Corsair Barrel-aged SUE at the Nashville Flying Saucer Wed Nov 3rd

If you have been by the brewery the past few months, you may have seen some small 5 gallon wooden casks by the taproom window. They came from our friends at Corsair Artisan Distillery, at our old address of 1200 Clinton. The casks held an experimental bourbon, but we filled them with Sue from the fermenter back in August. Now, distillers use five gallon barrels for experimenting in, because the spirit ages faster in the smaller barrels, and you can see what it's going to taste like in a shorter time. Well, the same goes for beer in smaller barrels - this beer is full of vanilla and oaky bourbon flavors after just three months, but nicely balanced with a sticky sweet and roasted beer.

We will be doing more - but, if you would like to try one of the very few kegs we got out of this experiment, come down to the Nashville Flying Saucer this Wednesday night for a pint night featuring our barrel-aged Sue!

UPDATE: We'll get started about 7 PM. Sorry, didn't have that nailed down when I posted earlier.

BAs and Ratebeerians...

I love going to the beer rating sites. www.beeradvocate.com and www.ratebeer.com. There is usually a lot of constructive feedback on our beers, from people who have tried beers from all over the world. And sometimes not so constructive. Rather than get irritated about some of these comments, I'm going to take "Randyweizen"'s advice:

To quote:

"But I say unto you, That ye resist not bad reviews: but whosoever shall trash a really old bottle of your local brewery's pale ale, give him an ancient bottle of their wheat beer also. And whosoever shall ask for a one-ounce sample to review from, give him half an ounce. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love good beer reviewers and hate bad ones. But I say unto you, Love the ticker, bless them that write one-line reviews, do good to them that undermine a healthy beer culture, and pray for them which persecute the very concept of thoughtful beer reviews."

--

How to tell what batch of Hop Project you have:

Skip over this if you already know, but we have some people new to our beer on our blog:

First, if there is a case display, check the case box. It's labeled on the top with what batch it is.
If no case box is around, check the label on the bottle, and see what month and week of that month it was bottled. Then go to our blog www.yazoobrew.blogspot.com, scan down the dated blog entries until you find the blog about the Hop Project that was bottled on that date. We'll tell you what hop varieties we used. Simple!

We wanted to have a spot on the label where we could indicate what batch it was, similar to having a vintage on a wine bottle. But the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms told us we would have to submit a separate label for them to approve for EVERY batch if we did that. Since we are now brewing one about every two weeks, that would get to be a huge headache. So using the bottled date and our blog seemed the best solution.

MS locations so far...

We've had a lot of emails and tweets asking where our beer is being sold in middle Mississippi so far. Here's a list as of this morning:

McDades - Sunflower
McDades - #2
Hops and Habanas
Fresh Market on Highland Colony (see picture)
Cappy's BP - Old Canton Rd
P&A Food Mart - Hwy 61 N

(those last two are new to me, I have no idea where they are)

And restaurants, on tap or in bottle:

Hal and Mals
Soulshine Pizza - Ridgeland
Wing Stop #3 - on North State Street
Parlor Market - W. Capital St
Burgers and Blues - E. Countyline Rd

RENT THE TAPROOM!

We offer our taproom for rent for corporate parties, meetings, networking events, etc. (We just hosted a VIP lunch for Next Big Nashville). It's available on Tuesdays and Wednesdays when the taproom is not normally open (i.e. Thursday-Friday 4-8 PM and Saturdays 2-8 PM). Our holiday calendar is starting to fill up, so if you would like to host a meeting, get-together, or holiday party at the brewery, please contact our taproom manager, Brandi Soda, at 615-891-4649, or better yet, by email at brandi@yazoobrew.com. There's a small deposit to hold the date, and then it's just a bar tab for the beer. We can work with neighborhood restaurants to cater the food (Urban Flats, Cantina Laredo, Jimmy Carl's, Roosters, etc), or you are welcome to bring in your own food.

email at brandi@yazoobrew.com!

Sneak peek at our new Fall Ale label

It can be tough to "call" the Fall season in Mississippi. Sure, it's a sure sign that Fall is upon you when you hear "hoddy toddy gosh awmaty who the hell are we" over and over again. But the surest sign I ever had was the first cool night that got the leaves on the huge Ginko tree on my street to start changing. They would gradually change to a vivid yellow over the next month, until suddenly, like they all knew it was time, they would all drop within a day, coating the street and our yard with an inch-deep blanket of soft, golden leaves.

