Smoke 'Em If Yous Got 'Em

Last Friday, Yards held their third annual smoked beerfest named Smoke 'Em If Yous Got 'Em. Yards gathered around 20 different smoked beers of all different types plus a ton of different smoked food made by professionals and novices. Let me just say it was fantastic

This was my approach to the Yards building with the tents in front of me housing the novice bbq people. The only unfortunate thing was that it just started raining as I made my way to the building. However, Yards thought of everything and put all the beer pouring stations inside of their brewery so we wouldn't get wet. Hurray for Yards!

I walked in, got my sweet mini-pint glass, and got my first glass of smoked beer and first plate of food: the Yards smoked beer and a brisket sandwich from Percy Street.

The Yards beer could have been a little smokier but had a nice base flavor to it. The bbq was delicious. Great way to start the night off. After that I had some of the bottle offerings they had which included the Oak Smoke Doppelbock from Schlenkerla in Bamberg which was pretty great. (For those that don't know, Bamberg, Germany is basically the birthplace of Rauchbiers.) Nice caramel sweetness with a big smokiness following and it blended really well. One of my favorites of the night.

At this point, I wandered into the brewery area where the rest of the beers were situated and tried quite a few more.

Not a ton of people here yet but it was early still. Time passed and a lot of people I knew showed up including Jared and his wife from PhillyTapFinder, Bryan from the Brewlounge, and even someone I met back when Jo and I went to Cooperstown and Ommegang.

By the end of the three plus hours I had tried many of the beers. I spent a lot of time talking to people so didn't drink quickly enough to try all of them but honestly it's probably a good thing for my liver and wife. I think my favorite of the night was the New Holland Charkoota Rye which had a nice sweet and spicy body with some decent smoke in it. After that it was probably the Emilisse Rauchbier which I'll talk about later this week since I got a growler of it. The Dark Horse Fore Smoke Stout was also really good

Once the official hours ended we all got moved into the tap room area.

I'll admit, I'm not sure when I took this picture. It could have been at the end of the night but it may not have been. Who knows. Regardless, pretend it was the crowd at the end of the night and we'll all be happier for it. (Actually, since John, the guy on the right in the greenish hat is in it, it's probably not from the end of the night. I think he left around 7. But, just ignore this aside and go back to pretending.)

And that was how my night passed. Smoke 'Em technically only ran until 8 but it was still going strong in the tap room when I left around 9:15. I know they stopped doing free pours, but that didn't stop anyone as far as I could tell. Not like the bar is there is expensive. Based on a tweet by Yards, I'm pretty sure people stuck around until 2am or so. Crazier than me. Or stronger livers. Whichever.

So, yeah, if you couldn't tell Smoke 'Em was awesome. It was run incredibly well, the tasting glass is very cool, the food was great and the beer selection had a nice variety considering they were all smoked beers. This definitely made me want to go to more events at Yards if they all have this much thought put into them. Plus it seems like a good way to see people I don't see very often.