yazoo brewery tour

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Yazoo Brewery Tour

By Matt Osmundsen with Reggie Bogart

Nashville, TN – Back in mid-September, a group of our friends ventured to the Music City in search of good music and good times. Amid our tours of the various country music landmarks, we all had the opportunity to enjoy one of Nashville’s newer treasures, the Yazoo Brewing Company. In “beer years” it is very young, only being in operation for 8 years. However, they have quickly made a name for themselves in the Nashville market and surrounding area.

Before the Tour

Yazoo sits a little outside of the Nashville city center, so you might think it difficult to find. Not so. Rising up majestically from the corner of the brewery building is a giant silo storing all the barley grain fit to brew. Parking was a breeze as we stashed one of our massive rental SUVs in their adjacent parking lot and the other on a side street.

Tickets for the tour were relatively easy to come by through the convenience of Yazoo’s website. The cost is only $6.50 per ticket, which is a steal considering everything it buys in terms of both goods and services. Yazoo offers five tours each Saturday, one every hour starting at 2:30 in the afternoon.

When I bought the ticket for our group, the 2:30 tour was sold out, so that may be their most popular time. No need to print out the tickets. Just show up at the brewery with your ID. Identification is a must, as they will use it to not only look up your purchase information, but also verify that everyone is of proper beer drinking age.

As soon as your whole group arrives, go check in at the designated brewery tour booth. They will then hand you your tickets, which happen to be laminated beer labels.

At this point, you are free to roam the bar until your tour starts. I would recommend bee-lining it to the bar and grabbing either a pint or a sampler. The sampler consists of six different Yazoo beers. It’s the perfect size to share between 2-3 people.

A friendly word of advice … while it may be tempting to order a full beer to hydrate you during the tour, which is allowed, I recommend holding off. You’ll see why in a minute. Trust me.

Touring the Facilities

Timeliness is a virtue at Yazoo, so make sure to be inside when your ticket says you should be. The tour organizer will call out to the anxious tour-goers to gather. Our tour totaled about 30 thirsty individuals. Then you’ll file into the manufacturing area of the brewery.

Our tour guide was Kelly. She had worked for the brewery for two years, and had a lot of knowledge of the product and Yazoo’s various civic philanthropic activities. It was late in the day, which means she had given multiple tours where she was enjoying the “product” with the guests. Thus, we probably received the most fun tour of the day! 

I knew this tour promised to be a good one when our tour guide directed us to pick out a Yazoo emblazoned pint glass of our choosing. Unlike any other brewery tour that I’ve ever been on, there was not one, not two, but three different designs of glasses to choose from. I picked out the more classic English-pub-style curved pint glass and my fiancé, Heidi, picked the shaker-style straight-sided glass.

Not only good looking, these complimentary logo glasses were also functional. Once everyone had their glass in hand, our guide pulled out a growler of their Pale Ale and poured its precious contents into our pint glasses. Standard tasting-sized splashes ofbeer, these were not. My optimistic glass was definitely half full. Locked and loaded, our formal tour began.

With the brewery as a backdrop, she recounted the origins of Yazoo Brewing Company. Linus Hall is the founder and owner. It all started when he brewed a big batch of Dos Perros Mexican style beer for his little sister’s wedding. Next he brewed a beer for Jackson’s, a local restaurant (with a lovely patio, by the way). His passion was kindled and soon a career in brewing started to sound a lot more appealing than manning a cubicle at his office job.

Linus took the right path to learn the craft of brewing. First, he traveled to California to absorb valuable knowledge and experience as he put in a year at beer school. Second, Linus trucked across the nation to the opposite coast to apprentice under Garrett Oliver at the highly respected Brooklyn Brewery for another year. Finally, he returned home to Nashville and the hallowed halls of the Vanderbilt University Owen Graduate School of Management to acquire the necessary business skills. With all that, he had truly earned the title of “brewmaster.”

Thus, Yazoo was born. Linus’ partner in crime—and in life—is his wife, Lila. In addition to her undying support, she also lends her artistic expertise by designing all the Yazoo beer labels. In fact, the name “Yazoo” owes its name to the Yazoo River in neighboring Mississippi, where Linus proposed to Lila. Aww!

We were surprised to see that all of Yazoo’s brewing operations are situated in one big warehouse. It is filled with many tanks, tubes, buckets and bottles. Our tour guide led us through the middle of the two rows of tanks, explaining their process along the way.

Kelly was such a great hostess, even allowing a couple of guys in our group to do their best impression of Laverne and Shirley behind their bottling apparatus.

