Tryon has been lucky enough to have beer lovers who know how to put on an awesome beer festival! This Oktoberfest-style festival just keeps getting better every year, and on Nov. 5, we will be celebrating the fifth year of this great downtown event!

Polk County’s very own Shane Blackwell with Mountain View BBQ in Columbus will serve his mouth-watering wings and barbecue. You’ll be able to get a platter complete with pulled pork or brisket, slaw and baked beans…or you may opt for some of their delicious and juicy, bone-sucking smoked chicken wings, tossed in a variety of different sauces.

You can also enjoy Shane’s homemade Brunswick Stew which is sure to warm you up on a cool fall day in the foothills. And of course, since it’s a German-style festival, you have to try “The Grumpy German” which is a grilled brat with sauerkraut, spicy mustard, jalapeños and butterkase cheese!

Tyler and Elizabeth Philpott, owners of our local Buck’s Pizza in downtown historic Tryon will also be back. They will have a variety of hot pizzas throughout the day, including their wonderful creation of a German themed pizza. They came up with this pizza especially for the inaugural Tryon Beer Fest. It has a mustard-based sauce and is topped with sausage, green peppers, onions and cheese, then cooked to perfection. It has been a big hit in the past and we are looking forward to enjoying it again this year. They make their dough fresh from scratch and chop fresh produce daily for their salads, sandwiches and pizzas.

Also returning to the festival, we welcome Eddie with Blunt Pretzels from Marshall, N.C. A native of Munich, Germany, Erhard Schoeffmann (Eddie), started baking pretzels shortly after moving to Asheville in the fall of 2010. With the help of the internet and the guidance of his childhood “taste memory,” he soon developed a product that puts a smile on the faces of expats stranded in the pretzel diaspora of Southern Appalachia. The pretzels are the real deal just as they were meant to be, circa Germany 1111. All pretzels are served with your choice of great mustards for your dipping pleasure!

New to the festival this year, but certainly not new to the area, is a local favorite, Carol Lynn Jackson and Manna Cabana in Saluda, N.C. offering up a variety of farm to table tacos and refreshing seasonal ciders by the glass.

Don’t think we forgot about your sweet tooth! Jessica Pullara of Tryon, owner of All Good Things Bakery, will be back with more of her decadent creations. Jessica is a young entrepreneur with lots of talent when it comes to baking! Some of her wonderful creations for the Beer Fest this year include her incredibly moist German Chocolate Brownies and a big favorite for the past couple years, her Maple Bacon Beer cupcakes! These go great with beer! Available again this year, pretzel necklaces! They are nice for a nibble to clean your taste buds between beers and you will find them again this year at Jessica’s “All Good Things” booth.

Another favorite are the oyster shooters. If you’ve never heard of them, they are a little beer, a little cocktail sauce and a freshly shucked oyster. If one oyster at a time is not enough, we will be featuring a low country oyster roast and selling them by the bucket, so bring some extra cash. Each bucket will boast a baker’s dozen of the freshest, most delicious oysters we can find!  Market price while supplies last, so come early to be sure that you don’t miss out! We will not be doing any pre-sales this year.

To help keep us sober, or to pair with one of Jessica’s cupcakes, the Tryon Coffeehouse Co-op will be providing free coffee to event-goers again this year! A team of five friends came together last year to create a “co-op” to keep the idea of our downtown coffeehouse alive. Their goal is to serve a great cup of coffee – but to also serve the community, regularly turning profits back into community projects, such as Tryon Little Theater, Hospice, local sports teams and kids art classes.

McGourty’s Pub is providing free bottled water to help keep everyone well hydrated throughout the day.   

Tryon Downtown Development Association has done a wonderful job in organizing this event over the years and we hope that you will enjoy a full-filled day in Historic Tryon and find a few good reasons to come back time and time again! It’s our privilege to have the opportunity to showcase some of the wonderful things about Tryon and WNC in general. We hope to see you Saturday, Nov. 5 for another fun-filled Beer Fest.

Tomorrow, we’ll preview some of the beers that will be available at the Beer Fest! Stay tuned.

For more information, or to buy tickets, check out our website at www.tryonbeerfest.com.