Memphis is where the modern craft beer era in Tennessee got its start. The very first brewpub in Tennessee — Boscos — opened in Germantown in 1992 and paved the way for others by helping to change outdated beer laws in the state.
While Boscos got the party started, Wiseacre, Memphis Made and others opened in the 2010s and really took things up a notch. Since then, the beer scene has been thriving, with new breweries opening or expanding.
Memphis is no Denver or Asheville, mind you, but the beer scene in the Bluff City is growing in size and sophistication.
In this guide to the craft brewery and beer scene in Memphis, you’ll find an interactive map, profiles of each brewery, what’s on tap year-round, and more.
Breweries in Memphis
Explore this map of breweries and taprooms in the Memphis area. Click on each marker icon for directions. Read more about each brewery below.
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Boscos Restaurant & Brewing Co.
Web: https://www.boscosbeer.com
Location: 2120 Madison Avenue
Year-round beers: Flaming Stone, Bombay IPA, Midtown Brown, Isle of Scottish Ale
As mentioned earlier, when Boscos opened in 1992 as Tennessee’s first brewpub, it was a big deal. Founded by businessman Jerry Feinstone and brewer Chuck Skypeck, Boscos started in the upscale Saddle Creek shopping center in Germantown. It was a hot spot with locals. Tom Cruise even filmed a scene from “The Firm” inside Boscos one day in 1993.
Boscos closed its Germantown location after a 10-year run, and opened its current Midtown spot in Overton Square in 2002. Boscos expanded to Nashville, Franklin, Tenn., and Little Rock, but those locations have since closed.
Boscos is still Memphis’s only full restaurant and brewery. It’s a great spot for a date night, Sunday brunch or a quick beer after work.
Skypeck is no longer with Boscos, but his award-winning creations are still on tap. Flaming Stone, Midtown Brown and Isle of Skye Scottish Ale are all Great American Beer Festival medal winners.
Cooper House Project
Web: https://www.cooperhouseproject.com
Location: 906 S. Cooper Street
Year-round beers: Cooper House Project does not brew year-round beers.
Cooper House Project is Memphis’s newest brewery, opening in 2022.
Cooper House Project may be an odd name for a brewery, but it’s apt. Founder Travis Wiseman literally built his small brewery and taproom inside an old Midtown home in the Cooper-Young neighborhood.
Cooper House Project produces limited release, small-batch beers, and does not distribute. That means the taproom is the only place to buy Cooper House Project’s high-quality brews.
The brewery specializes in lagers, sours, experimental beers, and German beers, though recently has had some more hoppy ales on tap.
Crosstown Brewing Co.
Web: https://crosstownbeer.com
Location: 1264 Concourse Ave.
Year-round beers: Traffic IPA, Siren Blond Ale, Lucky Chompers Hellese Lager, Animal Frequency Hazy IPA, Vision Board Sour
Clark Ortkiese and Will Goodwin were friends who bonded over homebrewing before opening Crosstown Brewing in 2018.
The two made beer in Ortkiese’s backyard, near the site of the abandoned Sears distribution center that would become known as Crosstown Concourse.
The revitalization project reimagined the massive structure as a vertical, urban village that mixed retail, residential and commercial development. Crosstown Brewing became part of the redevelopment efforts on the property off Cleveland Street.
Crosstown Brewing’s taproom has indoor and outdoor seating and is a big draw in the Midtown area.
Traffic and Siren are Crossrown’s flagship beers. The brewery distributes in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi.
Ghost River Brewing Co.
Web: https://www.ghostriverbrewing.com
Locations: 827 South Main St. and 341 Beale Street
Year-round beers: Ghost River Gold, Grind House Cream Ale, Zippin Pippin IPA, Heliades’ Tears Amber Ale
Founded in 2007, Ghost River was Memphis’s first craft brewery. It was started by the company behind Boscos. Essentially, it was a way to get the company’s beers on tap in bars around Memphis without using the Boscos name, which might scare off some competing bar owners.
Ghost River’s flagship brewery on South Main has expanded capacity over the years and also added a taproom in 2016.
