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Monday, June 23, 2008

YellowBelly Brewery & Public House - Part 2

I left off at the tasting of the three YellowBelly beers in part 1, so that's where I'll start off.

The four of us headed back up to the main floor to sample an American Wheat, and their English Style Pale Ale before going back downstairs to sample an Irish Red.

American Wheat: Light in body with a green apple aroma and lightly acidic. Liam will be using this beer to attract the Coors Light (#1 selling beer in Newfoundland by a large margin) drinkers. Similar in style to a Big Rock Grasshopper. It would go well with YellowBelly's haiwian pizza and the fish and chips (cod!).

YellowBelly Pale Ale: This was my favourite of the three. A nice English Style pale ale with a good cascade hop aroma and flavour with a medium body and at 4.5% it will make a very sessionable beer. I found it to be similar to that of Granite Best Bitter in appearance and taste. This is a beer that I would sit at the bar and drink all day.

Irish Red: Another beauty. I forgot to snap a picture of the beer in the glass, but let me tell you how attractive it was. A nice big thick head sat atop the glass above a dark red beer. Very malty with notes of chocolate, the aroma jumped from the glass and cried out to be drank. I was impressed as was my new friend Frank. Actually, the Irish Red is in the picture above. Liam is on the left, Craig is on the right.

Some Fun Facts about YellowBelly

  • The YellowBelly is slated to open this Friday - June 27th for a grand opening and re-open Monday for full service to the general public.
  • 500-600 people can comfortably enjoy the many YellowBelly floors
  • The number 1 question St.John newspaper reader asked in 2007 was "When will the YellowBelly open for business?"
  • Growlers will be available for purchase at the pub 7 days a week. Flynn also has plans to open a retail store down the street to sell merchandise like glasses, hats, t-shirts and even beer.
  • Liam will brew some seasonal beers once they get up and running smoothly. St.John's stout is slated to be released in the fall.
  • When Flynn purchased the building, it was listed as having 7200 square feet of space. Once boarded up rooms were found in the basement and elsewhere throughout the buidling, the square footage rose to over 10,000.

Why Called YellowBelly?

Irish immigrants used to fight in the streets of St.John's, just like the movie 'Gangs of New York' portrayed. One such group wore a yellow sash around their waist and were known as the the Yellow Belly's. Craig thought the name was catchey and paid homage to a piece of the past.


Liam McKenna pouring me a American Wheat

5 comments:

Frank said...

I really liked the Yellowbelly's Irish Red. Its going to be great to be able to get very good beers locally. You will have to come back when the stout is brewed. I bet it will be excellent as well. Thanks for bringing me along for the tour! It was nice to meet you. I enjoyed our conversation about beer, as brief as it was. We will have to continue it over some beers sometime :)

Troy Burtch said...

Hey Frank!

It was great to get to meet you. Glad it worked out and I'm glad you were able to hang out with us. Thanks again to for the ride to the airport, our flight was delayed because of early morning fog and then we had to stay in Halifax as the storm prevented us from landing in Toronto.

Cheers,
Troy

Anonymous said...

I think I almost got to be one of the first customers this week. They were opening at 6:00pm but at 5:50 we were too thirsty to wait around so headed further along George St!

The big question from this beer drinker is 'Any chance that they might produce a cask conditioned (real) ale?' If they did, this expatriate real ale drinker would be exstatic!

Troy Burtch said...

Anonymous - thanks for commenting. I don't remember any talk of a cask ale being available anytime soon during my visit there. However, I wouldn't put it past McKenna to do up something special.

Cheers,
Troy

Anonymous said...

I posted July 11th as anonymous. Having been twice now I can honestly say that the IPA is the best beer I've drank since moving to NL in 2004. Very impressed. Also reasonably priced.

The Red Ale is good but it's been too hot recently to drink a heavier beer. Not tried the Wheat beer yet and looking forward to the Stout.

Food is a bit so so and service is enthusiastic but a little chaotic. I'm sure it'll improve over time.

AX

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