Yazoo Brewing Company is brewed and bottled in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. It was founded by an engineer and his wife just five years ago. The name comes from the river that the two were married on. Linus Hall has always made beer but he decided to share his tasty libations with the world and aren’t we lucky?
Recently, Murfreesboro’s Chop House restaurant hosted a Yazoo tasting, allowing some of the restaurant’s patrons the opportunity to sample some of the brewery’s great flavors.
Eric Bates represented Lipman Brothers distribution company in the presentation of the beer, and I continue to be enamored with Lipman Bothers’ reps.
The tasting began with Yazoo’s Hefeweizen, which means cloudy wheat. While this beer was refreshing because of its lemony citrus background, it was my least favorite because of the strength of the acidy fruit taste.
However, the Pale Ale that came next was spectacular! It makes sense that this is the “flagship” beer of the brewery and the most popular selling. It’s made with Amarillo hops, creating a lovely balance between the toasty malt body and a crisp finish.
Out of all the beers we tried The Chop House offers only the Dos Perros on tap. It’s Yazoo’s version of Mexican style cerveza and is the Nashville brewery’s second most popular. I got a strong, smokey aroma with butterscotch and tasted the flaked maize added to lighten the beer. It had a slightly lingering finish which felt richer than the actual body.
Yazoo ESB’s (Extra Special Bitter) aroma of sweet sherry and caramel was stronger than the taste and this seemed to become a pattern with all the beers. The dryness of the body mellowed the bitters and ended quickly.
Chocolaty Sly Rye Porter embodied the dark beers of the brewery. The floor-malted Maris Otter malts used in brewing are from England. The cocoa and coffee flavors were pretty straightforward and it finished cleanly.
The tasting wrapped with Yazoo’s Brewmaster’s selection, which is only available at the brewery. Yazoo uses 15 pounds of ginger and cinnamon in each batch of the rich, floral beer. Unfortunately, I became distracted by the slightly numbing effect of all the ginger but it was a wonderful palate cleanser.
The Chop House manager Charlie Eblen provided some great beer snacks and we were allowed to keep the pint glasses.
I headed out to the brewery a few days later, where Yazoo marketing director Neil McCormick showed us around this very small but very proud place. We watched the beer actually being hand-packed!
Neil explained the brewing process and provided a couple more samples of the finished product. Overall, the Yazoo experience was a good one. Experienced beer drinkers will certainly appreciate it and I love the fact that it is a small, local business built with the sweat, tears and hops of a simple man who had a dream about beer.
You can find their hand-made craft brews on tap in bars and restaurants throughout Middle Tennessee and Memphis and most recently in Birmingham and Huntsville, Ala., with six-packs of Pale Ale, Dos Perros and Hefeweizen available in most Nashville-area grocery stores.
Until next time, let us eat, drink and be merry.
