{"id":3521,"date":"2012-05-14T11:42:29","date_gmt":"2012-05-14T16:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/magazines\/vanderbilt-business\/?p=3521"},"modified":"2015-07-07T20:18:50","modified_gmt":"2015-07-07T20:18:50","slug":"true-brew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/true-brew\/","title":{"rendered":"True Brew"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_3523\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3523\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3523  \" title=\"LHall-600\" src=\"https:\/\/magazine.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/legacy\/2012\/05\/LHall-600.jpg\" alt=\"Linus Hall is the Owner of Yazoo Brewing Co., which produces several different beers, including the Pale Ale pictured here on the bottling line. \" width=\"600\" height=\"397\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3523\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Linus Hall is the Owner of Yazoo Brewing Co., which produces several different beers, including the Pale Ale pictured here on the bottling line.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Running a craft brewery requires a personal touch, but few pour themselves into the job like Linus Hall. His Nashville-based Yazoo Brewing Co., which has expanded its reach across the Southeast since opening in 2003, is as much a testament to his handcrafted approach to beer making as it is to the larger aesthetic and philosophy that guide his decisions as a business owner.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou go down the beer aisle of any grocery store, and it\u2019s mostly run-of-the-mill brands in boring metallic blue cans,\u201d he says. \u201cWe try to go in the opposite direction with our brewery by being offbeat and memorable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Named for the river that winds its way past Hall\u2019s hometown of Vicksburg, Miss., Yazoo produces nine different types of beer, including a rotating seasonal variety. Several of them have labels featuring paintings by his wife, Lila. \u201cEven though we ended up in Nashville, we wanted to reflect our Mississippi roots in our name and image,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s about capturing that Delta folk-art feel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-3527\" title=\"Yazoo-Name-Tag-200\" src=\"https:\/\/magazine.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/legacy\/2012\/05\/Yazoo-Name-Tag-200.jpg\" alt=\"Yazoo-Name-Tag-200\" width=\"200\" height=\"115\" \/>Distinctive as it is, the branding explains only part of Yazoo\u2019s growing popularity. From the outset Hall knew that success hinged not only on the quality of his beer, for which he turned to the American Brewer\u2019s Guild for a craft-brewing course, but also on the quality of his business plan. For the latter he enrolled in the Vanderbilt Executive MBA program, which he says gave him a strong foundation in strategy and operations, as well as a better understanding of what it takes to be an entrepreneur.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly 10 years into it, Hall still gets a heady feeling from being in charge of the business he\u2019s built from the ground up. It\u2019s not unlike the warm sense of satisfaction that his patrons feel after sampling one of Yazoo\u2019s fresh drafts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you don\u2019t get a thrill from what you\u2019re doing, you\u2019re not going to make it,\u201d he says. \u201cFor me that thrill is walking into the taproom on a busy night and seeing customers enjoying our beer and having great conversations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBeer brings people together, but good beer makes them happier.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Running a craft brewery requires a personal touch, but few pour themselves into the job like Linus Hall. His Nashville-based Yazoo Brewing Co., which has expanded its reach across the Southeast since opening in 2003, is as much a testament to his handcrafted approach to beer making as it is to the larger aesthetic and philosophy that guide his decisions as a business owner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,44,4],"tags":[67],"class_list":["post-3521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-departments","category-issue","category-personal-assets","tag-spring-2012"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3521"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8793,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521\/revisions\/8793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}