Memphis-music inspired craft beers from Soul & Spirits Brewery are headed to Middle and East Tennessee under two new distribution agreements.
Soul & Spirits has signed a distribution deal with Bounty Bev that covers Nashville and eight surrounding counties, said brewer Ryan Allen, who founded Soul & Spirits with his wife, Blair Perry, in Memphis in 2021.
The agreement with Bounty Bev went into effect in early May, but the Memphis-brewed beers started really flowing to Nashville about three weeks ago.
Meanwhile, the brewery is partnering with Tennessee Craft Distributors to sell Soul & Spirits beers in Knoxville, Chattanooga and other East Tennessee locales, starting around June 28.
“I’m just excited to find more people,” Allen said. “I know like any market that you’re in, it just takes some time and growth. We’ve only been open a year-and-a-half. We’re in four markets now, working on five, six and seven. It takes time to get all the acquisitions done, but we could very easily be within several other states here very shortly.”
Just in the last four weeks, Allen said Soul & Spirits has seen a “pretty drastic uptick in several of our beers, but particularly Hoochie Coochie (American IPA).”
The brewery, he said, is “just cranking through it now.”
More on Soul & Spirits’ Tennessee expansion
Under the new distribution agreements, both kegs and cans of beers will be headed to Middle and East Tennessee.
Craft beer aficionados there can expect Soul & Spirits staples such as Hoochie Coochie IPA, Bring It Home, a Bavarian Helles, Hopperbolic, a hazy IPA, and Smoke Stack, a smoked dark lager.
Soul & Spirits had been self-distributing in Nashville since last October, with Allen making biweekly trips to the area to deliver beers himself.
The distribution agreement with Bounty Bev, which also partners with Memphis’ Wiseacre Brewing Co., is a big step for Soul & Spirits, since the potential for sales growth in Nashville is huge.
“The sky is the limit there,” said Allen. “There’s tons of room for growth, and I think we make IPAs on par with some of the great IPA breweries there.”
In addition to the new markets in Middle and East Tennessee, Soul & Spirits beers are also sold throughout the state of Arkansas.
Soul & Spirits’ brewery and taproom are located at 845 N. Main in downtown Memphis.
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