Oct. 17, 1989, the Pike Place Brewery, as it was then known, officially opened in the old Liberty Malt Supply space under the Pike Place Market on Western Avenue in downtown Seattle. At the time there were only three other craft brewers in Washington state and IPAs were hard to find on tap or in bottle. A lot transpired at the brewery since, including a name change to the Pike Brewing Company, but Charles and Rose Ann Finkel still proudly own the brewery and the history of beer museum that doubles as their restaurant and taproom. Tonight, Pike Brewing will pour their beers from our Western red cedar tap log, with giveaways and glad tidings. But, we can’t wait until tonight. We’re offering five Pike beers as our daily beer flight: Craft Beer Crosscut 3.15.17: A Flight of Pike Brewing.
Pike Hive Five Honey Ale
5% ABV, 26 IBU
Pike Hive Five is a tasty collaboration between Pike Brewing and Salish Lodge & Spa. Salish has 120,000 honeybees buzzing in their apiaries, which produce 600 pounds of superb and local honey every year. Pike brewers grab those honey dippers shaped live a hive and drip the delight into their Hive Five, which adds dimension to the biscuity flavor of wholesome malt and aromatic Yakima Valley hops. Hive Five sports a surprisingly dry and crisp flavor with a slight clover like essence of honey at the finish.
Pike Kilt Lifter Scotch Style Ale
6.7% ABV, 27 IBU
Pike’s best-selling Pike Kilt Lifter Scotch Style Ale is a ruby-colored, low-bittered malty ale that will transports us to 19th century Scotland, where this style has its roots. There’s a subtle underlying smokiness from the addition of a small amount of peated Scotch whisky malt, which adds complexity. Warm fermentation produces fruity esters and balances the sweet malt character, as well as oaky vanilla and light tobacco. Layers of rich, sweet, powerful earthy malt — like freshly baked bread — makes Kilt Lifter great by itself or with food.
Pike XXXXX Stout
7% ABV, 65 IBU
XXXXX marks the spot. While stouts share many key attributes, there is still plenty to differentiate them. For example, all stouts are very dark beers and they all have roasted grain notes. They all have alcohol, fruity esters, hop bitterness, hop character and residual sweetness too, but it is the prominence or subtlety of these attributes that differentiate one style from another. Pike’s XXXXX Extra Stout arrives one X short of the boozy Russian Imperial Stout but its flavor is still five-times supersized over dry stouts such as Guinness. Wafts of dark chocolate and coffee tantalize the nose; though, in the flavor, rich dark burnt malt flavor dominates the palate, molasses sweetness in the middle, with dark coffee and espresso that lend bitterness throughout the taste. Extra delicious, you might say.
Pike Octopus Ink Black IPA
8.3% ABV, 80 IBU
The Black IPA goes by many names: American black ale, India black ale and Cascadian dark ale (when most of the hops are American-grown Cascades). Hops are at the forefront, but the style can also have a modest malt signature because of the amount of black malts that are used to give it its rich black color. Pike’s Octopus Ink wraps itself around the hoppier side of the Black IPA style. Dry hopped twice with Citra, Amarillo and Simcoe provides a toasted pine needle aroma and a woody, spicy pine and resiny edge to the bitterness. Bitter black roasted grains and coffee attach to the tongue but not the burnt flavor that can be associated with dark malts. All that malt lends balance and depth, complementing but not allowing the hops to completely take over the beer. This isn’t an in-your-face hop monster, just solidly hopped beer with a firm malty core.
Pike Hopulus Erectus
11% ABV, 90+ IBU
Pike Brewing unleashed a new recipe for their triple, Hopulus Erectus. They filled the hopback with whole leaf Citra hops and then dry-hoped it three times with Simcoe and Mosaic hops. We’re talking 10 pounds of hops in each barrel. It’s a sneaker with a sweet flavor but 11 percent citrus slayer.
