Leading off today's BiR is Yeoman's Brown Ale from Greenville, South Carolina's Brewery 85. It checks in at 7% ABV (UPDATE: Current batches are 6.4% ABV. I got 7% from the Brewery 85 website.) and 16 IBU, and the beer pours a medium brown color with maybe just a hint of haze. Yeoman's has a decent malt backbone, and a very slight sweetness with caramel notes and a hint of cola in there, as well. I also detected a roasted coffee note, as well as something I couldn't QUITE place. I wanted to say it was something like coconut, or dare I say, artificial coconut. I'm in no way certain that that is what I tasted, and the tasting notes make no mention of coconut, but that is how I'm best interpreting that last flavor note. Despite that last bit, I found this to be a decent brown ale.

(UPDATE, 9:30pm: The folks at Brewery 85 were kind enough to reach out to me via Twitter regarding what I was perceiving as coconut. They pointed out, as is indicated on their website, that additional chocolate and rum flavor notes are typically found in this brown ale, and that may be what I was interpreting as the coconut flavor, somehow. Heck, I may also have been misinterpreting the cola note, as well. -J)

Next up is Service Brewing Company, a Savannah, Georgia-based brewery owned by veterans. Ground Pounder is their year-round core Pale Ale, and named in honor of the infantry soldiers of the Army. Sessionable at 4.6% ABV, the beer pours a nice, hazy orange, and had a solid roughly 2 fingers of head coming out of the can. A massive, bright citrus note was obvious at the start of the drinking experience, though it shortly gave way to peppery notes and just a hint of pine. While there are plenty of flavors generated by the hops, there is almost no bite--just a slight kick at the VERY END of the drinking experience. This is not shocking, given the relatively low 37 IBU (I find that most pales and IPAs tend to clock in at a bare minimum of 40 IBU, though there are exceptions). Just a hint of maltiness rounds out the flavor profile, though both the actual malt and hop presence are both mild enough that I can't really comment on a balance between the two. Still, those hops are creating plenty of nice flavor notes that result in a tasty pale ale.