Yards’ Real Ale Invitational beer festival to return in April after 2018 hiatus

Yards Brewing Company’s Real Ale Invitational is coming back.

The festival took a break last year as the company settled into its new digs in Northern Liberties, but this spring, the beloved beer festival returns for another run. This year’s Yards Real Ale Invitational will be held from noon to 4 p.m. April 14 at Yards’ new headquarters at 500 Spring Garden St. Tickets are now on sale, and run $65 for regular admission ($30 for designated driver admission), and include food, beer, and a commemorative glass.

As is tradition, the festival will focus on cask ales, the so-called “real ales” of the beer world that remain unfiltered and unpasteurized as they naturally carbonate inside a wooden cask. This year’s Real Ale Invitational will feature beers from about 60 breweries, including Philly-based beer makers like Saint Benjamin Brewing Company, Evil Genius Beer Company, and Love City Brewing, plus farther-flung options like Baltimore’s Oliver Brewing Co., Tonewood Brewing in New Jersey, and North Carolina’s Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery.

Yards is no stranger to the cask ale style, thanks to its flagship ESA brew. That beer, founder Tom Kehoe says, was Yards’ first brew back when the company was operating out of a Manayunk Garage in 1994.

“Yards’ roots are in the tradition of British ale brewing, so we don’t ever want to forget that,” Kehoe says. “Real Ale celebrates our history and the real good time that breweries have with each other when we all get together.”

Guests will also be able to “roam the brewery and taproom freely" at the event, according to a release. Musical entertainment will come from Philly-based rock band TJ Kong and the Atomic Bombs.

More information about the Yards Real Ale Invitational is available on the festival’s official website.