60 years on the same stretch.
A quiet Knoxville institution with a weird sense of humor.
Allen Biermaken's opened on April Fools' Day, 1966, a good 13 years before the government got around to legalizing homebrewed beer in 1979. Wine makers were always welcome (that was legal), and the beer folks... well, let's just say Harry was ahead of his time.
Harry was a whimsical guy. He mounted a deer head on one wall and the rest of the deer on the wall across from it, so the poor thing's been chasing its own backside around. Comic Sans looked exactly right on him. And that grinning bunch of grapes on our sign? That's Harry. We call him Harry the Grape.
These days Deanna Maurer runs the shop, same shelves, same approach. Tell the truth. Don't sell somebody something they don't need. Help them make something they're proud of. She actually checks our prices against the big online retailers so you don't have to.
The two shop cats, Snickers and Adonis, handle daily operations from the top of the grain sacks. Regulars will tell you they're the ones really running the place. Come by. Bring your gravity readings, your dumb questions, or just yourself. We'll talk.