Mudbugs, 2011

The Mudbugabeaux-N-Brew is a mouthful, alright…a tasty one. by Eric Johnson   Like just about anything good,Augusta’s Mudbugabeaux-N-Brew crawfish boil and craft beer festival has been years in the making. Back in 1992, Jim Beck took in a crawfish festival down inNew Orleans and got the idea of putting on a crawfish festival of his own. “InNew Orleans, they do it all the time, whether it be on a large scale, a neighborhood or a family,” Beck says. He went back two years later, filed away some mental notes, and never stopped thinking about putting on his own. As festival food goes, a crawfish boil is about as hassle-free as it gets, but instead of jumping at the impulse and losing his shirt from all the things he didn’t know, he continued to learn more about the food business by working with his brother and father inAtlanta. Eventually, he exchangedAtlantaforAugusta, where he eventually ended up owning French Market Grille West. Through all those years he continued to plan his crawfish festival, but it wasn’t until February of 2009 that he started the pot boiling, so to speak. This year marks the third year of the Mudbugabeaux-N-Brew, and he says all that thinking paid off. “I’d go for months without thinking about it and then something would spark me to thinking about it again,” he says. “It’s actually just exactly like I wanted it.” This year’s event will be at the Augusta Common from 3-9 p.m. on Saturday, June 4. Though he’d much rather have the festival in March, Beck says he’s limited by the crawfish season, which runs from late January through Labor Day, and by theAugustaentertainment calendar, which is pretty well booked most weekends. You know, with stuff like the Masters. “This was the only weekend that nothing was going on,” he says. Though the festival will also serve hot dogs, corn dogs, jambalaya and muffalettas, Beck says the crawfish are definitely the main course. “It’s an easy item to carry, cook and handle,” he says. “The first year I had 1,400 pounds and I sold 1,200.” He expected the next year, last year, to be better, so he ordered 2,000 pounds, but because of the hot weather, he only sold a thousand pounds, though the crawfish didn’t go to waste – he cooked the rest there at the festival and froze them for the restaurant. ThoughAugustais a long way fromLouisiana, which is where nearly all the nation’s crawfish originate from, Beck says he Augustans have developed a taste for the little mudbugs. He sells a fair amount at French Market Grille West, though when they run out, they run out. He says it’s not worth it to him to subject his customers to the inconsistency of out-of-season crawfish. At the Mudbugabeaux-N-Brew, Beck cooks the crawdads in a spicy boil and sells them by the pound. “They’re easy to eat, once you learn how to do it,” he says. “But it takes a bunch of them to make a good meal.” He says it’s not uncommon to sell someone two or three pounds at a time, though some will eat as many as ten or twelve pounds once they get going. Complementing the crawfish – some would call it a necessity – is beer. Lots and lots of beer. But not just any beer. Over a dozen craft beers will be on sale, ranging from Fat Tire, Magic Hat and Shock Top to Fire Rock Pale Ale, Southern Tier and Hop Sun. Hop Sun, a summer wheat beer, recently received a B+ by Beer Advocate. Given last year’s heat, which convinced him to start it later in the day when it’s cooler and people have their weekend errands taken care of, Beck is adding another large tent to give patrons the chance to cool off and spend a little time out of the sun. Of course, it could rain, too, but Beck says he’s not all that worried about the rain. “It hasn’t been raining that much this time of year,” he says. “And I’ve been keeping track. Besides, it’s not going to rain six hours straight.” Like all good festivals, the Mudbugabeaux-N-Brew will also live music on stage, thanks to its association with 95Rock and Kicks99. Local bands Me and Josh, Old Man Crazy and Back to Good will lead into Pat Blanchard who will lead into widely-acclaimed new country artist Kip Moore, who will perform his hit single, Mary Was the Marrying Kind, which was recently featured on GAC’s Top 20 Countdown. Mooreis a singer-songwriter from Tifton who got toNashvilleby way ofValdostaStateandHawaii. With so much going on, plus a climbing wall and rides for the kids, a few vendors and a crawfish eating contest, Beck says there should be something for everyone, but unlike the recent Papa Joe’s Banjo-B-Que Bluegrass Festival, which started off huge, Beck is moving forward cautiously because he’s seen too many festivals fail before him. “You can make it too big off the front and get your butt kicked and never do it again,” he says. “So we’re starting slow. But if we ever get it built big enough, I’d like to see us go to the Boathouse where they have A Day in the County and get some big names coming in.” Given the fact he’s serving up kid’s meals on commemorative Frisbees, giving away free t-shirts to the first 1,000 people and selling crawfish by the pound – and did we mention the $3 craft beer? – it’s easy to see him getting there. “There’s no way somebody could come down here, pay $5 to get in, eat and drink and then be pissed off when they leave,” he says. “There’s no way. You’ve just got a bad outlook on life if that happens.”   The Third Annual Mudbugabeaux-N-Brew The Augusta Common Saturday, June 4, 3-9 p.m. $5 You Might Also Like: