This is a reference to the song “Space Age Pimpin’” from Memphis rap pioneers Eightball & MJG. Great can art too, from muralist Michael Roy. This beer — and its muses — will be featured this weekend:

Four More

Four more quick things on my Memphis mind this week.

Barrett on the bench: There are different kinds of “man, I feel old.” There’s when you’re closer in age to the coaches than the athletes in your favorite sport, and I’ve left that in the rearview mirror. 

There’s when you’re as old as the president. I’m not there yet and whichever way the next five weeks go, I can hold that off for a while. 

One I didn’t see coming: “Hey, I could have gone to college with that Supreme Court justice.” In fact, like no-doubt many in Memphis, I have friends who did go to college with prospective justice Amy Coney Barrett, Rhodes College class of 1994, though they didn’t know her. (One’s mother asked: “Did you ever meet her at chapel?” OK, so maybe Barrett wasn’t a regular at the keggers.)

A moment of humanity from a messy debate this week: Former Vice President Joe Biden describing Barrett as “a very fine person,” before making valid if debatable points about the potential impact of her judicial philosophy on the nation’s laws and the appropriateness of her appointment given recent precedent. 

A personal opinion, and I think a pretty common one: The refusal of the Senate to give a hearing four years ago to Merrick Garland, nominated by a president who’d been elected and re-elected by popular-vote majorities, was not only unfair and outside the spirit of the Constitution, but deeply destructive to the country. President Trump was right in the debate when he said presidential terms are four years, not three. This applied just as much to his predecessor. Despite the timing, there’s no real constitutional reason Trump’s nominee shouldn’t get a hearing and a vote. But there was less of one for Obama/Garland. In this case, two “wrongs” — the unlikely prospect of the Barrett nomination being tabled until after inauguration — would make things somewhat more right. 

Barrett will likely make it to the bench, but her appointment will always carry a cloud over it.

Radio to the rescue: Earlier this week, Early Wordsmith Mary Cashiola shared a social media message from a Memphian of my acquaintance lamenting a radio format change on the right of the local FM dial and the general quality of Memphis music radio. To which I say, in the words of Memphis rapper Don Trip: Help is on the way. 

At 5 p.m. on Monday, WYXR – Your Crosstown Radio – will launch left of the dial at 91.7, with all kinds of locals — hip-hop DJs, record store owners (from Goner and Shangri-La), journalists, authors (Robert Gordon), musicians (MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden, the Reigning Sound’s Greg Cartwight) and others — programming weekly shows. Station director Robby Grant (music-maker in bands such as Big Ass Truck, Mouserocket and Vending Machine) and program director Jared Boyd (my colleague here at The Daily Memphian) will kick things off on Monday, with the station’s regular programming schedule beginning on Tuesday. 

Self-promotion department, twice over: The Daily Memphian is a partner, along with Crosstown and the University of Memphis, in the station, which is a community radio reinvention of the former jazz-oriented U of M station. I’ll be among the many weekly programmers and I’ll confess I gave Jared and Robby too much grief in changing my proposed show name and format — um, twice — before settling. But “Sing All Kinds” will be coming your way on Thursday afternoons from 4-5. 

A generalist rather than genre specialist, I’m interested in how pop music engages conversations that cross eras, styles and levels of commercial success. So I’ll be orchestrating an hour-long musical conversation along a different theme each week. Next week’s debut: “The We’re Gonna Make It Show,” because given the year we’re having, we deserve to start things off with some songs of perseverance. 

In the street: This column was partly written at Huling Station, the new outdoor dining space alongside Puck Food Hall on South Main that Jennifer Biggs wrote about recently. 

Color me impressed. 

Mid-summer in this space, I’d touted the closed-street outdoor dining I’d encountered in Iowa City during family travels, and suggested something like that would be good for Memphis, particularly on already pedestrian-oriented South Main. 

I was imagining something similar: A partial street closure with unmanaged tables out in the street. For better or worse — and maybe it’s a little bit of both — Huling Station is more formal than that. 

It’s an elevated, covered platform with a host managing the space and with service from three adjoining restaurants — Puck Food Hall, the Grecian Gourmet and 99 Cent Soul Food Express. There’s non-contact ordering from the tables, the food is good (I had a nice fried chicken sandwich) and the atmosphere better, with shade, music and, on a beautiful fall day in Memphis, breeze, the occasional trolley rattling by. And the wifi worked.

The structure helps manage good COVID protocols — contact tracing, distancing, etc. — and this should be a model for other shared outdoor dining spaces. These kinds of setups are a growing response to a pandemic where it’s safer outside and we also want restaurants to survive. In New York, an “Open Streets” program set to expire Oct. 31 was recently made permanent and year-round. Memphis has a pretty mild climate, all things considered, with outdoor spaces usable most of the year. Let’s hope this trend also grows here, and outlasts the virus.

A budding fashion icon: Ja Morant not only passed rookie would-be sensation Zion Williamson in the Rookie of the Year race (expected) and in the standings (not a surprise), but apparently at the virtual merchandise table: 

Right, 15th isn’t that lofty, but Morant’s a rookie and this is surely higher than any previous Grizzly has ever been on a list like this. 

The Final Number

Singer-songwriter Todd Snider was born and raised in Oregon and now lives in Nashville. In between, he cut his musical teeth in, and launched his career from, Memphis. The best song ever written about buying beer is from early in Snider’s career. I’m not sure if he was still living in Memphis when he wrote it, but we’ll count it as “Memphis-connected” and let it fade the column out in honor of the aforementioned Virtual Memphis Beef Festival this weekend: