Written by Ken Carman
Market Street, also known as Bohannon Brewery, was the first brewpub to open in Nashville, TN. Back when we moved to Nashville lower Broadway was a place you avoided at all costs. Until they cleaned it up the best places were the honky tonks and they were very, very bad. Oh, and the Pickin Parlor, probably one of the best guitar repair shops I’ve ever been to. That was on Second, also known as Market Street.
Cross the street and walk a few steps north and Market Street’s sign could be seen, close to The Spaghetti Factory, which I presume was the birth place of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
No?
Oh. well. And I so wanted to bring my sacrificial meatballs there and worship next Sunday.
As you entered Market Street you’d find yourself in a British Pub-like atmosphere, a narrow hallway that gave you just enough room to walk past the bar. Then the room would open up into a back bar with a picture window overlooking the Cumberland River. Quite scenic, if you like brown/green water, a busy barge company across the river and the occasional dead farmer’s cow carcass that happened to float by. Once I hit a submerged refrigerator with my 25hp Johnson. (I know, there’s a dirty, and possibly quite painful, joke there, but let’s buzz by that one, please?)
I hardly ever ate there that I recall… though found their English fare’ a little lacking for someone who has had more true traditional British fare’. I wish I could remember more. The last time I ate there really doesn’t count. It was close to Halloween and I was with a group of brewers on a crawl after competition and there’s was a little too much collective buzz going on there to remember much, plus some little annoying, blitzed, British guy from Memphis wearing a pair of paper mache’ buttocks.
Love you too, Phil.
Seems their in-house beers were pretty bland even for the time, so I don’t remember much: and long before they went out they had vended the beer out to some brewery who was doing a bad job. DMS, phenolics… pick your inappropriate defect and it could be found at Market Street. It was like they didn’t care anymore. Maybe they didn’t.
The early brews, a bit bland, were fine though not aggressive enough even for the time. I do remember a Vanilla Cream Ale that was excellent, mostly because the only upfront flavor was the vanilla. I’m guessing it was more a light ale sans the adjuncts and cool fermentation often associated with the style. Hmm… seems a clone recipe I just looked up after I typed that agrees with me.
Balancing the concerns of a restaurant and a brewery has got to be a managerial nightmare. So I understand why they might go bye bye. But the lack of concern regarding what they were pouring made me glad they finally went away, though I think they made their mark by being a Nashville pioneer.