Linus Hall of Yazoo Brewing

Bring up the topic of Tennessee’s top craft beers, and most local beer devotees will talk about Nashville’s Yazoo Brewing and founder/owner Linus Hall. A friendly, knowledgeable, soft-spoken guy who earns immense loyalty and respect from his employees and fellow brewers, Hall also serves as president of the Tennessee Craft Brewers Guild.

Linus Hall and wife Lila form the sole Yazoo owners and investors, and they wouldn’t have it any other way. Maintaining overall control of the brewery allows the Halls the freedom to brand Yazoo with their own down-home charm and values and exercise personal creativity in crafting much-loved local brews.

BC: How did you take the plunge into the craft beer world and open Yazoo?

Linus: Growing up in Mississippi listening to people argue about whether Bud or Miller is better, I really didn’t have a good beer until I went to college in Virginia and lived in an old farmhouse near University of Virginia. Two of my roommates got into the pot-growing business, but I was more adverse to risk, so I started homebrewing instead. When I got out of college and ended up in Nashville working for a tire company, I homebrewed on the weekends and gave most of the beer away. I brewed so much, there was no way I could drink it all. People said my homebrew was good enough for me to start my own brewery, so in 2003 I invested in a 10-barrel brewhouse and installed it in Nashville’s old Marathon automobile plant. Nashville didn’t have a packaging brewery at the time, so we were the only local option outside of the great brewpubs in town. Because Nashville loves homegrown products, we quickly built a loyal following and moved to our larger, current facility in 2010.

BC: What advantages does the new brewery offer?

Linus: Moving allowed us to correct problems with equipment and overall layout that we had in the original location. Many of our fans were bummed when we moved out of the funky old Marathon building. It was a great place to enjoy a beer but not a great place to brew one. I made every mistake in the original building that was possible. For example, the brewhouse was in a back corner, and this put all other activity on hold every time we moved spent grain across the brewery and out the door.

BC: If you could pinpoint one essential detail that you learned from the early days, what comes to mind?

Linus: As much as I love brewing, the hardest part was realizing that this is a business. If you’re going to make it as a brewery owner, you have to take care of the business side and step away a bit from being the brewer. It helps to hire great people to assist in the brewing process.

BC: What’s the most difficult aspect of developing a new beer recipe?

Linus: Well, these days it’s almost impossible to come up with a beer name with a hop pun that hasn’t already been taken. But the big challenge is figuring out a way to incorporate a new brand into your portfolio. If you are growing quickly, it can be a lot like juggling five balls. You add one more, and you drop all of them. We’ve found limited run seasonals to be a solution, as these are out the door and gone.

BC: Tell us a little about your new wild beer program.

Linus: We are pretty excited about our Embrace the Funk wild and sour series, and we now have a barrel warehouse about five miles away. We make the wort here and truck it over to fill a variety of barrels in the new space. We’ve got a Flanders red-style ale aged in freshly dumped red wine barrels, and our Deux Rouges cherry version won a bronze medal at the 2014 Great American Beer Festival.

BC: How did you become interested in Belgian-style sour beers?

Linus: My wife and I always dreamed of a trip to Belgium, but with two kids, life always got in the way. Finally, we took a couple of weeks off, biked around the Flanders area, drank some remarkable beers and came home with a new appreciation for the styles. I knew I wanted to try my hand at making sours at Yazoo, and when my talented homebrewer buddy Brandon Jones researched yeast and bacteria culturing techniques and isolated and banked some cultures for us, we jumped into sours right away. These beers will never be a big part of our production, but I think they’re worth the special effort.

BC: What’s your strategy for making the Yazoo tasting room a fun place to hang out?

Linus: Construction around our brewery has blown up in recent years, with condos going in all around us. We’re getting big crowds because our tasting room is a comfortable meeting place to visit after work. There are no TVs, no live music, no kitchen — just fresh beer from the source, food trucks, fun tours and great conversation. With Tennessee Brew Works, Jackalope and Czann’s breweries now close by, people can walk to four breweries in one afternoon in our local brewing district.

BC: As president of the Tennessee Craft Brewers Guild, what do you see as the organization’s most significant accomplishments?

Linus: I’m proud of how the guild has worked together with state wholesalers on almost every issue. Looking at other states, this seems pretty rare. We’ve reformed state beer excise tax, raised the ABV of beer allowed to be sold in grocery stores, and worked with the wholesalers to make it illegal for big brewers to own their own distributorships in the state. Brewers are strong individuals, and trying to get them together on topics that aren’t burning issues can be like herding cats, but they usually come through in the end.

BC: If you could go back in time to the start of Yazoo and tell yourself one thing, what would it be?

Linus: I grew up when your word and handshake were as good as a contract. I’ve been burned a couple of times for things I didn’t get in writing, so now I’ve learned not to simply take somebody’s word. This is a business when it comes right down to it. When money is involved, it’s important to make sure you are covered.

BC: How did Yazoo’s Hop Project series begin?

Linus: It was basically born out of necessity. The 2008 hop shortage limited us to small batches of hoppy beers, and we numbered each brand. When the shortage was over, we decided to keep the Hop Projects going by trying out experimental hops and varieties from new markets like New Zealand. We’ve done 82 different Hop Projects to date. For number 50, we set up a poll to take votes for everyone’s favorite Hop Project so we could make it again. Trouble is, the votes were spread all over the place, with not one beer getting a clear majority of votes. In the end, we just picked our favorite.

BC: Space seems quite tight at the brewery. What are your plans for any future expansion?

Linus: We are used to working in tight spaces, and we have a little room to grow a bit here in the foreseeable future. Yazoo doesn’t need to double growth each year — we have no investors to make happy. If we can add more markets, that’s great, but if our existing markets continue to grow, it would make us happy to just continue to fill local demand. Slow and steady is our way.