I certainly love to explore the wild and inventive recipes and methods the craft beer community has to offer. Mixing styles from different regions together. Adding funky ingredients such as candies, spices, fruits, and vegetables. Aging the brews in liquor barrels. And aging these bottled and canned beverages in my own home to enrich the flavors. The possibilities for creating taste and texture experiences have no boundaries. This beer world is a vastly expanding universe. The amount of ways in which Vātsyāyana dreamed of twisting and boring his cock betwixt vaginal lips throughout his entire lifetime pales in comparison to the amount of beer styles I have sampled in the past few years. And yet, it always is a pleasure to return to the simple brewers that stick to the basics of barley, water, hops, and yeast while focusing on strong, rewarding flavors. There’s never anything wrong with a good, old fashioned, basic beer.
Yards Brewing Company out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, does have some boutique beers, but the bulk of their production is focused on simple beers with great flavors. They are an underrated brewer in my opinion, as their presence is beclouded by the trend of artistic and avant-garde brewing that dominates the industry today. Unlike the boring and flavorless Euro pale lager by Samuel Smith, Yards manages to crank out delicious and fresh beers whose quality is a difficult challenge to replicate by a home brewer (cue the reddening faces and pounding fists of home brewers who are reading this right now). And their “Brawler”, which is an English, dark mild ale, is an excellent example.
The style of the English dark mild ale is self-explanatory. Since they are “session” beers they aren’t typically what I want filling my pint glass, but Brawler would be one of my stock chugging beers if I lived in the Philadelphia area. Brawler is a rich brown and ruby red brew, with barely any carbonation visible in the pour. It produces a decent, fluffy, two-finger off-white head. Its aroma is faint (no surprise there for a light beer) with toasted malts, pungent perfume and a touch of funk. The upfront flavor consists of grains, malt, mineral water, nuts, and a little bit of Bavarian style skunk. It finishes dry and easy on the palate, and leaves a dim aftertaste of sugar, nuts, a slight bitterness and a pinch of caramel that allows it to be experienced on the back end of the aftertaste.
The texture is watery with a moderate amount of CO2 to give it vibrancy. There isn’t much to be seen regarding its lacing as it only leaves a few spots of foam around the glass. Since this is a session ale and gentle on the palate it’s difficult for me to give it a very high overall rating; and thus I think my rating on its style is much more important here for you to consider, o’ my beer drinking brothers.
Yards shows us that we can still enjoy a traditional, simple brew without steeping fruits and chocolate Easter bunnies in it, sending it into outer space to ferment, or aging it in hollow golden dildos found in ancient Egyptian tombs. Beer reminds me of sex: of course it’s fun to hang upside down from a leather swing in a monkey cage while a biracial midget costumed as a green Martian shocks your taint with a cattle prod before breathing fire into your asshole while she jerks you off with a marmalade lubricated microfiber glove across the bare titties of her twin sister who is masturbating with a Yoda Pez dispenser, but you’d be a foolish barmpot to complain about the opportunity to simply get on top of your pretty girlfriend for some missionary style intercourse. How could you possibly not relate to my thoughts here?
English dark mild ale
ABV: 4.2%
IBU: 12
Style: 9.5/10
Overall: 7.5/10
