Price of everything going through the roof

Wow. Just got through digesting all of the price increases on hops, barley, and glass bottles. Our hop prices have gone up 300% on some varieties this year, and we're one of the lucky breweries who will be able to actually get some. Barley prices have gone up anywhere from 30% for our pale malt to 70% for our darker malts. Glass prices just went up another 7% this month. All in all, our cost to make beer looks like it will go up 35-40% this month. Fantastic.

I wish that we could absorb this cost and not have to pass it on to our customers, but who the heck can do that when your cost to produce goes up 35-40%? We'll probably hold off for another month, but get ready, the price of all of your favorite craft beers, Yazoo included, is about to go up. Sorry.

Linus

Train Wreck!

Wow, got to work today and last night there was a train derailment behind the Marathon building. Train cars filled with new Nissan trucks and cars over on their sides. It doesn't look like it did much damage to the building, but what a mess! The police said it was a malfunction of a siding switch that caused the train to jump the track.

Mucklewain 2007 in Pinewood, TN

We sponsored the beer for this Southern Rock festival put on by Joie Todd of the Les Honkies More Tonkies. The music was great, the location was fairly good, good food, cool vendors, perfect weather. I wish more people had come out. Mabye next year.

Busy weekend! Taste of Nashville, Grimey's Fall Bash, and Mucklewain

We have a super busy weekend coming up, but at least I have enough help to cover it nowadays. Friday night is the Taste of Nashville benefit out at the Belle Meade Plantation, with Holly as your guest server at the Yazoo table. Saturday is Grimey's Fall Bash, out behind the Basement and Grimey's Records on 8th Ave South. The Yazoo van will be there pouring beer all day from 11 AM until late. And finally, we're a beer sponsor of Muckelwain, out in Pinewood, TN, on Friday and Saturday nights. The BIG YAZOO TRUCK will be there, with me driving about 20 kegs out for the event.

Here's the Grimey's lineup for Saturday. Swing by and then come out to Mucklewain that night!. http://www.muckelwain.com/

Back in the groove, finally!

Well, after several weeks of construction and trying to get all the new tanks plumbed and wired, we're back in full swing. We made a lot of changes this month - adding three new 40 bbl fermenters, moving the bottling line, and switching to using bulk glass instead of having all of our cases pre-packed for us. It's a little more challenging to have to assemble all of the cases in-house, but I think the money we will save will be worth it.

That's Brian running the bottler on the right, Colin packing off the bottles into cases, and Jason assembling the cases and carriers.

Mention in the Commercial Appeal in Memphis

Last Friday, I made what has to be the most boring three hour trip, the one from Nashville to Memphis, to pour beer at a tasting at the Dixon art museum in Memphis. The event was the annual Art on Tap, and about 800 people enjoyed all the beers that are available in Memphis, from Coors and Bud, to microbrews like Yazoo and Sierra Nevada, to honest to god homebrew from the local homebrew club, some of which was fantastic, and some of which was horrible. I was doing my usual multitasking all day trying to get ready to drive to Memphis - standing up one of the new 40 bbl fermenters, planning the next weeks brews, and loading up our poor cargo van with beer for a delivery to our distributor in Memphis, Southwestern Beverages. See, they were almost out of Pale Ale in kegs and bottles, and I needed to get them some before they could come up to Nashville for the next big order of everything. So the van was severely overloaded - and all the weight was in the back end, so that the front tires were probably airborne some of the time. It made for steering the van quite the adventure, especially during the torrential downpour I ran into in Jackson. So I finally made it to Memphis, delivered the beer to Southwestern, got lost five times trying to make it to the art gallery, showed up hot and sweaty in t-shirt and dirty jeans, get busted trying to commandeer a golf cart to bring the beer in to our booth, finally get to the booth with the beer in my arms, realizing that I am severely underdressed for a tasting at an art gallery, and begin pouring samples of my not-cold-yet beer to the unsuspecting Memphis public. Surprisingly, it was a big hit, especially the Hefeweizen.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2007/sep/11/a11party/

Annual Dixon beer-tasting bash draws crowd to party in good taste

By Michael DonahueTuesday, September 11, 2007

A few sprinkles fell, but, for the most part, the rain held off while guests wet their whistles at Art on Tap. The 12th anniversary of the beer tasting was Friday night at Dixon Gallery and Gardens.

Among the liquid artwork was Yazoo Hefeweizen, Jack Wall's favorite brew of the evening. Jack, bar manager at Old Venice, described it as "full-bodied beer, not too sweet, not too sour."

Tanks all stood up

We spent the day getting all of the new tanks into position so that we can reassemble the bottling line and get the new tanks all plumbed in. There is only one spot left in the brewery that has enough overhead clearance to get one of these big boys stood up, so it was kind of like that Cracker Barrel game where you move all the pegs around, except we were trying to figure out how to ADD more tanks. Here is a set of pics of how it all went up...

new concrete and new tanks coming!

We spent the week before Labor Day ripping up old concrete in the brewery and pouring a new slab with good drains, in the back half of the brewery. Why? Well, on Sept 10 we have three brand new 40 bbl fermenters (1200 gallons each) arriving, and the old concrete just wasn't going to cut it. I knew from my first go-around with the old concrete at Marathon that it was only about three inches thick, with no rebar at all, so the weight of the new tanks full of beer would have been too much.

Quinn, Brian, and I spent the week getting all the old concrete jackhammered up and spreading new gravel fill. We couldn't brew while all the dust and dirt was in the air, so I decided to put those guys to work getting ready for the new concrete to be poured. I know that by the end of the week they were ready to get back to normal brewing!

I got Jack White of White's Concrete to come and pour the concrete - 8 yards and it had to be pumped into the building. Jack is not cheap, but he knew what he was doing, and the new concrete looks great. More important, it's strong and it now drains properly to the new drains we installed as well.

Only brewers get excited about new concrete floors!

here we go...first post

Hi, Linus Hall here, owner of Yazoo Brewing in Nashville, TN. I've decided to start putting a lot of our news and information here at our blog, instead of on our regular email blasts. So if you're interested, check out this blog often. If you just want to drink good beer, and not wonder about how it was made or what it took to get it to your glass, you can do that too!