Current owner Bob Keskey opened a second Ghost River location on Beale Street in 2021, which includes a taproom, beer garden and small brewing operation.
Grind City Brewing Co.
Web: https://grindcitybrew.com
Location: 76 Waterworks Ave.
Year-round beers: Poppy’s Pils, The Godhopper, Tiger Tail, Thaddeus Amber Lager
Grind City was opened by a father-son team in 2019. Bill Seely, president of Varsity Spirit, is Grind City’s CEO. His son, Hopper, who graduated from brewing school in England, is president of Grind City.
Grind City’s head brewer, Mark Patrick, got his start at Ghost River Brewing.
Grind City is located in the Uptown area, north of Downtown, on the banks of the Wolf River Harbor. It boasts a 10,000-square-foot brewery and taproom, large deck, and huge outdoor space.
Hampline Brewing Co.
Web: https://www.hampline.com
Location: 584 Tillman Street, Suite 1
Year-round beers: Bad Bad Leroy Brown, Bock Seat Driver, Brang the Tang, Cherry Bomb
Martha Hample, Richard Rhodes and Wes Osier opened Hampline in 2021.
Osier, a native of North Mississippi, is Hampline’s head brewer. He came to Hampline after brewing at Urban South and Abita in Louisiana and Terrapin and Sweet Water in Georgia.
Hampline Brewing, which is close to Wiseacre’s original location on Broad, is named after the Hampline bike and pedestrian trail. The brewery’s bear-on-a-bike logo pays tribute to both the bike trail and Natch, the first animal in the Memphis Zoo.
High Cotton Brewing Co.
Web: https://highcottonbrewing.com
Location: 598 Monroe Avenue
Year-round beers: Mexican Lager, Scottish Ale, River King IPA
High Cotton was founded in 2013 and was among the first craft breweries to open in Memphis. High Cotton’s name and branding pay tribute to the region’s roots, when cotton was king.
The brewery’s beers trend toward the traditional, with Scottish Ales and an Extra Special Bitter on the menu.
High Cotton’s taproom is a busy spot in the Edge District near Downtown Memphis, and is just a stone’s throw from Sun Studio, where Elvis Presley made his first recordings for Sam Phillips.
Hook Point Brewing Co.
Web: https://www.hookpointbrewing.com
Locations: 184 S. Mt. Pleasant, Collierville (brewery), 715 W. Brookhaven Cir., Memphis (Ready Room taproom)
Year-round beers: Flat Head American Ale, Afterburner Red Irish Ale, Cat Shot Kolsch, Haze Gray & IPA, Inky Barley Scottish Stout
Hook Point is the only brewery in the town of Collierville and the furthest east of any of Shelby County’s breweries.
Founder Mike Sadler, a former U.S. Navy pilot, opened the production brewery for business in 2021. All of Hook Point’s beers are named for aviation or military terms, such as the Flat Hat American Ale and Afterburner Red Irish Ale.
Hook Point was not able to open a taproom at its production brewery due to town regulations, so Hook Point opened its Ready Room taproom and restaurant in East Memphis in 2023.
Memphis Made Brewing Co.
Web: https://www.memphismadebrewing.com
Location: 768 S. Cooper St.
Year-round beers: Cat Nap, Fireside, Fruit Snacks, GonerBrau
Memphis Made was founded by Drew Barton and Andy Ashby in 2013 in the Cooper-Young area of Midtown.
Barton a native Memphian, is president of Memphis Made, as well as its head brewer. He moved to Asheville, N.C., in 2005, to pursue a career in brewing. Barton was head brewer at French Broad Brewery before returning to Memphis to open Memphis Made.
Ashby is a former journalist who serves as Memphis Made’s vice president and sales manager.
Memphis Made is opening a new location at 345 Madison near High Cotton, where Memphis Made will have more space and capacity to grow.
Meddlesome Brewing Co.
