THURSDAY, DEC. 8 2016: South Sound events + craft beer and cider …
Pacific Lutheran University + Peaks and Pints = Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-browed night
Olympia Film Society + Fish Brewing Company = Old Woody then woodpecker
Tacoma Comedy Club + Rainier Growlers = Wicked
Weatherly Inn + Narrows Brewing = Santa
WHERE ART THOU?
Remember junior high? Wasn’t it fun? The misunderstandings, the awkwardness in love — sort of an introduction to the way you’d feel for the rest of your life, magnified a thousand times and given acne. Remember that eighth-grade production of Romeo and Juliet? Turned you off to Shakespeare forever, didn’t it? Chaste kisses involving balconies and poorly coordinated swordplay — this is not what the Bard intended. See what a director like Jacob McCallister and a cast of Pacific Lutheran University students can do for Shakespeare’s most over-produced and under-thought-about play. In this version conventions of time and sequence have been manipulated to reposition the original plotlines and dialogue, highlighting new connections for a modern audience. OK. Good. Thanks PLU. Catch it at 7:30 p.m. in the Studio Theater in the Karen Hille Phillips Center for Performing Arts on the PLU campus.
PREFUNK: After battling the snow, you need something tasty on the way home. Sure, you could head straight home and cuddle up with a hot toddy or Irish coffee, but what you really need is craft beer that reflects your love of snow. You need Snoqualmie Falls Brewing Company’s Avalanche Winter Ale (6.8%) — a seasonal designed to take the chill off Northwest winter weather yet drinkable enough to enjoy more than one. That’s right. Who needs 12 days of Christmas when this wintry ale packs a plethora of hops? This year, Snoqualmie head brewer Rande Reed upped the aromatic hops by a quarter, yielding a much more pronounced hoppy beginning to Avalanche. Even so, by the time the flavor has moved to the back of the palate, the hops have given way to the full-bodied complex malt flavors. Peaks and Pints has invited Snoqualmie Falls Brewing Company and its Avalanche Winter Ale to our next Lodge Meeting at 6 p.m. After a reading of the minutes from the last meeting, Avalanche Winter Ale, Wildcat IPA, Black Frog Nitro and Steam Train Porter will pour from our Western red cedar tap log.
SEASONS GREETING
There’s a grand concept to Seasons, the mostly terrestrial animal-observation doc from the creators of Winged Migration and Oceans, but in practice the film, a beauty, is about animals surprising you. You’ll be pleasantly engaged in observing a bird standing there after a snowfall, and then a snowbank will shudder a little until from it emerges the head of a lynx, looking just as goofy and yawning as your cat shaking off a pile of laundry. Here’s another lynx, in verdant woods, standing at attention until its cub vaults into the frame and seizes its neck in a wrestle-hug of claws and fur. Here’s ducklings plummeting many feet from their tree-hollow home to a dead-leaf forest floor, then immediately scooting off like scrubbing bubbles in the old commercials. Here’s a billygoat, grand and fluffed-up as a parade float, breaking the silence with one mad bray. Here’s you sitting in a Capitol Theater seat enjoying the hell out of it at 4 and 9 p.m.
PREFUNK: Fish Brewing Company will release Old Woody Old Ale (10.2%) at its Fish Tale Brewpub from 5-7 p.m. Aged in new American Oak, expect a strong warming alcoholic mouthfeel, with vanilla, subtle dates, raisin and Pete smoke.
FUNNY PARENTING
Andy Woodhull is an affable, charming comedian with sardonic wit, who finds quirky observations in the course of everyday life. Born in Northern Indiana, Woodhull began his career in St. Louis, and honed his material as a key member of the Chicago comedy scene. Last year, he released the critically-acclaimed album, Step Parenting, which focused a mostly on his transition from single male to married and the stepfather of two daughters. You might also recognize him from “Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,” “Conan,” “Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen” and “Live at Gotham.” Beginning a three-night run at the Tacoma Comedy Club Woodhull will reflect on the lessons he’s learned since embarking on this new journey in life. Catch him at 8 p.m.
PREFUNK: Let’s talk Baked Apple, as in Kennewick-based hard cider maker d’s Wicked Cider’s 2015 U.S. Open Beer Championship gold medal winning creation. Baked Apple was the first product out of the company, which uses Washington apples to makes its three cider varieties. The cider company owned by Daniel and Heidi Washam, owners of Sun River Vintners, also in Kennewick, will take over the taps at Rainier Growlers from 6-9 p.m. Expect raffle prizes.
WHITE CHRISTMAS MARKET
Need to find a special gift for one of your picky friends and/or family members? The White Christmas Market at the Weatherly Inn offers local art vendors who will be selling handmade arts and crafts and vintage items from 3-7 p.m. After the gift buying is complete, you can shout for joy and enjoy live music and pet a reindeer.
PREFUNK: Narrows Brewing Company is taking time off from developing a food menu to release two craft beers today: Santa’s Amber and Portside Porter.