Fall Ale is made with all German malts - Munich, Vienna, Cara malt, and a little bit of Rye. It's generously hopped with Hallertauer and Tettnang hops from Germany. It's an ale, not a lager, but it's loosely based on a typical Octoberfest beer, with our own twist with the Rye malt. It will be available as the next beer in our Brewmaster's Reserve 4-pack, beginning around the third week of October - you know, about the time that all the "Octoberfest" beers that came out in July are starting to show their age!

Give me a woman who loves beer, and I will conquer the world - Kaiser Wilhelm

Congrats to the lucky bride and groom! Now we have had one couple who proposed at Yazoo, and another who dropped by the brewery on the way to their reception!

http://www.photojoeblog.com/bride-and-groom-and-yazoo-brew

Get REDdy! Here comes the Grizzlies Red Dress Run again!

Save the date - October 23rd, the infamous Nashville Grizzlies Rugby team is once again putting on the Grizzlies Red Dress Run. It's a combination 5k run/ pub crawl through the Belmont and Hillsboro Village neighborhodds, with registered runners getting a free Yazoo beer at the five pubs along the route. It's great fun and the proceeds will benefit the Belmont Theatre, Nashville’s most unique operating community theater for film and entertainment, and the Nashville Grizzlies Rugby Football Club.

Watering Holes on the 2010 route include:

• The Belcourt Theatre (Starting Line) - 2102 Belcourt Ave, Nashville, TN 37212
• PM - 2017 Belmont Blvd, Nashville, TN 37212
• 12 South Tap Room - 2318 12th Ave, Nashville, TN 37204
• Cha Cha - 2013 Belmont Blvd, Nashville, TN 37212
• Cabana - 1910 Belcourt Ave, Nashville, TN 37212

The race is all about having fun, so here are the awards given out:

2010 Awards Categories:

• Best Coiffure
• Best Male in Touch with His Feminine Side
• Best Female as a Female
• Hairiest Legs
• Best Use of a Yazoo Logo
• Most Creative
• Biggest Diva
• Biggest Mess
• Most Bejeweled
• Most Outstanding Group
• Paris Hilton Hoochie Mama Award
• Best Pair

1st Mississippi kick-off event Monday Oct 18th

Here's the details on the first event we have to kick off our debut in Mississippi, a beer dinner at Sal and Mookies on Monday Oct 18th:

http://www.salandmookies.com/

Make sure to get your reservations in early!

Yazoo beer in Mississippi!

Finally! We just loaded up a big truck full of Pale Ale, Dos Perros, Hefeweizen, and two different batches of Hop Project (#36 and #37), destination Jackson, MS! And to kick off the launch of Yazoo Brew into Mississippi, we'll have loads of events scheduled on Oct. 18, 19, and 20th. Check back here in the next few days for details...

Yazoo and Octoberfest, together at last!

We're one of the beer sponsors this year at the Germantown Octoberfest, this Saturday October 9th in historic Germantown, just north of the Bicentennial Mall in downtown Nashville. PLUS we'll be tapping the first kegs of our great new beer, the Fall Ale, at the festival. Come on down for the Bier 5K Run at 8 AM, and stay all day for great beer, food, and music! If you have never been, it's a great party, and we're happy to be a part of it this year.

http://www.historicgermantown.org

Hop Project #37, Return of the Fresh Hop!

It's back! Our annual Hop Project made with fresh wet hops, straight off the vine and shipped by Fed Ex from Yakima, WA, to our brewery door. This year we featured a rare variety, a Japanese-origin hop called Sorachi Ace. To our knowledge, we are the only brewery to ever use this hop in a fresh hop beer. I'm not going to spoil anyone's experience by telling you what I think - you'll have to try it for yourself! I do think it turned out pretty amazing.

Bottled the 4th week of September.

Hop Project #36, bottled 4th week September

For this batch, put together by Colin, we used:

First wort hopped with Magnum and Amarillo, then Amarillo, Cascade, and Nugget at 45 min and then at 30 min, then Amarillo, Cascade, and Citra at 15 min, 10 min, and 5 min, and finally dry hopped with Cascade and Citra after four days in the fermenter.

This twist on this Hop Project was more additions throughout the boil, instead of our standard three boil additions. I suspect that Colin really enjoyed watching Ken and Quinn having to walk back and forth all day measuring out hops, while he was running the bottling line.

It's notched as being bottled on the 3rd week of September.