I really want to like Yards. They’re a local brewery and their selection is varied and even interesting. They’ve got this historical Philadelphia thing going on and heck, their labels are cool! Plus, you know, I’m a homer. If the beer is made close to here, I’ll try it out. Yet, every beer I have from them seems to underwhelm. They’re never bad, per say, they just never seem to really knock my socks off. Their IPA is a pretty good example:
Yards India Pale Ale: Pours a nice amber color with a decent head. Typical IPA hoppy smell (which is good), but the taste is pretty light on flavor (which is bad). You get some maltyness and the bitter hoppy slap at the end, but it’s all rather weak. And there’s a little bit of an aftertaste too, something that makes this beer hard to recommend. The beer nerds at BA seem to think more of this, so perhaps the tap I had it from was screwed up or something (it was at a crappy sports bar that had a whopping 2 craft beers available, so that’s not beyond the realm of possibility). Maybe it’s just that I’ve been having some exceptional IPAs of late, and this is certainly better than the light-lager swill most sports bars specialize in, but I still say give this one a pass. C+
Beer Nerd Details: 7.0% ABV on tap. Drank out of a pint glass.
Inexplicably, I still have not given up on Yards. They’ve somewhat recently started a series called the Ales of the Revolution, where they’re recreating beers (allegedly) brewed by folks like Washington, Franklin and Jefferson (and apparently, there exist Bourbon Barrel Aged versions of each, though I haven’t seen any around yet). Maybe I’m a sucker for the revolutionary gimmick, but I want to try these.
I bought some Naragansett over the summer, thinking it would be cool to support a local brewery. Two problems, as it turned out, with that. Naragansett is no longer brewed locally; it’s now brewed at the Genesee plant in Upper State New York. And more importantly, it’s fairly crappy beer.
See, Naragansett was this local beer, brewed in Rhode Island…it had the catchy add campaign: “Hey neighbor, have a ‘gansett.” The brewery fell on hard times with the consolidation of the beer industry in the 60’s and 70’s, and closed. Folks with money and a sense of nostalgia bought the company and began producing ‘gansett again about five years ago, to surprising success. The problem I have is…it’s not that good. It’s an ok cheap beer, but more than one, and I get this nasty taste at the back of my throat, and I get a headache…
I want to support local brewing, but it’s not always that easy!
I feel your pain. Lucky for me, Yards isn’t the only local brewery. Victory, in particular, is pretty awesome, and they’re actually out here in the suburbs near me (seriously, to get there, you’re driving around in people’s neighborhoods – it’s like, some dude’s house, some other guy’s house, and boom, a brewery, right in the middle of the neighborhood). The Philadelphia brewing company has a couple of decent session beers, but nothing special. There’s supposed to be a brewery in West Chester, like, less than a mile from my house, but they’re just getting started and I haven’t seen their beer anywhere (and they started with what sounds like a bit of a bland pale ale offering… I still want to try it, but my hopes are not that high)…