Weekend Craft Beer Events (March 10-12)
SATURDAY
–Sycamore Brewing’s latest can release is one of its most popular beers. Beginning at 9 a.m., you’ll be able to get cans of Salty Coconut Red Ale at the brewery. This is a limited can run so if you want to try this flavorful and well-done beer, it’d be wise to head over Saturday and not wait. As part of the release, Papi Queso is offering a special “Salty Coconut”-inspired french toast as part of its onsite brunch menu, along with several other items.
–Once again Charlotte’s South End neighborhood is hosting its annual Craft Crawl. This at times ran in conjunction with Charlotte Craft Beer Week, but that week has moved to the end of the month for the first time, so this crawl is sure to get a lot of attention.
Most of the area’s breweries and bottle shops are participating in the crawl, which runs from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. Here’s how it works: Three trolleys (no charge to ride) will be shuttling around the crawl map to take people from stop to stop. Each brewery/bottle shop is tapping a specialty beer in honor of the event (for instance, Triple C brewed three special session beers for the crawl, The Liberty is tapping Goose Island Bourbon County Stout, etc.) while many will also have live bands throughout the day.
The crawl’s participants, 12 in total this year, are: Bulldog Beer & Wine, Craft Tasting Room & Growler Shop, Good Bottle Co., Happenstance, Helles & Dunkel, Lenny Boy, Sycamore, The Brass Tap, The Liberty, Triple C, Unknown and Wooden Robot. The trolleys will be starting their routes at Happenstance (located at Atherton Mill) and ending at Good Bottle, with stops at other locations in between. For a complete schedule, check out the South End Craft Crawl Facebook page.
–Speaking of crawls, Unknown Brewing is doing one of its own with an “Into the Darkness” tour of uptown Charlotte. Unknown representatives will be pouring their stouts and porters on a five-hour crawl through five different bars: Duckworth’s uptown location (2 p.m.), 5Church (3 p.m.), Tilt on Trade (4 p.m.), Roosters (5 p.m.) and Flight (6 p.m.). Featured Unknown beers include Dirty Commie Heathen, Imperial Tele-porter, Krash the Kremlin and Venture Stout.
–Just in time for the warm weather (though maybe not this weekend), Lenny Boy has renovated and expanded its patio, and is having a party to celebrate the occasion. The brewery is smoking two whole hogs from Sauceman’s as part of the event, and is offering a full plate of barbecue and sides with a purchase of South End MAAgic Yogi, a Belgian ale brewed with jasmine tea and lemons (MAA stands for Mid-American Apartments, Lenny Boy’s adjacent neighbor that runs several of South End’s new apartment complexes). This event runs from noon to 7 p.m. and will also feature live music from Josh Lewis (1 p.m. to 3 p.m.) and Jah Will Band (4 p.m. to 7 p.m.)
–Sugar Creek Brewing is set for its next bottle release, as for the first time you’ll be able to get the brewery’s IPA in packaged sales. Described as a “light-colored fragrant ale that drinks dry, finishes crisp and erupts with hop flavor,” Sugar Creek is debuting the IPA in the taproom first, beginning at 2:25 p.m. Saturday. Bottles will be coming later this spring, along with bottles of Raspberry White Ale. Saturday’s event will also have live music from The Accidentals (3 p.m. to 6 p.m.) and Thomas Crompton (7 p.m. to 10 p.m.).
