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For the last half-decade, Common John Brewing Company has provided Manchester craft beer enthusiasts with the ability to enjoy distinctive local brews they can call their own. No need to look elsewhere for these eclectic, laid-back taprooms when there’s one right here in town.

Over the last four years, Common John has brought other small, independent craft breweries to Manchester instead. Held annually around the anniversary of the brewery’s opening, Common John’s annual Craft Beer Festival, more commonly known as Beerfest, has given craft brewers, including both commercial and homebrew, across the state and beyond an outlet to showcase their products and share their businesses with a wider audience.

The Beerfest returned this past Saturday, with year’s edition dubbed The Last Beerfest on Earth. The late-summer Saturday heat left few deterred, as the crowd enjoyed an afternoon of music, food and fun.

“It’s amazing that every year, I see growth in many areas. Commercial breweries, they come back and they know that it’s gonna be a great time. They come in with a positive attitude because they know what to expect,” Common John Chief Festival Officer Jon Pritt said. “Ticket holders that have been here before, they know this is an event that they can not miss. Home brewers get excited because they get to pour new beer that people have never had before and that’s something they are able to give the people that they have never had a chance to and see what their reaction was.”

Pritt, along with brewery owner LeBron Haggard, helped come up with the idea of doing a large-scale craft beer festival after the brewery’s first anniversary party in 2021.

“LeBron, he wanted to evolve the anniversary, so I was like ‘beerfest?’,” Pritt said. “We go to beerfests all the time, let’s see what we can do here. The first year we did it, it was a huge success.”

The event has only grown since then. This year’s edition featured over 50 breweries and more than 150 varieties of beer, cider and seltzers.

This wide range of participants included local home brewers, commercial operations from other parts of the state such as Nashville and Knoxville, as well as out-of-state breweries coming down to Manchester from places like Cincinnati.

“Common John being here has been huge for the community in just how to bring craft beer into this area,” Pritt said. “By bringing the Beerfest here, they’re having an opportunity to try other craft breweries that they don’t normally get a chance to.”

The opportunity Common John’s Beerfest presents is not one-sided to the area’s craft beer connoisseurs alone. Pritt has heard first-hand from participating brewers just how much this event is appreciated.

“It’s amazing. I’ve talked to five different breweries just asking how are things going and they all tell me this is their favorite beerfest,” he said. “They said that they do many throughout the year and this is the one that they look forward to the most just because we take care of them. We want to make sure the brewers are taken care of first and they have everything you need.”

One returning participant to this year’s Beerfest was East Nashville Beer Works. Setting up shop for the day in a large tent with many other commercial brewers, this business has made the trek down from Music City to take part in the last three editions of Common John’s Beerfest.

For brewery representative Seth Green, the way in which Common John has approached and operated its event has been one of the main reasons they’ve come back year after year.

“We love it because it’s a beerfest put on by brewers,” Green said. “So all of us feel very catered to and we really get to feel the comradery of all of the brewing community getting together in the same place.”

Outside of the beverage selection, Saturday’s Beerfest had food trucks serving everything from burgers and hot dogs to perogies and banh mi.

For those with an eye for art as well as an empty stomach, St. Louis-based The Joy of Pancakes was also set up to take design requests for breakfast food-inspired imaginative creations. Yes, The Last Beerfest on Earth even had pancake art.

“Everyone’s just mind-blown by the art that they’re doing because it’s one of the coolest things ever,” Pritt said of having this unique art form at this year’s event.

Craft vendors were also lined up to sell their products to the passing patrons. One such returning vendor to this year’s Beerfest was Dawn Van Zandbergen, who runs Manchester-based craft gift boutique business DmV Blended Creations.

“I love the people because they’re so friendly, down-to-earth and they can cut up and joke and they love everything that I bring. They support small vendors, small businesses,” Van Zandbergen said. “I think (Beerfest is) really big because it brings everybody together and then all the people come in so we’re all making money.”

As both the brewery and the Beerfest have grown, Pritt has often heard from area residents like Van Zandbergen who have expressed just how much having an event like this has meant to the community. This appreciation has started to grow beyond Manchester and Coffee County as well.

“They’ll see me here at the brewery, they’ll see me out in Tullahoma or Manchester, even Nashville, even Knoxville, people will tell me ‘Hey, I’m coming to the Beerfest, can’t wait.’,” Pritt said.

While Beerfest has attracted a loyal following over the years, there were plenty who attended this year’s event that were experiencing the fun and merriment for the very first time.

One pair of newcomers included John Raper of Sparta and LaTia Raper of Cookeville, who happened to stumble across a social media ad for this year’s Beerfest while enjoying the nearby outdoors earlier in the day.

“She was out hiking and I guess her friend found (the brewery) on Facebook, found out about the festival,” John Raper said. “We bought some tickets and headed this way.”

The pair decided to drive in to Manchester to see what Beerfest was all about, something both agreed was the right call to cap off their Saturday afternoon.

“I love this. It’s trying new beers, meeting new people,” LaTia Raper said. “It’s definitely worth it.”

Common John’s Beerfest has proven to be hit over the years, but putting on an event of this caliber is far from easy. With pulling this off year-after-year being no small challenge, calling this year’s event The Last Beerfest on Earth might suggest that the 2025 edition could mark the final chapter of the Common John Beerfest.

For those who have grown to love this event, do not despair yet. After all, The Last Beerfest on Earth’s branding has often included one more word: “maybe”.

“We’ll go back and review like we always do,” Pritt said. “We may evolve it in a different way, but we’ll make sure there’s an event that people can be looking forward to, for sure.”