Here’s something I hadn’t come across before: Not simply good local craft beer inside an airport, which is becoming more common (and which I first noticed a few years ago, with Heady Topper on tap at the excellent-in-all-ways BTV BVT airport in Burlington, Vermont). In this case the local supplier in question is Yazoo Brewing, of Nashville, and the airport is BNA, of Nashville.
(I wrote about Yazoo last summer, when I was in Nashville to interview Al Gore for this story. Alas, I couldn’t talk Gore into visiting the brewhouse with me, so I was there on my own.)
The news for me was craft beer to go inside the Nashville airport. Or beer “on the fly,” as the Yazoo banners put it. You can buy a pint from the Yazoo kiosk in Concourse C (as I did today) and then take it anyplace inside the “secured” (post-TSA) part of the airport, excepting only (a) into other bars and (b) actually onto the plane when you board.
Why does this matter? Obviously in any cosmic way it doesn’t, but it’s one more little ergonomic improvement. You don’t have to jam into one of the bars, elbowing for a seat and wondering if you’re already late for the plane. You can stroll with your plastic cup of craft brew to the gate, and then endure all the other minuses of airline travel with this slight positive counter-force.
Background on the policy behind “beer on the fly” here and here. Well done BNA and Yazoo. That is all.