Yazoo Brewing Company - Daddy-O Pilsner

Yazoo’s pilsner offers us a gleaming golden straw color with excellent clarity beneath a cap of pale foam. In the aroma, look for a dry malt impression with touches of cracker, lightly toasted bread crust, and a hint of hay. It comes across quite fruity for a pils due to the brewers’ choice of modern German hop varieties. We picked up stone fruits, a touch of citrus, and even some very light tropical tones. On the palate, we really enjoyed the central malt core. A touch of corn adds a bit of grainy sweetness, and the Vienna malt adds a bit more depth of flavor than many other pale lagers. Look for a pleasant central toasted grain character that’s dried out nicely by a moderate hop bite that lingers a bit in the finish. For pairing options, pilsners play nice with many dishes. You can’t go wrong with pizza, grilled or fried chicken, oily fish like salmon or trout, or spicy tacos. Cheers!

Yazoo Brewing Co.’s founder and brewer, Linus Hall, got his brewing start in a familiar fashion, purchasing a homebrewing kit from an ad in the back pages of Rolling Stone back in 1993. Linus was, as he phrased it, “a cash-poor college student living in an old farmhouse in Virginia, and brewing my own beer seemed a little less illegal than the pot-growing operation my other housemates were involved in.” His homebrewing habit continued after moving with his wife Lila back to Mississippi following college, and when the couple relocated to Nashville in 1996.

Fast-forward a bit, and Yazoo Brewing Co. opened up in Nashville in October of 2003, with a keg-only lineup of staple beers like Yazoo Pale Ale, Spring Wheat, Dos Perros, and Onward Stout. They quickly established strong local support for their draft beer, and their Hefeweizen entered regular rotation after picking up a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival in 2004, just a year after Yazoo opened.

In only six years Yazoo outgrew its initial home base, and 2010 brought the purchase of a new brewing facility (including a 40-barrel brewhouse) in The Gulch, a historic neighborhood in Nashville between Music Row and downtown. If you’re in the Nashville area, be sure to swing by Yazoo’s latest taproom location—which they just moved into a few years ago. Having outgrown their spot in The Gulch, in 2019 they moved into a newly built facility in Madison, Tennessee, about 15 minutes away, on a 7-acre plot nestled along on the Cumberland River. The new place has got way more parking and great views from the patio. Learn more at yazoobrew.com.