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Health & Fitness

I Volunteer to Try Beer for You in Chattanooga

Visiting brewpubs in other cities is one of the best ways to get a flavor for a town and find great new beers.

One of my favorite things to do is to try out beers and brewpubs from other states that you can't get anywhere except in that place. If a town has a brewpub, it's one of the first places I want to visit. For instance, not long ago I was at Jackie O's in Athens, OH, which has some decent beers and really awesome woodworking that can be seen in the tables, beer taps and the bar itself. 

Last night, I was in Chattanooga for business and there's a local brewery called Big River Grille and Brewing Works with a large pub in downtown near their famous aquarium. This is a minichain with a few other locations in Tennessee and one in Florida. I tried their Magnolia Brown ale, a 5.2% alcohol by volume, chocolately ale with slightly smoky flavor. It was a very solid beer. I also tried tried their seasonal, a German maibock. A golden ale like this in most states would be very high in alcohol - like 8% or more. In Tennessee, however, there is a limit of 6.3% on the alcohol content on microbrewed beer. I'm not sure why, but I expect it's related to moonshining and the control thereof. The maibock was better than the brown, and the lower alcohol level made it very drinkable.

I didn't get a huge sample, but overall it seemed like a pretty solid place for decent beer. Find a cool place to go in a random city, let me know.

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