Popination Consummation

a series of unhinged personal essays disguised as pub reviews. Today: Yard House.

I’m away this week so here’s a Popination from a couple weeks ago. I went out on a random afternoon with my new husband to go experience a place sorta near home? called White Chocolate. (Actually it wasn’t fully random: it was sort of a part marriage, part birthday celebration. But.) However, we failed to get seats at the bar at White Chocolate, so we tritzed across the flagstoned pedestrian way to the Yard House, which filled me with a bit of nostalgia, as I used to somewhat frequent the downtown location. I seem to remember my visits there were during the early days of my time teaching at [REDACTED] University,* during the time when my first husband and I used to go to the GABF (Great American Beer Festival) on the special homebrewer’s day. The downtown Yard House was a part of that convention in that they’d serve several GABF featured beers during the weekend.

* If you’ve been following my memoir on Saturdays, you’ll know what I mean by this.

Southern Yard

The Yard’s bar inside looks identical to the one I remember downtown and I wonder if it’s a set chain thing? Is the Yard a chain? No research allowed for any Popinations, remember?

This Yard had good vibes; I never used the downtown Yard as a work pub, but there was a guy at the corner of the bar at this version across the way from my seat who was working away. He was set up with a laptop, a stack of papers, and even a desk lamp. He looked like he’d been planted there for a while and seemed pretty darn comfortable. That’s a good sign, in my own pub experience – one of my favorite places to work when I need to clear my head is across the street at my ‘local’ and so seeing that happy working bloke there set me at ease immediately. It made me envision myself spending time here, though it’s just a bit too far out for that level of convenience. But still.

(lookit this cool work of art!)

It’s a beautiful day for a pint

Outside in the Spring weather, we turned away from White Chocolate and its ornate chandeliers tucked into a bright corner of Park Meadows Mall, across some rocks and a small pool, to the long entrance of The Yard. There’s no yard outside the Yard; it’s named not after landscaping but the type of tall glass you can drink beer from. A Yard of ale, as it were. I think. I’m not researching. Oh and don’t worry – I will definitely be Popinating to White Chocolate at some point. It looked very cool. But! I’m getting distracted – there I was at the Yard instead. Inside, it’s very like the classic brewery interior that I’ve described in many brewery Popinations before: the exposed pipes in the ceiling, the clean concrete floors, brushed steel fixtures in the bar area… hey hang on. Is this the first brewery to have this steel/concrete/exposed pipes aesthetic that all breweries seem to have today? Were they the first? Now if I ever did any research for Popinations, that’s one question I’d be interested in having answered. Unless any of you happen to know the answer to that. Let me know.

A more than decent pint. And look at how comfy that dude looks.

Hazy and Bemused

It’s hard to find IPAs that I like anymore – I think it’s the onset of Hazy as a sweeping trend in IPAs these days, which leave my beloved savory, floral, almost umami preference of the strain rare at best. But The Yard’s own self-branded basic IPA is just right. It’s nutty but not cloying; herbaceous without being too bitter, and sort of reminds me of an APA like Handsome Paul. I enjoyed my pint very much, as well as my comfortable company and a snack. I should go back and see if the downtown one is still there and how it’s doing. Maybe I’ll be flooded with memories of my own foray into constructing an IPA I liked to drink. What did we call it? School Bus Pale? Something like that, in that my husband at the time had just enrolled in his second attempt at a college degree. Which he also ended up failing at. But that’s another essay. Or maybe I won’t waste my preciously low (on account of perimenopause) brain power on that person again. But the beer: It ended up a bit cloudy, I remember that, but also floral and flavorful and delicious at about 7% ABV. Whatever else, those were the days of the IPAs.