Yazoo Brewing Company started from a homebrewer’s dream – Linus Hall’s love for making (and drinking) craft beer soon led him to open Nashville’s first production brewery since Prohibition. We opened our doors in October 2003 in the historic Marathon Motor Works building, and started by self-distributing kegs of Pale Ale, Dos Perros, Spring Wheat, and Onward Stout to local bars and restaurants, and we fortunately gained an enthusiastic local following. We quickly replaced the Spring Wheat with the now popular and award-winning Hefeweizen, and we started bottling our beer in 2005. Other local favorites like the Sly Rye Porter and our Hop Project IPA rounded out the line-up of beers. In 2009, Yazoo managed to brew Tennessee’s first ever legal high-gravity ale, SUE, our smoked porter and homage to the South’s proclivity to smoke all kinds of foods. In 2010, Yazoo moved to The Gulch, now one of Nashville’s most active neighborhoods. This allowed us to add a new 40-barrel brewhouse and room to produce more beer, which helped build our year-round lineup to 10!
In the summer of 2012 Yazoo began a series of sour and wild beers with local brewer/writer Brandon Jones called the Embrace The Funk series. Titled with Brandon’s popular sour beer website, this line of Yazoo beers explores the many wonderful beers that can be produced with wild yeasts, souring microbes and different wooden casks.
In December 2012 our Brewmaster Linus and “Wrangler of Funk” Brandon released the first beer in the series named “Wild Child”. Since then the “Embrace The Funk” series has been a staple in the Yazoo Taproom with special rotating offerings. Our ETF beers have been served at SAVOR in New York, “What The Funk” in Denver and on January 26th, 2014 the first bottles of ETF “Deux Rouges” were released (and sold out in 2 hours). Linus and Brandon are constantly creating new beers and different barrel variations for the Embrace The Funk series. The beers are mostly taproom exclusives so your best bet to enjoy their creations is to stop by soon!
We continued to grow enough that in early 2018, Linus Hall announced plans to move the Taproom and Brewery to a brand new 6.5 acre campus north of downtown – but not until Summer/Fall 2019!
Yazoo continues to be an independently owned and operated brewery – Linus and Lila Hall maintain 100% ownership and direction of the brewery, and you can frequently find Linus tinkering with something in the production facility 5-7 days a week!
Bottle at the 10th Richmond RateBeer Gathering courtesy decaturstevo on 01/16/2010. Clear floral and resiny hop aroma with a pale malt background. Sweet floral and resiny hop flavor with a dry caramel and pale malt background. Medium body with moderate carbonation.
Bottle courtesy of Lithy via Butters on 01/09/2010. Clear copper amber body with a medium creamy off-white head. Sweet floral and light resiny hop aroma on a toasty pale malt background. Sweet toasty malt flavor with floral and resiny hops. Medium body with moderate carbonation.
Pours clear dark orange with a good white head. Strange malt pineapple aroma. The flavor is balanced with a pineapple hop aftertaste that was alluded to in the aroma. I’ll have to think about this one. I don’t know if they just want to experiment, need a good recipe, or can’t get a steady supply of the hops they want to use, but I am loosing interest in the "project".
Hazy dark gold with a tall off-white head. Fruity pine aroma. The flavor is all hops, bitter with no malt presence. This needs more balance to suit me.
Growler shared by decaturstevo. Thanks! Pours a clear copper color with a medium head. Good head retention and lacing. Aroma of big resiny hops with lots of citrus and some toffee in the background. Taste is bitter resiny notes. Light caramel and toffee. Medium bodied. Pretty nice.
12 ounce bottle courtesy of decaturstevo. Thanks! Pours a lightly hazy copper color with a thin head. Aroma of citrus, resiny and earthy hops. Some sweet malty notes. Taste is herbal, peppery hops notes with a lot of resiny notes. Medium bodied. Tasty.
12 ounce bottle courtesy of decaturstevo. Thanks! Pours a hazy copper-amber color with a thin head. Fair head retention and lacing. Aroma of bitter resiny hops along with lots of herbal notes including a strong peppery note. Taste is green vegetal and leafy hops with some citrus notes along with sugary malts. Medium bodied.
Bottle courtesy of Butters on 11/05/2009. Bottled Week 2 of August. Slightly hazy copper amber body with a medium frothy off-white head. Big citrus and resiny hop aroma. Sweet citrus and resiny hop flavor, with a pale malt background and lots of bitterness. Medium full body with moderate carbonation.
Bottle. Pours a dingy light gold with a little bit of a fizzy head and aromas of lemon, grass and cloves. There seems to be a little bit of bubble gum in there, too. Flavor is not quite as nice as the aroma, but isn’t bad. A lot of cloves and lemon with an underlying sweetness and a little bit of sour. It’s almost a little sticky across the palate and has some odd tanginess to it that I can’t quite decide on... whether it is a little old or whether it’s intentional. Either way, it’s a decent beer, but not something I’d seek out again.
@Knoxville Brewers Jam-on tap-pours a creamy light tan head and gold/amber color. Aroma is sweet malt, pine hops. Taste is sweet medium malt-some smoke/peat, pine hops.