I've been meaning to tell you about the Cool Springs Brewery for a long time. What with all the attention being paid (and rightfully so) to the
opening of the new Yazoo Tap Room and the
Corsair boys moving into the old Yazoo space in Marathon Village, it's easy to forget that there is a functioning brewpub hidden away in a strip mall near Cool Springs Mall. Unfortunately, it has taken a sad event to bring this event to the top of my post queue.
Cool Springs Brewery is located in the location of the former Guido's Restaurant, next to Sperry's in Cool Springs. As a matter of fact, the manager Jim Boggs was a longtime employee of the Sperry's in Belle Meade before owners Chris and Jane Hartland hired him to help relaunch the pizzeria as a full-service restaurant and brewpub. Ex-pats from England, the Hartlands invested over $150,000 in brewing equipment and hired an experienced brewmaster all the way from Texas to run the operation. The brewmaster's name is Mike Kraft. That's right, every beer at Cool Springs is a "Kraft Brew." (Buh-dump-bump)
Kraft maintains an offering of five brews in rotation based on seasonality and cutomer preference. The current list includes a stout, an amber, a hefeweizen and two ales. Half-gallon growlers are available for $16 with refills costing $11. As a matter of fact, the good folks at Cool Springs have offered to give a free growler away to a lucky Bites reader who leaves a comment on this post. You'll have to pay to fill it, since we don't give away alky-haul on this here blog. But tell us you want one and we'll draw a lucky winner early next week.
The Menu at Cool Springs Brewery offers high-end pub food with an emphasis on New York-style pizzas. The old Guido's recipe with its beer-laced dough is still in place, and you can sample seven or eight different pies every day at their lunch buffet. Along with a full salad bar, two pastas and Italian sandwiches, it's a bargain at $7.99 every day from 11 to 1:30. Also notable are Cool Springs' buffalo wings, which are baked, then fried and finally tossed with a heavy coating of "Boggs Bites Back" sauce, which offers a great kick of sweet heat. $7.95 gets you a basket of 10 jumbo wings that are definitely enough for a meal.
If you're up for a challenge, enter their wing-eating contest, to be held after work on Monday June 14. Check out Cool Springs' excellent website for more details.
The Brewery also has established a customer loyalty program. Sign up for their card and if you break your way into the top 25 customers, you will receive your draft beers in a 22 oz. half-liter glass for the same price everyone else pays for a regular pint. The No. 1 customer drinks from his own engraved pewter mug. Of course, like a FourSquare mayor, number one can be supplanted so there's always something to aspire to.
Speaking of loyalty, the sad event that I mentioned at the top of the page was the passing of 21 year old Joshua Landtroop in last week's flooding. His father Brian is a regular at Cool Springs Brewery, and the Hartlands have graciously volunteered to hold a fundraiser for the Landtroop family this Friday, May 14. They will donate $2 from every pint they sell that day to Joshua's wife and two young boys.
Every day we hear of so many ways to help out victims of the flooding. Take advantage of this one and maybe you'll find a new favorite pub in the process.
