World’s Fair Beer could be back for good
KNOXVILLE — The revival of a beer to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Knoxville World’s Fair was only meant to be on the market for six months, but heavy demand has investors considering making it a permanent offering.
The Knoxville News Sentinel reported the original World’s Fair Beer was introduced surrounding the 1982 event that was meant to propel Knoxville into the top tier of Southern cities.
The original version was a light lager brewed out of state. The new version is a pale ale made by Fanatic Brewing Co. in Knoxville and canned by Fat Bottom Brewing in Nashville.
The beer has been available on tap since May 1 and a canned version went on sale Monday.
“We didn’t realize what a reach that this beer had,” said Harrison Collins, a partner in the new beer venture with Rick Kuhlman, who came up with the original beer in the 1980s. “We knew it had a great story and we were all pumped about it, but not only Knoxville but really the whole state of Tennessee is getting behind World’s Fair Beer.”
The Knoxville event was heralded as the first World’s Fair to be held in the Southeast, but it struggled to capture the country’s imagination during the planning stages. The Wall Street Journal famously questioned whether the “scruffy little city” on the Tennessee River could pull off the extravagant event. Residents bristled at that characterization, but later embraced the “scruffy” label as a badge of honor.
More than 11 million people ended up attending the six-month fair. Then-President Ronald Reagan spoke at its opening and the expo brought to town the London Symphony, Japan’s Kabuki Theater and Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda.
Fair visitors also had a lasting say about another beverage, giving the thumbs up to a canned and bottled Cherry Coke that ultimately came on the market three years later.
Knoxville was cast into a deep funk in the aftermath of the World’s Fair with the collapse of the multibillion-dollar banking empire that landed brothers Jake and C.H. Butcher in federal prison for fraud.
Jake Butcher had twice run for governor as a Democrat, and had used his extensive political and business connections to help land the fair in Knoxville.
The main site for the fair was in an abandoned railyard between the University of Tennessee and downtown. After the fair ended, several redevelopment plans that included urban housing were debated, but little took hold for decades.
The 266-foot Sunsphere that served as the fair’s theme structure sat mostly unused until a 2007 restoration of the cityowned tower topped by a gold glass ball.
But people looking to quench their nostalgia with the new World’s Fair Beer shouldn’t venture to the Sunsphere’s restaurant in search of a cold one. The establishment closed in March on the basis that it was “simply not cost effective.”