Writer: Katie Mills Giorgio
Club 76 in North Liberty is not your average American Legion hall. And Stout, Sours & Oysterfest is not your average Iowa festival. But on one Saturday every March, a rowdy crowd gathers at Club 76 — an old log cabin operated by the American Legion Post 76 — to toss back a few full-bodied, lip-smacking brews while slurping down some 6,000 oysters.
It’s briny. It’s buttery. It’s sweet, sour, tart and malty. It’s a vibrant mix of flavors not often found this far from the coasts, inspired by the culinary curiosity of festival organizer Jeremy Freerks, who serves as the Legion commander.
“I’m a food and beer nerd,” he said. “I have always kind of known that oysters pair well with stouts.”
Freerks and another Legion member hosted the first festival 13 years ago. “We had no idea how to shuck oysters,” he recalled. “By the end of the day, we had sold all the oysters, but my hands were bleeding.”
Despite the rough start, the festival turned into a popular fundraiser. Tickets go fast — all 225 sold in mere minutes in 2025 — so the lucky few are happy as clams. If you’re one of them, you can enjoy raw oysters and an array of oyster entrees, along with special stout and sour beers on tap for the occasion.
Freerks personally chooses the “ocean candy” each spring and has them flown in from the coasts. He never knows what varieties are available until he talks with his fishmonger about a week before the big day. Usually, he orders a mix of tried-and-true favorites, plus a few new varieties to try each year.
Each kind is served with tasting notes, like wines at a vineyard, with details about the specific oyster, its farmer and its particular characteristics. “The oysters taste like the water they came from,” Freerks said. “That’s the best way to describe it.”
He doesn’t shuck the oysters himself anymore, but he still spends plenty of time in the kitchen and credits the volunteers who make the festival run as smoothly as its slippery star. As he put it, “we just shuck, shuck, shuck all day long.”
Katie Mills Giorgio is a freelance writer, editor and children’s book author based in Cedar Rapids.
