Yards Brewing Company

Yards Brewing Company

Street view of Yards Brewing Company
Location	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Coordinates	39.9624° N, 75.1356° W
Opened	1994
Key people	Bill Barton, Nancy Barton, Jon Bovit, and Tom Kehoe
Annual production volume	55,000 US beer barrels (65,000 hL) in 2015
Owned by	Tom Kehoe

Yards Brewing Company is a craft brewery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, specializing in ales, particularly those in the English tradition. In 1994 friends Tom Kehoe and Jon Bovit established Yards after producing their own homebrews since 1988. Within the first few months, "the Yards Guys" were producing one six-keg batch at a time out of their 3.5-barrel brewhouse, and supplying ESA, Entire Porter, and several other cask-conditioned ales to bars. After several partnership changes, Kehoe has continued expanding the Yards brand by moving to larger locations and incrementally increasing the overall output capacity. In 2015, Yards was capable of brewing 55,000 barrels. Yards is currently planning yet another expansion, which would almost effectively double their brewing capability, raising the annual production volume to 100,000 barrels.

Yards ESA was first publicly poured at the Philadelphia Craft Beer Festival on April 29, 1995 in booth 406. Many people refer to this day as "Ground Zero" for today’s Philadelphia beer scene. Dawson Street Pub purchased one of the first ESA kegs from Yards, and offered hand-pumped pours to customers during a happy hour on Friday May 19, 1995. The remaining ESA kegs were self-delivered by Bovit and Kehoe to Khyber Pass, Cavanaugh's 39th Street, and Sugar Mom's.

The first facility was a garage-sized brewery located at 219 Krams Avenue in Manayunk. By the end of 1996, Yards had grown to a production capability of 795 barrels. In 1997 Yards moved to to 5050 Umbria Street in the neighboring section of Roxborough. This larger facility allowed Yards to bottle its beer for the first time, and to contract brew for Manayunk Brewing Company, Dock Street Brewing Company, Barley Creek Brewing Company, and Gravity Brew Co., which has since closed. At the height of this location's production, Yards had brewed 2100 barrels.

Yards Brewing Company moved in 2001 to the old Weisbrod & Hess Brewery in Kensington. Tom Kehoe partnered and signed the lease for this property with Bill and Nancy Barton. At this new location, Yards was capable of brewing 10,000 barrels.

This partnership was short lived, and in 2007 Kehoe and the Barton family split ways. This allowed Kehoe to sign a lease on the current location property located in Northern Liberties. Within the first year at this new location Yards had brewed 6,500 barrels. This location was the first brewery in Pennsylvania to be powered, entirely, by wind. It features a 100-person maximum capacity pub-styled tasting room, featuring a 12-tap system, a century old billiards table, and a shuffleboard. The same year Yards "went 100% green" (2011), they achieved status as a "Regional Craft Brewer" by the Brewer's Association and reintroduced the original 3.5 barrel system, "Yards One." As of 2015, the Northern Liberties location reached a capacity of 55,000 barrels and had successfully brewed 41,500 barrels.