Metal residency hosts Philip Shouse and Jeremy Asbrock flank Mika Nuutinen and Kurt Lowney of the band Kaato, an Australian group with Nashville ties, at a recent show at Harp & Fiddle
After 13 years at the top of the Demonbreun circle, Irish pub Harp & Fiddle (known until last year as Dan McGuinness Pub) is closing for business. The space is being taken over by the folks behind West Nashville’s TailGate brewery; they will reopen it as a second TailGate location, serving beer and pizza along with operating a full bar and a new three-barrel production system to expand the experimental brewing program.
In today's announcement, TailGate Beer says it plans to “utilize the 3,000 square foot restaurant, live music stage, patio, and parking lot” at 1538 Demonbreun.
Harp & Fiddle will close on Oct. 30, and the news is a shock to not just Irish pub fans, but to Nashville’s music community as well. The pub has long hosted a Tuesday live metal night, called Thee Rock N’ Roll Residency, that has attracted cameos from some of the biggest stars of 1970s rock, including four Rock and Roll Hall of Famers: Alice Cooper, Cheap Trick frontman Robin Zander, Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover and Heart guitarist Roger Fisher.
Joe Hudak wrote a cover story for the Scene on the Harp & Fiddle metal residency in August, noting that a list of other guests who have appeared there reads like “a who’s-who of classic-rock titans, hair-metal survivors and contemporary rockers keeping the genre alive.”
Hudak continues:
“Derek St. Holmes, Kip Winger, Mark Slaughter, Skid Row’s Rachel Bolan, the entirety of German heavy-metal kings Accept, Pantera’s Rex Brown, New York Dolls’ Sylvain Sylvain, and Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale and Joe Hottinger have all sat in at the Harp & Fiddle, tearing through covers like Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs,’ Styx’s ‘Too Much Time on My Hands,’ Dio’s ‘Heaven and Hell,’ Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Out Ta Get Me’ and even The Beatles’ ‘Helter Skelter.’ ”
Thee Rock N’ Roll Residency is definitely an “only in Nashville” institution. On their Facebook page Thee said they hope to continue at TailGate.
Well, the news is out. Harp & Fiddle will become Tailgate Brewery early next month. We'd like to thank Quinn O'Sullivan for giving us a place to throw the biggest and best rock n roll party in town. The show wouldn't be what it is today without him or his bar. As for thee future, we wanna stay there. We love the location and the people. We look forward to meeting the new owners and hopefully staying right where we are. We heard the new owner is coming out this Tuesday, so how about we all come out and show him what a great party it is? Eh?
“After 13 great years on Demonbreun, I’m excited to transition the property and the business to TailGate Beer," Harp & Fiddle owner Quinn O’Sullivan says in today’s announcement. “It’s been a great experience and I am looking forward to my next project, which is also brewing!” No details on that project were immediately available.
Meanwhile, TailGate owner Wesley Keegan says he hopes to open the new TailGate pub by late November. “I can’t think of a better location to open a second TailGate Beer,” he says.
“This destination and production facility will cater to game goers, tourists, and downtown residents, essentially giving us the opportunity to connect face to face with a new crowd,” Keegan adds. “We look forward to being nearby some of the other local breweries; it’s a plus for craft beer fans who will get to hop around easily.”
TailGate Brewery Music Row will feature 50 taps offering a rotating lineup of their craft brews, some of which have won prestigious awards, including the popular TailGate Peanut Butter Milk Stout, which was proclaimed the World’s Best Experimental Flavored Beer at last year’s World Beer Awards.
This is the second piece of big news to come from TailGate this year. In January, Keegan announced that the West Nashville headquarters was launching an expansion to add 10,000 square feet to the existing 16,000-square-foot brewery and taproom at 7300 Charlotte Pike in West Nashville. The addition aims to ramp up capacity to 60,000 barrels of TailGate beer each year.
