We caught up with Stephen at Yards Brewing in Philadelphia, PA to see what’s good and what’s on the horizon for 2012. Hope you enjoy, cheers!

Back in early September we crossed over the 15,000 barrel mark. This was a pretty significant milestone as we moved out of the Microbrewery category and into the Regional Brewery category (as defined by the BA). We are on pace to do about 20,000 barrels this year which is pretty awesome.

We brewed an Imperial Stout on the original Yards system, a throwback to the mid-90’s if you will. We later blended this with Brawler to recreate the Entire Porter which was one of the original beers we brewed. We will have a limited amount on draft at certain bars and in the tasting room. We also put some Imperial Stout in kegs for events and the tasting room.

We’ve also just brewed a Belgian Dubbel on the Yards 1 pilot system, which should be popping up in a few places in early December.

Olde Bartholomew is back for 2011/2012. The English-style barleywine is brewed every other year and will be available at the brewery starting 12/17, with a Philly/PA release around 1/1. We will be introducing it in 12oz bottles this year, so it will be more available to everyone. We had a really bad idea several years ago when we decided to do 10 Days of Barleywine, (2010, 10 days, you see where I’m going with this) with 10 firkins of Olde Bart at 10 bars. Well, sticking with traditions of killing Smash and The Rick’s livers, we are going to be rolling out 12 Days Of Barleywine starting 1/1/12 at the Devils Den. 12 days, 12 firkins, 12 bars. I’m going to need Jeff Lavin to pull me around in a rick shaw after that.

Finally, the latest round of 200 barrel fermenters is in the building and has been in operation since September. We have another 200 barrel fermenter on order with another 200 barrel bright tank. We are hoping to have them in house mid-December.