US “Beer nerd” to open new brewery in Madison

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Nashville’s market for craft breweries continues to grow with Brewsters Brewery to open in Madison this month.
“Since Pargo’s closed, this community has lacked a neighborhood bar where regulars are known and people go for happy hour after work and go to watch (sports) games,” said general manager Chris Johnson.
“Brewsters is almost like happy hour all the time. Pargos was a place that everyone would come and hang out like Cheers style, and I want to get to that style of restaurant in this area.”
Brewsters is at 271 Gleaves St., in the former Pargo’s Spirited Foods.
A Middle Tennessee family in the hotel industry owns the craft brewery and entrusted its management to Johnson, who used to manage a Hooters restaurant.
“I became a beer nerd because I drink so much of it,” said Johnson, who dabbled in home brewing with college buddies. He has brought on 15-year bartender Daric Angel, previously a corporate bartender trainer for Hard Rock Caf?.
The pair plans to feature four varieties of an American pilsner, stout, wheat and imperial pale ale beers and change their added flavors seasonally, Angel said.
“My main thing is that we want to be local and gear it to locals,” said Angel, who moved to Nashville last year as an aspiring songwriter.
“There are plenty of craft breweries popping up in Nashville, but there is nothing like this in the Rivergate and Hendersonville areas,” he said.
Brewsters is stacking grain in Nashville’s booming microbrewery industry.
Two New England transplants will open Jackalope Brewing Company with an on-site taproom in March. Blackstone Restaurant & Brewery is building a
$3 million bottling and kegging plant on Clifton Avenue and plans to open it for tours this spring.
Tennessee ranks No. 39 in the number of breweries per capita, according to the Brewers Association, a national trade group.