Yards Brewery Splits In The Hopes Of Becoming Two Entirely Separate Brands Of Beer That Girls Don’t Like
YARDS, THE CITY’S only full-scale brewery, is breaking up.Founder and co-owner Tom Kehoe is splitting with his partners, Bill and Nancy Barton, and will move the 13-year-old brewery to a new, to-be-chosen location. Production of the beer is expected to continue without interruption.
The Bartons will keep Yards’ hulking brewing facility in Kensington and begin producing a new brand.
The breakup ends an occasionally bumpy, eight-year partnership that saw the beloved brewery grow into the city’s most popular microbrewed brand.
OK, so the takeaway here seems to be that Kehoe gets everything: The brand, the recipes, and perhaps most importantly, the accounts. Yards is served in over 200 bars, as well as at Phils/Iggles games. On the other hand, the Bartons are basically starting from scratch, with a brewery, some back pocket knowledge and seemingly not a whole lot else. Bearing that in mind, we’ve got a few suggestions on how they might become Philly’s new favorite beer.
First of all, you might wanna think about calling it ‘Tards. Philadelphians loving calling one another retards even more than they love their own retarded selves. Pardon the pun, but it’s a no-brainer. Secondly, Philly Pale Ale is fucking terrible. People drink it because it’s cheap, but we’ve yet to meet a person who’s like “WHY YES! PLEASE POUR ME A DELICIOUS PHILLY PALE ALE!” The new not-Yards could swoop in and grab those currently unsatisfied customers with the following: American Piss, a sturdy but light Pilsner aimed at PBR/High Life drinkers; I Can’t Believe It’s Not Yuengling, a bold lager directed at those of us who don’t mind Yuengling Lager but still would be pleased if they never had to drink one for the rest of their lives (i.e., all Philadelphians); and ‘Tards WBFU (short for “Way Beyond Fucked Up”), which would directly compete with Yards ESA by doing essentially the same thing. See, ‘Tards? Market domination could be yours within months!
God, I guess we shouldn’t be handing out advice this good for free. Expect an invoice by week’s end, ‘Tards.
DN: Hey You Damn Kids! Get The Hell Out My Yards
July 24th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Seriously?
Philly Pale Ale is fantastic. Cold as possible. Beats the other easily available beers by miles.
July 24th, 2007 at 10:51 am
I have to agree: Philly Pale Ale is one of my favorite beers, period. I hate when we have these little tiffs, Philebrity.
July 24th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
I agree with every single word of this post and think it might just be my favorite damn Philebrity post of the year.
You had me from “Girls don’t like.”
OH MY GOD this was so funny. Wow. Go, you.
“I Can’t Believe It’s Not Yuengling, a bold lager directed at those of us who don’t mind Yuengling Lager but still would be pleased if they never had to drink one for the rest of their lives”
yes, yes, yes. A thousand times.
This is great stuff.
July 25th, 2007 at 5:30 am
A couple of things…
Regarding your take-away, Tom does get the brand name (only fair) and the recipes (again only fair). However most of the accounts were the efforts of Bill and Nancy, so I’d say those are pretty much up for grabs.
Tom needs to maintain current production and sales, while scouting out a new location, negotiating for it, and having it ready for production and legal all in 5 months. That’s a tall order. Me, I’d rather get the current facilities and start from scratch brandwise.
I agree that the original Philly Pale Ale sort of sucked. The version of the last few years really rocks. Their addition of pilsner malt sets it apart from other pale ales (in a good way), very tasty and interesting. Try it again, you may be pleasantly surprised.
I’d recommend the new brewery try to resurrect Red Bell’s Philly Irish Amber. While Red Bell’s Philadelphia Original Lager was horribly nasty, their Irish Amber was a wonderful little beer with huge cross over appeal. One of Red Bell’s many mistakes was backing the wrong horse by making Original Lager their flagship beer.
This break-up could be a great thing for everyone. Each side could do their thing their own way without in-fighting and us Philadelphians will now have two production breweries (actually three since Dock Street is scheduled to start local production in the fall). Most microbrew drinkers have divided loyalties anyway, so there is room for more than one local brewery. And most bars have more than one tap.
Everyone on both sides are all great people so I hope it works out for everyone.