Beer Radar

Craft beer drinkers always seem to be in search of the next, best thing, a trend that’s reflected in today’s column. But sometimes we forget about old standbys.Yards ESA comes to mind because it’s been around for years.

I enjoyed a fresh sixtel at a friend’s party a couple weeks ago, and I have to say it was the best ESA I’ve tasted in 3 years. I think Yards is nailing that style in its new brewery.

There’s even better news coming down the road. The brewery’s Tom Kehoe tells me Yards is close to getting its hands on a bunch of Hoff-Stevens kegs with Sankey hookups. Why is that important? Because the old-style kegs (mostly extinct) are equipped with a side bunghole, which would allow the brewery to dry-hop the cask-conditioned ale, as it was originally designed.

The acquisition would mean more work at the brewery: insertion of hop pockets (basically a mesh sock filled with hops) and separate cleaning. But it will also produce a more aromatic, fresher-tasting bitter when served on a handpump.

Stay tuned, I’ll have more details on where you can find the old and improved ESA.  And there’s more news about Yards coming later today.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 7:32 am and is filed under Beer etc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.