Knoxify

“Call it fate, call it luck, call it karma. I believe every­thing hap­pens for a rea­son.” –Dr. Peter Venkman, Ghostbuster

Let me pref­ace this lit­tle arti­cle, with a short story. Last week right here on the illus­tri­ous Knox­ify com­ments sec­tion, I wrote a quick blurb about a new mar­ket in Maryville and their beer selec­tion. Moments later a mes­sage popped into my inbox from Knoxify’s own CP. He has been try­ing to help me to find a gen­eral direc­tion, for top­ics to write about. Here’s a an excerpt from his email, “Hey buddy, I saw your com­ment and thought, I need to see if Chad wants to write about beer in Down­town, Maryville… what about a series on bars, stores, etc. and their beer selec­tions?”. Now I refer you to the famous quote at the begin­ning of this arti­cle. Why yes, yes I would like to have an excuse to drink beer at a vari­ety of estab­lish­ment, and talk about what all hap­pened the next day. Usu­ally I would call that Mon­day morn­ing, but now I can say, it’s for an arti­cle! Now I under­stand we don’t exactly have dead­lines as far as arti­cles go around here, but don’t think for one sec­ond I won’t even­tu­ally say to my wife, “but dar­ling, I just have to go to that bar with my friends tonight. I have a dead­line, and the loyal Knox­ify read­ers are depend­ing on me!” So with that I say, yes, yes CP, I would like to write about beer selec­tion in Maryville. Now on with the show…

On Sat­ur­day night, 12/12/09, the wife and I ven­tured into down­town Maryville, TN. One of the great things about Knoxville is that not only is Knoxville itself such a great place, but its smack dab in the mid­dle of other great places to be. It’s the epi­cen­ter so to speak. You can reach down­town Maryville in 20 – 30 min­utes from down­town Knoxville. It’s a small lit­tle city but with plenty of char­ac­ter, and it’s slowly start­ing to take a note from our own down­town and revi­tal­iz­ing with new stores, restau­rants, and apart­ments pop­ping up at a reg­u­lar pace. It’s also home, to the huge “Foothills Fall Fes­ti­val” every Octo­ber, that brings vis­i­tors from all over the coun­try, with big names in coun­try music and clas­sic rock fill­ing out the con­cert lineup each year.

On this par­tic­u­lar trip, we went to Brack­ins Blues Club. Brack­ins is right in the cen­ter of down­town, on the main drag. It’s a small venue with around twenty-something tables in front of the per­for­mance stage, and a decent size bar with a string of bar stools avail­able within eye shot, to the left of the stage. A small dance floor located directly in front of the stage was put to good use through­out the night. There’s also a small patio and a sep­a­rate room behind the bar, with pool tables.

They adver­tise “100 dif­fer­ent beers from around the world” and although I didn’t count, I would say that’s pretty accu­rate. Two cool­ers full of a wide vari­ety of bot­tled beer, and what looked to be around thir­teen vari­eties on tap. In bot­tles they have all the usual domes­tics Bud\Coors\Miller, but also a good vari­ety of imports and micro­brews. On tap I saw beers rang­ing from PBR and Guin­ness to Arro­gant Bas­tard and Fat Tire. The bar staff was atten­tive, friendly, and as quick as pos­si­ble con­sid­er­ing it was a packed house. They serve the usual pub food, although we didn’t eat; the wings, nachos, and que­sadil­las that were all around looked and smelled deli­cious. It is a 21 and up bar so smok­ing is still allowed.

Brack­ins has a ton of great atmos­phere, from the friendly staff, and ran­dom mem­o­ra­bilia stuck to the walls, to the awe­some music they bring to the city. It’s obvi­ous when you walk in there are sev­eral reg­u­lars who all know each other, but every­one makes you feel right at home as soon as you come in the door. We sat at the bar, and every­one round us was eager to chat, and we struck up con­ver­sa­tions with sev­eral folks around us.

We went to hear one of my wife and I’s favorite local bands, Blue Mother Tupelo. If you’ve never heard them, you’re depriv­ing your­self of an evening of down home, south­ern, swampy, bluesy, soul filled music that is guar­an­teed to stir you. The hus­band and wife combo of Rickey and Micol sound as though they could have eas­ily crawled from the front porch of some rick­ety shack in the Louisiana swamp, or some back door blues house in Mem­phis. Between Ricky’s gui­tar pickin’ and smooth dobro twang­ing, and Micol’s sul­try voice and heart filled piano play­ing, their music will move you, and make you won­der, where have these two been hid­ing!? Also, between sets, Micol was hand­ing out home­made choco­late oat­meal cook­ies (a.k.a. cow pat­ties) to the crowd.

So all in all, it was a great night. Brack­ins is a great place if you’re look­ing to change it up one night from the usual Mar­ket Square\Old City venues. They always have great music on hand, and it’s just a laid back place to kick back with a good cold beer, with plenty to choose from. Beer prices are aver­age, and the cover was a rea­son­able $7.00 after the music started. We will def­i­nitely go back. The only neg­a­tive I could pos­si­bly think of was after a cou­ple hours my wife’s aller­gies started act­ing up because of the smoke, but it was no worse than any other bars that still allow it.

For more info on Brack­ins Blues Club:

112 East Broad­way Avenue
Maryville, TN 37804
(865)983‑9800
www.brackinsbar.com

For more info on Blue Mother Tupelo: bluemothertupelo.com