So, a guy walks into a bar and asks for a job. Well, not even that.

"I was just offering to volunteer to work for free," Matt Warren remembers, "with dreams of opening my own brewery."

It was 2015 at Hutton & Smith Brewing Co. In the history of local beer, it was a big freaking moment.

Not only had one of our city's best breweries just opened, but one of our city's best brewers was asking for a job.

"They weren't interested," he said.

Record-scratch-what? It would take three more years, but eventually, Hutton responded.

In the spring of 2018, Matt joined the team as a full-time brewer.

Over the next seven years, Matt would help Hutton win global beer competitions while continuing to win hand-over-fist with his own home batches while creating more than 200 original beers for our Chattanooga canon.

More than 200 beers, ya'll.

I'll go ahead and say it. Others will, too.

Matt Warren is the Reggie White of Chattanooga craft brewing.

Humble and down-to-earth, he won't dare admit this. (When asked to describe his career as a brewer, he used this word: "decent.")

But his pals will.

"Modest, incredibly kind and unassuming," said our mutual friend, Jason Luna, founder of 38 Degree Draft, "and one of the most certified brewing experts in the country."

Reggie White - the NFL star who played at The Howard School - was legendary. Seems Matt is also.

"Perhaps there are a couple dozen individuals worldwide with his experience and pedigree," Luna continued, who then doubled-down on his analogy: how many brewers in the US can match Matt's expertise?

"The same number of MLB pitchers to throw a perfect game," Luna said.

So, a guy walks into a bar ...

Matt grew up in Cleveland, Tenn. For years, he only wanted to DJ, then, found some good years in TV production.

Then, in the winter of 2011, Matt was sitting around, drinking with some friends and family when the subject arose. His good bud Ryan Golden - who'd already begun home brewing - said something like this:

You know, we should make our own house brew together.

Magic words. A spell was cast.

"I got sucked into it," Matt remembers. "Once I was hooked, that was that."

Over the next few years, Matt and Ryan would rise to superstar status, with their Dynamic Ales winning home brew competitions throughout the South.

Once, out of 255 beers entered at the annual Fugetaboutit home brew competition, he won both First and Second prize, with 12 medals total.

He won so many home brew competitions he 'retired', which is a kind way of saying: I'll bow out so others can have a turn.

"The stuff he does with sour beers? I haven't had anything like it before," said Hutton's Rob Brewer.

"He's never had a beer he's made either at home or here that's been less than fantastic."

Meanwhile, he continued his own pursuit of excellence, becoming:

• A Level Three Advanced Cicerone
• A National BJCP Beer Judge
• A graduation of London's three-year Institute of Brewing and Distilling

Not long ago, he began high-wiring, a sort of Evel Knievel-over-the-schoolbus-batch: a Dynamic Ale barleywine beer that would age for one year in a Chattanooga Whiskey barrel, then another. (It would either soar ... or fail miserably.)

Luna called it some of the "most difficult beers a person can make."

To drive home his point, Luna plugged in figures on Matt's pedigree, asking ChatGPT: how rare is someone like this in the brewing world?

Two minutes later, his laptop smoking, ChatGPT replied:

Your acquaintance’s combination of advanced‑level sensory certification, formal brewing science training, proven judging acumen, competition success, and day‑to‑day brewery leadership is exceptionally rare - likely numbering only a few dozen people worldwide.

In other words, they’re an outlier among outliers.

Here's why this matters.

Because Matt Warren is here. Right flippin' here in our city. He's one of us.

And you can buy his Hutton & Smith beer all across Hamilton County.

Or, forget about Matt. There are other highly skilled, high-wire local brewers and wildly delicious local breweries. (More on that in a sec.)

The local craft beer scene is both better-than-ever and vulnerable, stunned by multiple body blows - from CBD drinks to n/a to younger folks who prefer sobriety or marijuana to beer.

"Since Covid," Matt said. "That is when everything collapsed."

Nationally, nearly 10,000 breweries operated in 2024, slightly less than the year prior, according to The Brewers Association.

Regionally, Asheville claims to have more breweries per capita than any US city. Nashville's got a ton.

Chattanooga kinda hovers around a baker's dozen.

