Keep your libraries, your penal institutions, your insane
asylums... give me beer. You think man needs rule, he needs
beer. The world does not need morals, it needs beer... The
souls of men have been fed with indigestibles, but the
soul could make use of beer.
-Henry Miller
This beer is good for you. This is draft beer. Stick with
the beer. Let’s go and beat this guy up and come back and
drink some more beer.
-Ernest Hemingway
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A wandering patron's essay About... 
Last weekend, about 9 in the early, post-May shower mist of yet another beautiful Knoxvillian evening, I, unknowingly, died and stepped through the gates of Beer Heaven. Saint Peter was wearing a bright red Bearden Beer Market t-shirt & as I walked past his holy threshold, he handed me a cold lager in a beautiful, hardy pint glass. He told me it was Sunsphere Witbier, Smoky Mountain Brewery’s answer to summer refreshment.
Half expecting, once entering the newly-raised BBM, to see yet another cheaply cramped, heavily postered and neon-lit package store, peppered with stacked cases of overpriced, slightly-above average beer… maybe an arrangement of even more expensive imports in a centered cooler, I was suddenly awash in a proverbial scene of the Garden of Hops.
Bearden Beer Market is a thing of beauty. Never before have I seen so many wonderful and exquisite styles and brands of beer in one place. From a concentrated selection of world class cheeses, to strange Swedish discs of rye crisp bread, to exquisite mustards, to big barreled kegs of Sweetwater IPA, the one-stop shop nestled at the hip Bearden vortex of where Kingston Pike meets Old Kingston Pike seemingly has it all.
When pressed about anything other than beer, Bearden Beer Market owner, manager and creator, Chris Morton, becomes disoriented and appears slightly irritated with the apparent ugly, off-topic distraction. He only wants to talk about beer; for beer (good beer, that is), is the only thing worth talking about this evening. “We have beer you won’t find in Knoxville, and the beer we do share with our larger, more corporate, neighborhood competitors, I guarantee, won’t be priced higher. If anything, it’ll be significantly lower…”
His voice trails off and breaks away as he focuses on something high up & across his shop’s main showroom floor: a long shelf lined with a series of very attractive dark brown “pimped out” Yuengling growlers. They look like beautiful artwork and I immediately need one. "I've sold three of these today already." He reaches up and pulls off a much more simple, more moonshine-sque glass Yazoo jug. "Our growler program is blowing up. We're serving Knoxville’s beer community, pints on premise, growlers to go…” He gestures to the beer tap handle attached to the humming retro-styled kegerator set between two massive display fixtures filled with a dizzying selection of different brands of quality beer. “Bring in a growler, one you buy from here, or your own, sample what we have on draft, pick a favorite and we’ll fill your jug with it. And if it’s a good growler, one of my growlers, it’s going to hold the carbonation indefinitely and it’ll be like you're drinking from draft all weekend long.” He puts the growler back up onto the shelf and then breaks off a crisp edge of the before-mentioned Swedish bread and hands it to me. “The only thing I won't fill up is a milk jug.”
At the moment, for consumption or sampling, or for a growler fill, BBM has seven different styles on draft: Belgian wheat, two types of IPA, Indian brown ale, cream ale, pilsner, and a craft light beer. “I’ll switch it up… a constant search for my customers’ favorite tastes. Ever-changing goodness and something for everyone,” he laughs.
Morton, a longtime local East Tennessean with a passion for fine lager, trailrunning and basketball, has been in the distribution and beverage industry in some form or another for the past twelve years. Whether it was pulling drafts in his own Scottsdale, Arizona bar, The House of Brews, or serving as the self-proclaimed “best wine salesman in Tennessee,” Morton has always been deeply ingrained in the beverage industry. Most recently, before undertaking Bearden Beer Market, what he calls, “the newest exciting chapter in the Morton Family history,” Morton worked with the Petrone family at B&T Distributing. “With the great people at B&T I was able to open and develop relationships with people instrumental the development of BBM.
“Bearden Beer Market has been swimming around in my head for years, and I just felt it time to make the move, leave that particularly controlled aspect of the business and share my vision of beer culture and community with Knoxville.”
For Morton and his purpose behind BBM, it's all about getting better beer onto the palettes and down the gullets of the Knoxville-area consumer. His store's modus operandi will be providing the best service, selection and price around, bar none. This fact is readily apparent upon walking into his new market. The first immediate visual response when entering is an attractive array of fine beer, all moderately priced. Whether it's imported or domestic, whatever the Bearden Beer Market is offering its clientele is guaranteed to be well beyond the middling level of your average, grocery store-bought beer. Morton explains that he finds new (and relatively unknown to the general public) beer to sell to his customers from his relationships with the best breweries in the country.
As far as what beer BBM can and can’t carry, there are two main rules Morton has to abide by. The first one, because of the nature of his shop, is that BBM can’t sell anything with over 6% alcohol content. The other is that the beer he’s allowed to sell has to have already “landed in the state. There’s absolutely no crossing of state lines.”
At 4524 Old Kingston Pike, the new shop sits on the same, tucked-in corner block as Ashe’s Wine & Spirits, one of the Knoxville’s most reputable small business keystones since 1968. When asked about his relationship with Ashe’s, Morton talks about the working synergy Bearden Beer Market has with its established neighbor. “It’s one of the best types of relationships to have, both in the Bearden community and the beverage industry. Without their support and guidance, BBM simply wouldn’t be. They look after me like I’m family, and for that, I’m forever grateful and will do anything for them.
“Our two stores, combined, will be Knoxville’s one-stop shop for wine, spirits, beer, fine cheese, and other weekend snacks… and, weather-permitting, relaxing and maybe some cornhole action in our beer garden.”
While Ashe’s caters to Knoxville’s true wine lover, Bearden Beer Market is here for the true beer lover. And besides the customer looking for finer, more hard-to-locate lagers, BBM is about serving the needs of the campus community. “We have half-price, fill-your-growler Monday specials and party-ready kegs of college beer at 69.99.” He guides me into a large walk-in cooler and one side is lined with fat, stainless steel kegs, both specialty brands and domestics. “You won’t find a cheaper keg price in Knoxville.”
“Through Bearden Beer Market, I want to help embody and enhance the beer lifestyle of Knoxville.” Morton, an overall sport enthusiast, explains. “We have couple of clubs in the process of being formed: a beer club and a trailrunning club.” When asked how trailrunning and beer correlate, Morton talks about the health benefits of drinking good beer, and “how beer drinking is geared toward an active lifestyle. That’s what I want to promote. Being active, meeting good people who share a common interest, and, of course, drinking good beer.” A sharp wedge of cheese is handed to me. “But it's not about trailrunning and all that; that's only a by-product of the people who are in the beer culture. That's just what some of us do –we also mountain bike, play rubgy, cornhole, run… and trailrun. Some of us simply enjoy good beer and leave the sweating to other members of our beer community. It’s just a part of the beer lifestyle and, after so many years of preparing, training and gathering sources and contacts, I’m finally able to embrace and acknowledge it through Bearden Beer Market.”
All summer long, through way of draft, bottle, keg and growler, in a rolling tailgate and festive fashion, BBM will be celebrating its interpretation of said lifestyle every morning, afternoon, and evening.
-May, 2010