Unless you’ve been doing your 12-ounce curls under a rock, you’ve probably noticed that the modern craft beer movement has popped up all over America like mosquito bites on your legs during a thick, lingering heat on a July summer night. From macrobreweries to microbreweries and even home breweries, brewmasters everywhere wrestle with brewing the perfect barrel of suds.
The traditional four base ingredients of yeast, malts, hops, and water create the flavor, color, and alcohol content of your beer. Adding adjuncts such as corn, rice, fruits, and spices helps supplement the traditional core four ingredients. But if you want to drink like a champion, your beer needs more head — as in headlocks.
The 2026 Memphis Brewfest transpired last month at Shelby Farms, featuring Memphians’ favorite local breweries like Ghost River, Crosstown, MFS, Meddlesome, Flyway, and Souls & Spirits, along with prominent out-of-towners. While Brewfest has always been a main event on its own, this year it brought in an enforcer: Memphis Wrestling. With pilsners and piledrivers, IPAs and DDTs, stouts and suplexes, Beermania was running wild.
Many people could make a strong case that pro wrestling is Memphis’ favorite pastime. Monday nights, Saturday mornings, Mid-South Coliseum, and Channel 5 all conjure up images of the city’s first pro sports team. Watching Jerry Lawler slam Jimmy Hart while we slammed beers hit harder than a Memphis pothole. Even Adam West, yes that Adam West, enjoyed mixing beer with bodyslams. In 1976, he made a special appearance on Memphis wrestling TV and allegedly smelled and sounded like he needed a designated driver for the Batmobile. You can find the video on YouTube.
Dustin Starr of Memphis Wrestling brought his crop of the next generation of future Memphis legends to Brewfest. Although the faces of our favorite heroes and most hated villains of the square circle have changed over the years, the reigning defending tag team champions of fun are still beer and wrestling. If you’ve never experienced drinking a Tiny Bomb while witnessing a power bomb, you’re just letting the best things in life pass you by.
Picture this: Fans gathered around the ring with their souvenir 2026 Brewfest cups. The cold beer meets their lips, and they take a slow, satisfying gulp, wiping away a fleeting trace of white foam with the back of their hands. The ring announcer steps to the middle of the ring. The entrance music plays. The good guy explodes through the sound of an upbeat, high-energy track that encourages cheering. The sinister bad guy walks out to slow menacing themes that draw boos.
Beer pours down fans’ throats with a light, crisp fizz. This is universally followed by a sharp exhale or a hearty, contented “ahhhhh” exhale as the drinker catches their breath. “Ding, ding” echoes throughout Shelby Farms, signaling to the rowdy, alcohol-fueled crowd that all hell is about to break loose.
The Brewfest I saw featured an internet title match, a tag team match, a grudge match, a women’s match, and a battle royal to crown the King of Brewfest. Twinkies were flying at the hated villains, women were beating each other with trash cans, and fans voluntarily gave up their beers so the good guys could drench their opponents with suds. The bad guys cheated. The inebriated fans could see more than the blind referee as they shouted, “He’s gotta chain!” The card was more loaded than the crowd. The wrestlers brought the bumps, lumps, and thumps. The fans reacted with cheers, jeers, and beers.
No matter the style, pilsner, IPA, stout, or sour, nothing feels better than a beer in your hand (or one in each hand) and beer never tastes better than drinking it while watching a guy in spandex come flying off the top rope. Beer and rasslin’ go together like Prince Mongo and dirty feet. Drink responsibly. Don’t spill your beer as you’re raising your hand while your favorite wrestler gets the 1, 2, 3. Yes, you can have a great time drinking beer without watching wrestling or vice versa, but why take that chance?
Buddy Jones is a longtime Memphis bartender and comedian who hosts a weekly comedy night at Peoples on Beale.
