Oddstory Brewing Co.

Breweries are usually the hardest rooms in a city for a non-drinker, because the entire proposition is the beer and the alternative is a soda from a gun. Oddstory has done something about that. Its taproom on East Martin Luther King Boulevard, and the attached Greenhouse space, carry alcohol-free beer, mocktails, sparkling non-alcoholic "wine", kombucha and cider — five distinct categories, stocked together.

That breadth is a more meaningful signal than any single product would be. One non-alcoholic lager on the board is a box-ticking exercise; it assumes every non-drinker wants the same thing and that what they want is a slightly worse version of what everyone else is having. Carrying an NA sparkling wine as well as an NA beer as well as kombucha means someone has thought about the group that turns up — the pregnant friend, the designated driver, the person in recovery and the person who simply does not like beer all want different drinks, and Oddstory can serve all four without anybody having to ask for something off-menu.

The brewery itself is a Chattanooga fixture, with a second location on Central Avenue, and the taproom works the way good taprooms do: long tables, a rotating board, no table service, a room that is as comfortable at four in the afternoon as at nine. It is a short walk from the Southside bars and from 330 Main, which makes an evening combining a taproom and a fully alcohol-free bar entirely practical on foot.

This entry records no signature drinks, because the alcohol-free stock is a rotating retail selection rather than a fixed menu — naming a specific can would be wrong within a season. NOOGAtoday's guide to non-alcoholic drinking in the city documents the categories, which is the durable fact.

Weekdays from 4pm to 10pm; weekends open at noon, closing 10pm Saturday and 9pm Sunday.