2nd run of Gerst today!

Bottling Gerst today!  2nd run in two weeks.  We've been getting a lot of calls and emails asking where it is available.  It's getting out there - should be in most area grocery stores and retailers who carry Yazoo over the next month or so.  Midtown Beverages, Frugal Macdoogals, Mt. Juliet Beer all took big orders this week, so try there if you can't find it in your local store.  And of course, we have some cases for sale here at the brewery! Here's a link to a youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQhGAWT0sA8

Super secret event this Monday...

Hey guys! This is something cool at the Yazoo taproom this coming Monday, which might have slipped under your radar. Our friends at City House and Capitol Grille are teaming up with Yazoo for a fundraiser for the Southern Foodways Alliance this coming Monday, April 16, at the Yazoo taproom. Tyler Brown from Capitol Grille (Hermitage Hotel) and Tandy Wilson from City House will be grilling some great local brats and sausages, and guests are asked to bring a side dish for a good ole potluck dinner. There will be award-winning chefs grilling on our patio, live music, and plenty of tasty beer, plus some surprise dishes from our guests. Tickets are still available at:

http://stpnashville.ticketleap.com/potluck/

It sure is an interesting time to be in the beer business...

Sierra Nevada building a second brewery in Asheville (500k bbls) ... New Belgium building a second brewery just down the road from them (600k bbls) ... Lauganitas building a second brewery in Chicago (600k bbls) ... Terrapin selling equity to Tenth and Blake, the Blue Moon division of MillerCoors, and expanding to 100k bbls ... Sweetwater expanding to 500k bbls this year ... over 900 breweries-in-planning, hoping to open this year ... Savor in DC selling out in about 2 minutes this year, at $120 a ticket ... GABF is probably already sold out.

So with just those existing breweries I mentioned, about 2.3 million barrels of capacity added ... and that was not a complete list by far. By comparison, Boston Beer (Sam Adams) sold 2.259 million bbls in 2010. So in a few years, the increase in capacity from just the brewers I listed will be like adding another Sam Adams to the craft beer market. Pretty amazing...

Putting up the hop poles today at Sulphur Creek Farm, Bells Bend

We're working with Sulphur Creek Farm again, planting more hops out at Bells Bend. Last year they planted Cascade hops, and we harvested enough for a small batch of Preservation Ale. This year we're putting up a much larger hop trellis and planting some Cascade, Centennial, and a mystery hop - one that a local farmer has had growing on his property for years, but has never been brewed with. It grows well in this climate, so we hope it turns out to be a great hop!

I love this time of year! Happy Nashville Craft Beer Week!

We're bottling our spring seasonal today, our Rye Saison. First brewed to celebrate our five year anniversary in 2008, it proved so popular that we decided to bring it back every year in the spring. And you couldn't ask for better weather to have one of these out on your deck (hopefully in your new Speigelau glass!) If you can't wait to get it in your local store, we'll have it at the brewery starting Wednesday.

Look at the head on this beer! Rye is tough to work with in brewing, because of the dense, sticky mash it makes - especially in a beer with this much rye in the grain bill. But the brilliant dense white head and fruity, spicy flavor this grain brings makes it worth it. (That's a bottle cap floating on top!)

About $1.73 a six-pack

Last week, the Nashville Business Journal reported that beer taxes in TN were some of the lowest in the country, based on data provided by the Tax Foundation in Washington, D.C. However, Tennessee gets most of its beer tax revenue from a 17% wholesale tax. If you look at all the taxes the state collects on the sale of beer, TN has the highest overall taxes in the country. I emailed both the Nashville Business Journal and the Tax Foundation, asking them to clarify their stance. The Journal posted a clarification the next day, but I didn't hear back from the Tax Foundation. But Politifact Tennessee picked up on the claim made by the Tax Foundation and reported their assessment of its truth here: http://www.politifact.com/tennessee/statements/2012/mar/20/tax-foundation/tax-foundation-map-shows-tennessee-has-low-beer-ex/

In 2010, the latest year I can find data for, Tennessee collected $122 million from the 17% wholesale tax and $16.6 million from the beer excise tax. Since the excise tax is a flat $4.29 per barrel, you can calculate that 3,896,464 barrels of beer were sold in TN in 2010. Combining the wholesale tax and the excise tax meant the AVERAGE total taxes on beer in 2010 were $35.82 per barrel, the highest in the country (a barrel is 31 gallons).

But since the wholesale tax is a PERCENTAGE of the wholesale price of the beer, more taxes are collected on craft beers than on the lower-priced beers of ABInbev and SABMillerCoors! The average wholesale price of cheap beer is around $19 a case. The average wholesale price of a case of craft beer is around $27.

So that $5.99 six pack of cheap beer has about $0.65 in wholesale tax and $0.55 in sales tax, for a total of $1.20 in state taxes. A craft beer at $8.49 a six pack has about $0.94 in wholesale tax and $0.79 in sales tax, for a total of $1.73 in state taxes.

Hop Project 64 being bottled today

Long live Hop Project #63 - but it's time to move on. We will be getting some more Kiwi hops in later this year, but for #64 we wanted to get a little taste of the old country. We brought in three of our favorite English hops - Challenger, Progress, and Target - and used them throughout the batch.

The result? Well, the bitterness is very mellow and clean. It has a great spicy aroma, with hints of candy and orange marmalade. I really like it, and it is a great change of gears from #63. After a couple of batches of #64, enough to get it distributed out to all of our distribution area, we'll be getting some New Zealand hops in for #65.