Side Yard Ale is a brand new beer that brings together every part of the brewery in a unique and fresh package.

Side Yard was brewed with Chinook hops from our very own hop yard. The hops were harvested and added to the kettle within four hours. After fermenting, the beer was then packaged and released exclusively on draught at the Eccentric Cafe and in cans at the Bell's General Store. Those four-packs of 16 oz. cans sold out that day.

The end result was a juicy, soft, tropical, fruity integration of two styles of hop-forward IPAs – Harvest Ales, and New England (or hazy) IPAs. This small, one time batch was brewed on our Pilot Brewhouse, a huge part of our continuing focus on brewing innovative and experimental beers.

“It's awesome to think about the fact that these hops are grown right here by my peers and co-workers, my friends, people that I love, and that this is gonna end up in our beer,” said Andy Farrell, Brewing Innovation Manager. “So in this beer, it's really interesting that we're gonna be using fresh, wet cone hops picked right out of our field; we're going to use cone hops as part of the dry hop, and a number of pellets as well: so we're really celebrating the hop in this beer in all of its forms.”

Our hop yard was first planted in 2014 and this is the first year the harvest was used in a beer release. The hops are harvested by hand and sent to the nearby Hop Head Farms in Hickory Corners for processing.

“We're super excited about that aspect,” said Jake Grevenstuk, Lead Land Steward at Bell’s. “It helps bring everything into perspective, knowing that our efforts are not in vain… I think ultimately, the hops themselves wanna be in a beer, and we wanna see them go into a beer.”

For future Eccentric Café exclusive releases, check out the Bell’s General Store and follow the Cafe on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram).