Friends plan annual Tryon Beer Fest in honor of the late Joe Pullara

Interview by Michael O’hearn

Photos submitted by Terry Schager

Gowensville resident Terry Schager is no stranger to beer, as he brews his own in his man cave in the basement of his house. Schager is gearing up for the fifth annual Beer Fest to be held in Tryon Saturday, Nov. 5, and discussed his role in the festival along with how he will remember his late friend and Tryon resident, Joe Pullara, who passed away in April.

Q: This festival is going to honor the late Joe Pullara. How was he integral to the creation of the festival?

Answer: Joe was the chair of the festival for a few years and he was a really good friend of mine and to the people in Tryon. He was going to open up a brew pub in the basement of the Missildine’s building. When he got sick last year around Thanksgiving, a decision was made during a family meeting after dinner that they were not going to do this thing. The flagship beer that he brews is a thing he calls “Blackalachian” which is a black IPA. Joey, Ben and Hector, his sons, have the recipe and they brewed it once on Father’s Day. It was a big deal and a family get-together to make that beer on that holiday. I’ve been trying to get that beer to feature at the festival and I realized I could go about it in one of two ways: Les Potter at Winding Creek or Thomas Creek in Greenville. Thomas Creek said they would be honored to make the beer since they knew Joe well and he bought his brewing supplies from them, for the most part. We’re going to be serving Joe’s beer at the festival and, in a break between bands, I’m going to make sure everybody knows to get a glass of “Blackalachian” to toast Joe.

Q: What will you be using to spread the word about the festival this year?

Answer: There’s a social media app that we decided to use this year called Untappd. It lets us set up as a physical entity on Untappd as a bar, even though we’re just a one-day festival. The nice thing about this social media app is that you, or somebody that is an Untappd subscriber, can get an email service and within a 40-mile radius of the Tryon Beer Festival, a social media update gets pushed out and you’re reminded of the beer festival in whatever category the person might like whether it be band, beer or food.

Q: How many beers will be featured at the festival?

Answer: We’re going to have anywhere from 100 to 135 beers available. It’s kind of what we’ve trended towards in the last few years. They will range from Imperial chocolate stouts to Pilsners and everything in between. What we’re going to do is to get the initial 75 to 85 percent of the beers defined and get the breweries on our website updated and get Untappd to push out notifications of the beers that we know initially. On Untappd, you can check in that you have tasted a beer, letting your friends know where you are and gather more people in.

Q: What breweries will be invited to sell their beers?

Answer: Local crafts and regional breweries will be the main focus of the festival. Winding Creek is a perfect example of that in Columbus and they’ve only got a three-barrel system so they are about as micro as you’re going to get. Our focus is on those types of breweries and we’re only going to sell 1,200 tickets. We made the conscious decision that, though the Depot might be able to handle 2,000 people, 1,200 tickets is all we’re going to sell.

Q: With a festival of this size, you’re going to need volunteers for the festival, correct?

Answer: Yes, absolutely. We need about 130 volunteers. It’s never difficult to find volunteers to work a beer fest, but it is difficult to find volunteers who want to work second shift because what people want to do is work first shift, have their armband and T-shirt and go the rest of the day. With second shift, that’s different. As an enticement — I guess you can call it that — we want to give volunteers who work second shift the opportunity to sit down, have something to eat, drink a beer or two if they want to for a few hours because we’re going to be pulling our permit from noon until 8 p.m. and they have been just working their keesters off for four hours or so. Then on Sunday afternoon, we’ll have a volunteer party with brats and kegs that we tapped but hadn’t finished under the tents at the Depot.

Q: Food and games at festivals are a must-have. What do you have lined up?

Answer: Manna Cabanna is going to be doing a German potato salad, sauerkraut, brats and pretzels. We’ll have a number of different vendors. Buck’s Pizza will be back as they always are, and we’re looking at other vendors to do German-style food. One of the things that we’ve always done is had games so that people have something to do. So, Tim Daniels found this thing a couple years ago called “Hammerschlagen.” The object of it is, with a railroad man’s hammer, you take a 16-penny nail, tap it into a log just enough to get it started. People pay a buck, six to eight people around the nail, and you take turns tapping the nail in with the pointed side of the nail and the first one who taps it all the way in wins. Great game, and when people are slightly supercharged, it gets really loud and everyone has a good time.