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Reviews of US Breweries by Bill Friday
Rocky River Brewery (Sevierville, TN) |
Other reviews available:
Bill Friday's I-80 Beer Adventure including:
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On my way back to Indiana, I tried to make a quick stop at the Rocky River Brewery & Grille (1444 Hurley Drive / 404-908-3686) in Sevierville, Tennessee. It is located a little South of the intersection of St Hwy 66 & 411 at the Governor's Crossing shopping area. It is about 10 miles off I-40 in the Gatlinburg area of Eastern Tennessee. It is well worth the side trip.
You will find great tasting beers and good food. The sampler set is served in a circular wooden cradle.
- The Copperhead Red, a German Altbier, had a malty body with hops filling in the background.
- The Golden Eagle Lager had an excellent malt body. (Last week, it won the Gold metal for Munchner-Style Helles at Great American Beer Festival.)
- The Kolsch style 10 Point Ale had a pleasurable hop aftertaste in the back of my throat after swallowing.
- The India Pale Ale would get the hop head seal of approval with its super hopping rate.
- The Heidelberg Hefeweizen had a firm clovey smell in the nose which carried over in the body and finish.
- The Bear Bottom Stout had an excellent dark malt-grainy finish which lingered long after the swallow.
- The Oktoberfest had a malty nose and mouth feel.
- The Panther Creek Porter was full bodied and creamy with a dry chocolate aftertaste. It was based on an 18th Century London Porter recipe. It was delicious. I ordered another with my meal. Then I ordered another as my quick stop stretched out a little longer.
- Their award winning Winterfest Ale was not available. It will be available in November. Ron Downer, the head brew master, said it is "as close as it can come to being illegal."
The menu carried the usual suspects. I ordered a Caesar Salad and a Cajun chicken pizza with black olives and mushrooms cooked in a wood oven located behind the bar. They were quickly consumed though the pizza sauce could have been better.
The building is huge. It has a light stone facade. There is a large white silo with the brewery's logo to the right of the main entrance. A souvenir retail area is located in front and to the left of the doors. The flooring is concrete. The ceiling is exposed to the wooden beam roof. A fourteen seat copper top bar with the same stone facade is just beyond that area to the left.
The brew house is to the right behind glass. It is a copper covered 620 gallon DME system. To the left of the bar is a large glass windowed cooler holding twenty-four 2 and a half gallon Party Pigs in a Box for carry out. Behind the bar is a small meeting room. Beyond the brew house is a large dinning area with 16 booths and 14 tables. There is also another dinning area in the back left corner with another 18 tables. Beyond the dinning room on the far side of the building is a glassed in patio with still more dinning tables. Still beyond that area is an outside patio with 40 more tables. It overlooks a small creek running by the building. There is a second bar area to the right front of the building on the other side of the brew house. It offers multiple TVs and bar games. The building also has a banquet facility upstairs that seats 200.
On the side of the brew house is a large board with the following information about their beers: description, type, brew number, date brewed, fermenter number, approximate ready date, and batch number. Ron Downer used to run a regional home brew supply store. Gary Tritze is the assistant brewer. He's a Hoosier - coming from the Ft. Wayne area.
Rocky River uses three yeast strains. They mostly double brew their regular beers. They have six 40 barrel fermenters, and one 40 barrel and four 20 barrel bright tanks. Ron states that they are not a brew pub. They are a licensed brewery. Ron said that in Tennessee, if you are a brew pub, you can only distribute in your own county. If you have wholesaler license you can distribute all over the State but have to pay an extra 17% in taxes. The are two other Rocky River restaurants. One is located just off I-75 North of Knoxville.
Last month, while I was in South Carolina, I stopped for a quick lunch in the Southend Brewery & Smokehouse in Charleston.
- Their Hunley Hefe had a higher hopping rate than a normal German wheat beer should have. The normal "bubble gum" taste was dominated by hop bitterness and only exerted itself at the finish. On the whole, the beer was well made and tasted good - just not brewed to any particular style.
I ate a roasted garlic, Brie cheese, tomato chutney, and wood-oven toasted flat bread appetizer. It was excellent.