Some fun facts we learned on the tour:

• Preservatives and other less than top-notch ingredients are not allowed in Yazoo’s beers.
• They use tap water filtered through charcoal.
• Most of their hops are shipped to Nashville in pellet form from the Yakima Valley in the Pacific Northwest.
• Hop Project IPA has about 2x as much hops as the Pale Ale.
• Their smoky Sue beer was inspired by the poem “A Boy Named Sue” by Shel Silverstein.
• Yazoo started its operations in a former Marathon Motorworks facility before recently moving to its current location, which is four times as big.
• The company spends $0 on advertising and marketing.
• Yazoo’s owners have helped start seven non-profit organizations.
• Currently, Yazoo employees only twelve (very lucky) people.
• They distribute their suds to Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi.

After the Tour  

When the tour ends, do not be alarmed if you have a bit of a buzz going. This is normal … at least for Yazoo. You can easily remedy this terrible affliction by grabbing a table in their brewpub and ordering up some tasty grub. Or just step outside to the Bangin’ Tacos food cart located only a stone’s throw away from the brewery.

We already had dinner reservations at the nearby swanky sushi joint, Virago, so we couldn’t stay to sample their eats. But if the quality of their beers is any indication, I’m sure the food is delicious.

If you’d like a memento from your tour, Yazoo sells many fun beer souvenirs, including hats, shirts, glassware, and keychains. Dave, our resident Nashville native and weekend tour guide, was inspired to buy a retro-style t-shirt.

Final Thoughts

Yazoo Brewery is not only a brewery to be reveled for their plentiful output of delicious brews, but also one that should be admired for their care for the well-being of all their major stakeholders: their employees, their customers, and the greater community. We could use more breweries—and businesses for that matter—in this country. Nashville should be proud.

• Cost: $6.50
• Reservations: Yes, make them online a week in advance
• Free Beer: Yes (about 3 pints during the tour)
• Extras: Logo pint glass (style of your choice)
• Length of Tour: Less than 60 minutes
• Official Website: Visit for tour times and contact info
• Google Page: Visit for directions and reviews
• Bonus Tip: Share a flight of six different beers with your friends.

Read on! If you liked this write-up about my tour of Yazoo in Nashville, you might also want to read about the tour of New Belgium , makers of Fat Tire, in Colorado. For a list of all our write-ups, please check out the BREWERY TOURS  page.

• 12 years ago
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The Brewery Tourist by Matt Osmundsen. Copyright © 2011-2015. All Rights Reserved. Effector Theme by Carlo Franco .

Yazoo Brewing Company

• Photos 1,174

• hop project
• good for groups
• great value
• outdoor seating
• good for dates
• good for special occasions
• pint glasses
• business meetings

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Yazoo Brewing Co

Visit this place and try delicious craft beer , pale ale or draft beer . The cozy atmosphere of this bar allows visitors to relax after a hard working day. The high ratings of Yazoo Brewing Co would be impossible without the cool staff. Fine service is something guests like here. In accordance with the guests' opinions, prices are attractive.

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Fearless Creative

Adventures in reading, travel, and life, yazoo brewery tour.

Back in October, Yazoo Brewery turned 11. It just so happened that we were in Nashville to see Walk the Moon , when lo and behold, what did I see when I looked out our hotel window? Yazoo Brewery. Take a tour? Why yes, we will.

Yazoo’s Bottling Line

I know this is hard to see, but I thought it was pretty neat. This is their Wall of Fame – it’s bottles from other craft breweries they’ve found and enjoyed. Wish I knew what they were, but it was about 20 feet off the ground.

Another thing that’s super cool about Yazoo? They give their spent grain to local farmers. Turns out, the cows love it. You can even buy “Yazoo grain-fed beef” in a few local restaurants. (Apparently a lot of breweries do this, but I wasn’t aware of it.)

We got to sample three of Yazoo’s beers:

Dos Perros  is their flagship beer, and one I’d had before. It’s kind of similar to Dos Equis, but with much better flavor. (Yazoo, I apologize for comparing you to Dos Equis.) It’s that sort of dark Mexican beer style. This was Jimmie’s favorite of the three.

Pale Ale:  I like my beers hoppy, and this one definitely fit the bill. It’s a little darker and heavier than a lot of pale ales I’ve tried. Very, very delicious. If you’re a beer snob and pay attention to IBUs, the Yazoo Pale Ale is a respectable 47. It’s also got a higher alcohol content than the other two.

Hefeweizen:  This one is a Bavarian-style Hefeweizen. It’s made from wheat, and has a banana undertone. I could smell the banana, but not taste it. To me, the beer tasted like Juicy Fruit gum. Not unpleasant, and I could definitely see drinking this in the summer. Jimmie wasn’t a fan.

I learned a lot about the beer making process, and got to smell hops. I didn’t take very good notes, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. This sparked my interest in brewery tours, though….so after Yazoo, we walked down the street to another Nashville brewery, Jackalope. The two were totally different, so stay tuned for that one!

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