Xül Beer Company brews craft, experiential and easy drinking beers in Knoxville.
The brewery started when co-founders Bentley Blackshear and Brad West met in late 2018 at a festival. They got to work on the company and the name in 2019 before opening their doors in Oct. 2020.
A large part of their process in creating the company was finding a name to represent themselves and draw people in to ask questions. This is why they landed on the name Xül Beer Company.
“We liked the fact it jumped off the page and it made you ask a whole lot of questions about, ‘Where are these guys from? What kind of beer is it? What the hell is this about? What does this word even mean?’” Blackshear said.
“It’s kind of partly a three pronged meaning behind it,” West said. “A lot of people associate it with ‘Ghostbusters,’ but it’s definitely not 100% that. It was kind of one of the things, that we’re big into ‘80s pop culture and that fit. But it’s also a character from one of my favorite video games in the ’90s. And then, if you look it up on Urban Dictionary, it’s got a pretty cool meaning as well. It’s meant to be a mysterious thing that gets people to ask the question, ‘What is Xül?’”
They currently operate out of one location at 213 E. Fifth Ave. near the Old City. With giant skull key door handles, they hold several events throughout the year including a trivia night on Tuesdays. They will have a special one night deal for students 21 and older at the University of Tennessee on Friday, March 25, with 25% off if you show them a valid student ID. Outside of events, they said that people bring in their families, come in for date nights and hold get togethers with friends in the taproom.
While they operate out of this location, it is currently undergoing an expansion. This will allow them to increase their production of beer to meet the demand for it, as they currently sell out often right after they opened.
“We were open for seven or eight months and we were like, ‘We do not have enough beer to meet the demand,’ and so we made the decision there to start our expansion,” West said. “We finally just got tanks in and installed, and we’re about to go from 100 barrels to 250 barrels.”
They distribute their beer all over Knox County and throughout most of Tennessee. For example, they just made a deal with the Graduate Knoxville to sell their beer in the hotel. They also do beer drops in several states, which is when they bring a limited quantity of beer to those states to sell.
“We self-distribute inside of Knox County right now to anybody that wants it,” West said. “We’ll do some drops here and there in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Illinois. So, we’re set up in those areas for distribution, we just can’t make enough beer to send out.”
This expansion will allow them to send out beer within those states, as well as locally on a regular schedule. They hope to grow their company on a national level, as they do these drops and represent Xül at various festivals across the country. For example, they’re about to bring Xül to festivals in Miami, Florida, and New York City soon.
“Growth is harder to measure, I would say,” Blackshear said. “And how you are able to take a local brand and make it nationally relevant, and that’s absolutely a goal of ours, and I think we’re very happy with the progress that we are making there as well.”
Along with increasing the quantity of beer, this expansion will allow Xül to consistently brew certain beers to always be available for distribution. Specifically, they said that the Paper Crowns India Pale Ale and the Toro Y Oso Mexican lager will be two beers that they want to keep making to continually sell.
Even as they grow, they want to continue providing craft beers to Knoxville first. With almost a year and a half in business, they’ve been overwhelmed by the local response to their beer.
“It’s definitely better at this point already than I could have ever imagined,” West said. “We’ve gotten a lot of support from the community, of course locally and regionally. And also from UT. We get a lot of UT students in.”
Both UT graduates, they’re glad to see more and more students come into their taproom. They attribute this support and success to their beer.
They brew a variety of craft beers, including sours, stouts, lagers, pilsners, ciders and IPAs. They design some of their beers to be a specialty drink that you sit down to experience, whereas some of their other beers are more recreational to drink along with friends.
“The core theory of what we do around our beer here is that we want to make something that is incredibly attractive, aggressive or sexy on Instagram or whatever is going to draw you in and be like, ‘I have to drive across town and taste this, this sounds crazy,’” Blackshear said.
“And then after and beyond that, we want to have some really great drinkable options that once you’re in our taproom and you’re enjoying the environment and the aesthetic that we’ve created there, if you don’t want to nerd out on beer and you want to enjoy hanging out with your friends, we’ve got those … drinkable beers.”
Blackshear clarified that a few of the drinks on selection are what he calls “experiential beers” that “you drink and you think about” the flavors, like their pastry stouts and hazy IPAs. This is in comparison to some of their lighter and more casual options, like the It’s a School Night pilsner.
Blackshear talked about designing the recipes for these beers. They go through extensive taste testing to get the flavors right as well as the balance of those individual flavors so that nothing is too overpowering.
Menu selections at Xul Beer on Friday Mar. 18, 2022.
“Balanced intensity,” Blackshear said. “There’s a lot of people that will make a beer and go for something and throw a lot of ingredients at it and it tastes like those ingredients, and that’s all good and cool. But for as much as we throw at it, we spend a lot of time messing with rates, really trying to figure out how to balance certain things.”
For example, Blackshear described their recently released Sharp Little Teeth beer, which is a mango and habanero pepper infused sour beer. He said that they worked on it to get the mango flavor right as well as the spiciness of the pepper towards the end of each sip, giving it a sweet-heat flavor that’s not dominating on either side.
They brew these craft beers to give people new experiences, especially people who are trying them out for the first time.
“We want everything to be an experience,” West said. “So, if you’re having a can, then that can art needs to be fire and everything needs to be on point with the taste of the beer. We want people to remember it. If you come to the taproom or have a can, we want to provide the ultimate experience of something badass that’s very good and you can come back to.”
That’s why they said their motto is “never settle,” as they want to continue improving and changing as they grow and deliver experiences to people.
As for themselves, their favorite Xül beers are always rotating. Currently, they both cited a few as their favorites right now.
“Toro Y Oso is our Mexican lager, and that’s my desert island beer,” Blackshear said. “If I was going to be stuck on an island and I had one beer to drink for the rest of my life, that would probably be it. And then, Rhymes Like Dimes is one of our hazy IPAs, it’s a MF DOOM tribute beer, which hits home for me. But it’s a really cool product that hits all the notes that I want.”
“I kind of have three,” West said. “It’s Paper Crowns. I love citra (hops), so it’s an all citra beer and it’s easy drinking … And then Toro Y Oso also, and It’s A School Night is our Italian pilsner. We’ll have that quite a bit as well. It’s got a fun name and it’s easy drinking. It’s really good.”
The taproom also offers some drinks for those looking outside of beer as well as for those that don’t drink alcohol. They have fruit seltzers, ciders, gluten free options, non-alcoholic drinks, soda and water.
Xul Beer's interior invites guests to stay and chat over the variety of drink offerings. Friday Mar. 18, 2022.
“If you want to bring the kids to the brewery or if you want to bring a friend that isn’t excited about drinking, we still have options for them to be able to hang out and feel included,” Blackshear said.
“We have some juice boxes for the kids, but we do not censor our music, so proceed with caution,” West said.
They open their doors to everyone, with it acting as a formal or informal gathering spot for any type of outing. But as they continue operating, West said that they’d like to hopefully open a second location once this expansion is complete. He mentioned West Knoxville, Nashville and Atlanta as locations he’d like to build in.
As of now, they are primarily focused on expanding their production and distribution first, as they build Xül Beer Company in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the country. They keep looking towards the future as they plan on becoming more nationally relevant and maintaining their local connections.
They hope that people continue supporting them as they grow. They also want people who haven’t tried them out before and older UT students to come visit them, as they continue to bring craft beer into the mainstream.
That’s why they’re holding a one night 25% off special for UT students with a valid student ID on Friday, March 25, so that they can connect with them and bring them into the world of craft beer.
“If you like beer, there’s a good chance you’ll like craft beer,” Blackshear said.
