Yazoo SUE

Brewed by Yazoo Brewing Company
Style: Smoked
Nashville, Tennessee USA

Draft sample at the 13th Annual Knoxville Brewer’s Jam. Black in the glass with an off-white head that settles to a ring. Malt and smoke aroma. The flavor stands out a lot more with smoke, roasted malts, and milk chocolate. Medium to full body with a smoke and milk chocolate aftertaste.

Pours a dark brown with beige head. Aroma of coffee, chocolate, smoke, hint of caramel. Great smoky, creamy taste with a nice bitter finish. Definitely an improvement over the earlier batch I had a Music City Brewfest.

Very dark brown, thin beige head. Smells like breakfast, if your breakfast consists of coffee and bacon or sausage or some other sort of smoked meat. Almost perfect palate - rich, but no too rich, very smooth, but assertive enough to make its presence known. Flavor is a nice mix of coffee and smoke. I like my smoked beers to be , you know, smokey, and this certainly fits the bill. In fact, if someone out there wants to send me an Alaskan Smoked Porter (what I consider the benchmark for this style) I would be happy to sample them back to back. Thanks to NachlamSie for the trade!

Updated Rating based on first bottled version I guess Linus has changed the recipe since the inaugural batch. Now this beer has more body and more intensity. The body is just right, not too thin or too thick. I really like smoked cherry malt, as it’s very complex by adding smoke AND wood notes (cedar) to the dark roasted malts. I think it’s save to say that this is in the same league with some of my favorite smoked beers. I think Yazoo has nailed this, and can now focus on making me a West Coast style Double IPA (or a barleywine). I have the perfect name for it- "Smitty". They can take the same label, make it blue, and change the font. Linus- that is your assignment because I know you are reading this.
First Ratingdraft at MCBF. Pours dark brown with a tan head. Nice aroma of dark hardwood mulch, cherry, and ale esters. Lighter side of medium bodied with average carbonation. Flavor of black patent malts, peat, liquid smoke, and dark berries. Slight acidity on the finish, with notes of green apple and ash. Alcohol well hidden. Overall, not too shabby. Not too heavy on the smoke traits and the cherry wood has some interesting complexities. However, I personally thought it could use more body, as it had a perceived thinness in the middle. I compare all smoked porters to Stone or Alaskan Brewing, and this is not quite as good or well-rounded as those. 8-4-7-3-14

Sue is an exceptionally balanced smoked porter that any beer lover should experience. It pours a deep, dark brown with a lacing tan foam. Aromas are of smoke, roasted grains, malts, barley, and chocolate with just enough hops for balance. The rich flavors burst of cherry, cedar, roasted malt, and more smoke. Yazoo has been tinkering with this recipe for some time now. With their first bottling, they seem to have really hit the nail on the head. 2nd bottle. OK I just rated this and had another bottle. Sad to say that there seems to be a lot of bottle variation with this beer. 2nd bottle from another case was not nearly the stand out that the first was. Oops. Thought Yazoo had figured things out. May be not....

The sue is pitch black in body, small head with a good, smoked aroma to it while the beer give a nice smoke, caramel mixed in with chocolate malts, it’s well balanced but the smoke flavor is a bit overpowering. good beer and taste better when it warms up a bit

Pours a lacing tan head with a dark brown body. Aromas of smoke and roast. Flavors of roasted grain, b/c description says cherry, I want to say cherry flavor, but truth is it makes me think of cedar. Finish is silky, bitter, leading to sticky lips.

Nice Rauchbier style ale - takes some getting used to. Acquired taste. But I like it. Thanks for the Christmas gift.