"10, or nine, breweries have been the max Chattanooga can support," Matt said, before offering a brief history. (Here's a good essay for those wanting a larger history.)

"Cherry Street was the most recent to close down. The Terminal closed. Big Frog in Red Bank. McHale's. Moccasin Bend closed. Big River closed," he said.

(A moment here for Big River Grille, the groundbreaking and OG brewery started by the Gentrys, which changed our city beer culture permanently.)

Matt listed our current lineup of breweries:

"Hutton & Smith, Chattanooga Brewing, Oddstory, Five Wits, Monkey Town, WanderLinger, Naked River, Tailgate, Dynamo Brewing, Mean King, Mad Knight, Empyreal, Tanasi," he said.

"We're actually at 13 now," he said. "It just seems like every time one opens, another one closes."

(The Chattanooga Tourism's homepage only lists nine local breweries. Strangely, kinda embarrassingly, Hutton & Smith is not listed.)

"Younger generations are not drinking like our generation did," he said.

On the horizon, more possible trouble. Canadian tariffs could increase the price of malt. Costlier aluminum will affect the price of cans.

"Any brewery teetering on the edge of closing? I imagine that could push them over the edge," he said.

Earlier this month, we visited Hutton on the days Matt was brewing Diatomaceous Dry Stout, which claimed a top prize at 2024 World Beer Cup.

The brew day can be extensive. For us, we walked into the brewery - hoping for a bit of soundsystem Skynyrd, maybe some bar pretzels and impromptu, backslapping toasts - but instead, we found a high school chemistry class.

There were beakers, crush resistant hoses, shovels, brooms, whitewater paddles, hoses, clamps, nozzles, dials, testers, spray bottles, drains, heat exchangers, pH testers and whizmos and what-nots and floor drains and green rubber gloves that reached your elbow.

There was sparge water. Strike water. Boiling water. Wort and trub cone.

Seems that good beer just boils down to two or three things.

"A nice combination of science and creativity," Matt said. "It's all chemistry and microbiology."

This bud's for you, Bill Nye!

Left-handed, wearing steel-toed boots, Matt dispelled any snowy Clydesdale romantic illusions; read: making beer is hard work.

"It's mentally and physically challenging," he said.

He carried a clipboard with 30 line-items and measurements, hustling from one end of the brewery, where he shoveled out spent grain, to the other, where he hooked up hoses to the heat exchanger while eyeballing the boiling temp on the kettle while measuring yeast while answering my questions, like this:

What do you love most about brewing beer?

"The science side and the creativity side," he said. "I enjoy physical labor and it allows me to use both physical and mental acumen."

What's your favorite beer you've brewed?

"Big barrel-aged barley wine," he said. "And Imperial stouts."

There's this one particular beer: a blended barley wine. It's been aging in a 30-gallon Chattanooga Whiskey barrel. Matt will take off about 1/3, add more, repeating this process for the last six years.

"It's a blend of every Dynamic Ale barley wine I've produced, dating back to 2013. Super dense concentrated flavors," he said. "That's one of the most special beers I have made."

At Hutton, he'll release a double-barrel-aged Imperial Stout and a double-barrel-aged English Barleywine next year. (That last one spent two years in oak barrels.)

And Dynamic's about to release the first beer fermented with local microbes.

"It contains two strains of wild yeast that were isolated from fruit and wildflowers on my property," he said. "It's a blend of our 3 Golden Sour Solera barrels re-fermented on boysenberries and marionberries."

He read my mind:

"Yeah," he replied. "I can save a couple of bottles."

So, a guy or gal walks into a bar ... and that can be us.

Each day, across this city, there are pockets of brewery excellence, places where science + creativity never stop flowing.

Locally-owned, locally-grounded, these small business breweries are Chattanooga's own. Reach for them in the grocery store aisle; remember them on a Saturday night.

You may also find a legendary brewer with a perfect-game beer on tap who, one day long ago, walked into a bar, just like you, ready to change the beer world forever.

"If you love local craft beer and your favorite craft brewery, definitely support them as much as you can," Matt said. "It’s definitely a tough time."

Story ideas, questions, feedback? Interested in partnering with us? Email: david@foodasaverb.com

This story is 98% human generated; in this rare case, a tiny bit of AI chatbot - Luna's idea - was used in the creation of this content.