Web: https://www.meddlesomebrewing.com
Location: 7750B Trinity Road in Cordova
Year-round beers: Memphis Style Lager, 201 Hoplar IPA, Broad Hammer Brown Ale
Ben Pugh and Richie EsQuivel founded Meddlesome Brewing in 2017 in Cordova, close to Shelby Farms Park. The brewery is tucked into an industrial park off Trinity Road, and its taproom has an industrial look and feel.
Pugh, Meddlesome’s head brewer and president, started brewing at home before founding Eclectic Ales, a brewing equipment company, and brewing at Rock N Dough in Jackson, Tenn.
Pugh met EsQuivel through the homebrewing community, became friends, and decided to open up a brewery together.
Meddlesome has three year-round beers that are available across the region, but head to the brewery’s taproom where excellent, small-batch beers are cycled through the taps on a regular basis.
Soul & Spirits Brewery
Web: https://soulandspiritsbrew.com
Location: 845 N Main St.
Year-round beers: Bring it Home Helles Lager, Hoochie Coochie American IPA, Smoke Stack Smoked Dark Lager, Hound Dog Hefeweizen, Hopper Bolic Hazy Juicy IPA, Spanish Harlem Amber Lager
At the north end of Main Street in the Uptown area, Soul & Spirits occupies a cavernous, 38,000-square foot building that was formerly a manufacturing and logistics facility.
Husband and wife duo, Blair Perry and Ryan Allen, founded Soul & Spirits in 2021. Perry serves as the brewery’s CEO, while Allen, who trained as a brewer in Germany, is Soul & Spirits’ COO and brewmaster.
The brewery’s taproom has the feel of a German beer hall, with long tables with benches.
Meanwhile, Soul & Spirits’ beer list is one of the largest and most diverse in town, so there’s something for everyone.
Urban Consequence Brewing Co.
Web: https://www.urbanconsequencebrewing.com
Location: 239 Cooper St.
Year-round beers: Hefeweizen, Irish Red Ale with Rye, Peanut Butter Chocolate Milk Stout, Simcoe SMaSH IPA
Jeff Sable, a professor at Christian Brothers University, opened Urban Consequence in May 2023 after being a homebrewer for more than two decades.
Sable brews on a small two-barrel system, and the brewery’s taproom seats a maximum of 50 people.
Urban Consequence is sandwiched between Cafe 1912 and Bob’s Barksdale Restaurant in Midtown.
Wiseacre Brewing Co.
Web: https://wiseacrebrew.com
Locations: 2783 Broad Ave. and 398 S B.B. King Blvd.
Year-round beers: Tiny Bomb American Pilsener, Ananda IPA, Gotta Get Up to Get Down Coffee Milk Stout, Memphis Sands Lager, Regular Pale Ale, The Beach Within Reach Berliner Weisse, Bow Echo Hazy IPA, Adjective Animal Double IPA, Puffel Hazy Double Juicy IPA, Irusu Rice Lager
Wiseacre, founded in 2013 by brothers and Memphis natives Davin and Kellan Bartosch, is the fastest growing of Memphis’s craft breweries.
Wiseacre has two brewery and taproom locations, more than 60 employees, and a distribution footprint that includes 20 states. Wiseacre’s Downtown brewery, built in 2020, quintupled the brewery’s previous capacity.
Before opening Wiseacre, Davin Bartosch, Wiseacre’s head brewer, went to brewing school at the Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago and served as brewmaster with Rock Bottom in Chicago. Meanwhile, Kellan Bartosch gained experience on the sales and marketing side of the beer industry, working for a distributor and also for craft industry pioneer Sierra Nevada.
Wiseacre’s Tiny Bomb, which won a Great American Beer Festival bronze medal in 2014, is one of the top-selling craft pilsners in the country.
Beer events in Memphis
Memphis is home to several annual craft beer events and festivals that attract both regional breweries and craft breweries from across the country.
Two of the best events are:
- Cooper-Young Beerfest, which focuses on breweries within a day’s drive of Memphis. It’s a fundraising event for the Cooper-Young Community Association.
- Taste the Rarity, an annual event hosted by Wiseacre Brewing that includes both regional and non-regional craft breweries.
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