Shop Around: Pop-up beer gardens coming to Columbia

In 1993, then University of South Carolina student Scott Burgess participated in the university's foreign exchange program with Bamberg, Germany. A few years later, he went back as a Fulbright Scholar. As some might expect in regard to a young male college student traveling to what many consider the beer brewing capital of the world, those trips led to a lifelong love of German beer for Burgess.

Now, 23 years later, it has also led to a new career.

In 2009, Burgess developed an interest in brewing German beers using traditional German methods and soon developed his own line of Bierkeller Beer. But it wasn't just the beers in Germany that appealed to Burgess. It was also the German atmosphere in which the beers were consumed--one that he hasn't found here in his hometown.

"Bamberg has nine breweries and there are 350 more within a one-hour radius," Burgess said. "Every village has its own brewery, it seems but they also have their own beer garden or Bierkeller where the villagers can not only purchase the beer but sit under shade trees and enjoy them in a communal setting. It is such a great experience and its one that I want to create here in Columbia."

That's why this summer, Burgess will host what he hopes to be the first of about a dozen pop-up beer gardens in Columbia and surrounding areas.

"It just seems like a good fit for Columbia," Burgess said. "Columbia is an easy place to fit in and live here; these beers are easy-drinking beers and I think serving them in a beer garden atmosphere will be a great experience for this area."

Burgess plans to announce the date of his first pop up beer garden within a couple of weeks. The location has already been selected.

"A lot of the beer gardens in Germany are on the river so we kind of wanted to mimic that here and the Guignard Brick Works along the banks of the Congaree River seemed like the perfect first location," Burgess said.

Prior to the beer garden, Burgess plans to introduce his Bierkeller brand beers via a traveling beer cart in several key locations over the next few weeks. Among the beers he will introduce first are a Kölumbianer (a Kölsch-style light lager) and a Kellerbier (an unfiltered farmhouse lager).

In addition to Burgess' beverages, the garden will include authentic German clay glassware and German food--some of which will be prepared and served by the Wurst Wagon German sausage food truck. While Burgess plans smaller-scale beer gardens down the road, the first one will be a large one, expected to accommodate 800 to 1,000 people.

The time and date of the Guignard Brick Works beer garden will be announced on Burgess' website, http://bierkellercolumbia.com/ and Facebook page, www.facebook.com/bierkellercolumbia

This story was originally published April 28, 2016 at 8:20 AM with the headline "Shop Around: Pop-up beer gardens coming to Columbia."