MFS Brewing’s Downtown Memphis taproom set to open Sept. 13

The ownership group behind MFS Brewing cleared the final legal hurdle on Wednesday to establish a taproom in Downtown Memphis, getting approval from the Memphis Alcohol Commission to sell beer.

The beer board’s green light paves the way for the Memphis Filling Station taproom to open on Friday, Sept. 13, at 206 GE Patterson.

The spot is just a few blocks east of South Main and close to Wiseacre Brewing Co.’s downtown location.

“Getting to the final step was an uphill climb, everything balanced on getting each permit and inspection done — and everything falling into place perfectly so we didn’t have to wait weeks or months to get open,” Bryan Berretta, MFS’s co-founder and head brewer, told Memphis Beer Blog.

“If it weren’t for great contractors and people like Drew (Barton of Memphis Made Brewing), Ben (Pugh of Meddlesome Brewing), Travis (Wiseman of Cooper House Project), and an amazingly understanding and empathetic staff at the Alcohol Commission,” Berretta added, “we’d still be sitting here with dirt floors and no clue what to do next.”

In addition to Berretta, the Memphis Filling Station LLC ownership team consists of Heather Reed, Jesse Lara and Scott Kley-Contini.

For years, they have been serving their home-brewed beers and winning awards at craft beer events around Memphis, such as the Science of Beer and Cooper-Young Beer Festival.

Earlier this year, MFS beers were sold at Memphis Made, where MFS was contract brewing.

With a strong local following already in place, MFS is now poised to open the doors to its brick-and-mortar location.

MFS’s open-concept space

MFS has been working since December to transform the 4,300-square-foot-space, which most recently housed a Crossfit gym, into a brewery and tasting room that will be unique to Memphis.

The open-concept space is essentially divided into thirds — ⅓ for the brewery, ⅓ for the seating area, and ⅓ for the bar.

There is no wall or railing that separate the bar and seating area from the brewery, which means visitors to MFS will be immersed in the inner workings of the brewing operation, including all the sights, sounds and smells associated with making beer.

“You are going to have a really good sense of what’s involved in a brewery,” Kley-Contini said.

Berretta explained that some of the best bottle-share sessions he’s participated in have been in the back of breweries, beyond the taproom walls.

Visiting MFS will be like that every day.

“We didn’t want a physical separation between production and consumption,” Berretta said. “We built the brewery the way we enjoy it, so hopefully other people will enjoy it as well.”

The taproom features an L-shaped bar that is 46-feet long, one the MFS team built themselves.

In one corner of the taproom, there’s a small kitchen area, where MFS will cook up quick bites: hot dogs, pretzels, pickles, maybe a charcuterie board, and other taproom fare.

There are high-top tables built atop wooden barrels.

And all the chairs in the taproom are comfortable, encouraging people to sit down and stay awhile.

More about MFS’s brewery and taproom

MFS will have a 10-barrel brewhouse, with a dozen fermentation tanks lined up on one side of the space, along with a small pilot system.

Just this week, eight of those fermentation tanks were delivered.

Long-term, Berretta and Kley-Contini said they plan to start a barreling program and also hope to open an outdoor seating area behind the building.

They are still trying to nail down the days and hours they’ll be open.

For now, MFS is putting the finishing touches on the brewery and taproom, as well as brewing beers to be ready for the taproom opening next week.

One beer that MFS will be selling at launch is an IPA called Bench Vise, a 6.5%-ABV stone fruit-centered ale brewed with Montueka, Citra and Amarillo hops.

It’s an IPA that was thrown together as a test batch, using the hops that MFS had on hand, but turned out great.

In addition to Bench Vise, MFS plans to launch with beers familiar to fans of the brewery. Depending on how everything goes in the next week, those could include:

• Left-Handed Screwdriver, a citrus honey wheat beer brewed with local honey and orange peel
• Within Tolerances, both the milk stout, as well as the coffee milk stout version
• Tri-5 Italian Pilsner, a light, crisp beer with a dry-hop finish

“There’s the specialty things that we’ve got to get into the pipeline,” Kley-Contini said, “but the big staples are first.”

Learn more about MFS Brewing on the web at https://mfsbrewing.com. The brewery is also on Instagram and Facebook.