By Chris Chamberlain, Nashville Scene
Since the first outpost of M.L.Rose Craft Beer & Burgers opened in Melrose more than 16 years ago, the restaurant has succeeded by listening to its customers to develop into the sort of neighborhood hang that diners were seeking. To kick off 2025, M.L.Rose is again listening to its customers, this time to actually create menu items to feature in January and February.
In August, the restaurant put out a call for fans to create their version of M.L.’s popular Burger of the Month in return for a $500 cash prize, a $500 M.L.Rose gift certificate, an invitation to the burger photo shoot and ultimate bragging rights. From a host of more than 500 entries, which the kitchen staff sorted through, they chose the Chopped Cheese Supreme created by Jacob Clute and Hudson Jewell. Available at all six M.L.Rose locations throughout the month of January, it includes chopped hamburger, adobo seasoning, giardiniera, white American cheese, tomato, onion, shredded lettuce and Duke’s Mayo on a hoagie roll for $15.79, including the restaurant’s incredible waffle fries.
As luck would have it, the team of Clute & Jewell Foods documented the creation of their masterpiece on TikTok so you can get a preview before you head out to your neighborhood M.L.Rose to try one in person. They seem like good dudes who came up with a genius idea to combine a New York chopped cheese with a Chicago hot beef, so take advantage of their brainchild before the month is over!
In another clever way to involve their fan base with the menu, M.L.Rose also launched a home-brewers competition to allow amateur brewmasters to submit samples of their best creation to include as part of a special release at selected locations. Two half-barrels of the winning recipe would be produced in a special brewing event with Black Abbey co-founder Carl Meier and lead brewer Alisha Dowling on their pilot system at the brewery.
I was fortunate enough to serve on the judging panel, which included many beer experts and professional judges who were far more experienced than me. Also lucky was the fact that the M.L.Rose beverage team had already tasted through all 42 entries to cut some of the less successful attempts, leaving us only 15 to choose from. We broke them down stylistically into five flights of two to four beers apiece, and there was definitely some lively discussion and polite arguing over some of the entries. But in the end, there was a pretty strong consensus around the winner.
The chosen one is named Space Monkey Red Velvet Stout, and it’s made with chocolate and caramel malt, flaked oats, lactose and … well, let’s face it, red velvet flavoring. Even though most of us would be hard-pressed to describe what “red velvet” actually is, (Cocoa? Cherry? Cream cheese? Vanilla? Deliciousness?), we all immediately identified it and agreed that it could be a popular addition to M.L.Rose’s taps, even if on a very limited basis.
The beer was created by a group of brewers from Metropolis, Ill., who go by the name of Barn Hop Brewery. The moniker comes from the fact that they are a group of friends/co-workers led by Myron Wessel who like to brew in the founder’s barn on a five-gallon system.
A frequent visitor to Nashville to sample our local beers (because … Metropolis), Wessel was in town visiting his daughter. He went to the Marble Fox Brewery in the Gulch and noticed a poster for the contest on the door. Always up for a challenge, the BHB team went to work crafting a variation of their already popular milk stout recipe.
After finding out they won, the whole brew crew loaded up for a trip to Nashville to make the beer with Carl and Alisha. Working on a system more than five times bigger than their original setup, BHB and Black Abbey brewed enough Space Monkey for two half-barrels, one of which will be tapped at a party for the brewers and their friends in the next few weeks. The other will go on tap at the M.L.Rose Eighth Avenue location starting on Feb. 3.
The BHB team is planning to bring a crew down to celebrate their victory and spend the gift cards they won, so if they manage to leave any of their beer behind in the original keg (which they probably will), it will also be available at the Charlotte Avenue location of M.L.Rose. The beer is still resting in tanks at Black Abbey, so we can’t be exactly sure what the final yield will be. But if there’s enough leftover after kegging for M.L.Rose, there’s a chance that a sixtel of Space Monkey may show up behind the bar at the brewery’s Fellowship Hall tasting room.
But after that, friends, it’s gone. Success is fleeting, and so are special edition beers. If you want to try it, mark your calendar for Feb 3.
Cheers!
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