The Swiss Restaurant & Pub will host New Belgium Brewing for a beer pairing dinner Wednesday, Nov. 18. For details and tickets, check out the Swiss’ Facebook event page: We caught up with Swiss chef Jacob Thacker for a little preview of the dinner.
From the diary of Myles Clinkerdagger, military leader of the Ruston Way Colony, 1622: Merry Thanksdrinking! It’s been a year since we have been separated from those tools on the Mayflower and Speedwell. Most of us cannot forgive them for not waiting for us on the docks in southwest England. Who leaves in the middle of an English Separatist Church bake sale anyway? Silly Separatists that’s who. Anyway, we couldn’t freakin’ find the Hudson River. A storm send our huge ship, Java Jive, way south. We battled storms for a year before making our way north, then through many passages
Denizens of the Dark is big and burly. If it were a beer, it would be a high-gravity hybrid of the chewiest Russian Imperial Stouts, the Fruit Roll Up of Quadrupels and the weirdest of sweet barleywines. We’d call it a Winter Imperial Double Trappist-Style Extra Stout-Strong Ale (aged in oak, of course). But it’s not a beer; it’s an annual heady festival that isn’t about getting deep-pocketed beer companies to pony up sponsorship dollars. It’s about rewarding beer lovers and promoting the craft by tapping strong, dark delicious beers. The event, organized by Wingman Brewers close to the Tacoma
Fish Brewing Company is chill. The entire staff can chill mad hard. I wouldn’t bat an eye if I saw Fish head brewer Paul Pearson driving a new Lincoln, rolling his fingers and rambling slow soliloquies. They don’t offer spin the wheel hijinks at beer festivals. They don’t publicize their every move. Their beer does all the talking. The World Beer Awards was in Fish’s house yesterday, and you could hear a minnow drop. Fish Tale Ales’ Beyond the Pale Ale, produced by Fish Brewing Co. in downtown Olympia, was named the 2015 World’s Best Beer by the World Beer
Two Beers Brewing releases Wonderland Trail IPA I’m almost certain Fritz Maytag didn’t find inspiration to create an English-style pale ale with American hops while hiking Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail. The Stanford graduate who founded Anchor Brewing in San Francisco in 1965 probably didn’t have an “ah-ha” moment to bring back almost-forgotten British technique of dry hopping while climbing out of Longmire toward the top of Rampart Ridge. While we’re Wondering, I doubt Sierra Nevada Brewing Company brewer Ken Grossman drew inspiration to brew a pale ale using whole-cone American hops, including Cascade, while hiking along the banks of Kautz
Things can get pretty freaky at Top Rung Brewing Company. And not just when their sales executive Mike Besser roams the taproom wearing a keg costume. No, the Lacey brewery’s co-founder Casey Sobol was recently freaked a bit by a mysterious knocking sound inside his brewing room. “We recently put in service our new 20-barrel fermenter,” explains Sobol. “When I finished plumbing the tank into the glycol system for the jackets I proceeded to turn the system on, then was sidetracked by a delivery and phone call. I returned to the brewery room and heard this knocking sound.” Sobol was
We continue our Halloween inspired series of scary brewery stories with visit to Narrows Brewing, which sits on pilings above the Narrows Strait next to Narrows Marina. As we have documented earlier this week, brewing beer is an industrial process and can be a dangerous business: you’re dealing with boiling hot liquid, clouds of carbon dioxide that can suffocate workers, kegs and vats under pressure, heavy kegs and equipment, and other dangers large and small. Today, we interview a Narrows Brewing employee in silhouette to hide his or her identity. “My scariest experience in the brew house was almost tipping
Doing our part to keep the South Sound’s Halloween celebrants from choking on family-friendly pabulum, we’re skipping the chainsaw exhaust and dry ice for local brewers describing their scary experiences on the job. Yesterday, Pacific Brewing & Malting Co. head brewer Bethany Carlsen told tales of mysterious movements inside her brewery, and her upcoming Jake’s Blood Red Ale release. Today, we present Harmon Brewing Co. head brewer Jeff Carlson’s horrifying experience, and his Halloween beer suggestions. This past March, Carlson was brewing at the Harmon Tap Room when the mash tun door flew open spilling 180-degree wort into his work
If you think “cask beer” means “flat, warm, and funny tasting,” what you’ve had is some seriously messed-up cask beer — a cask is a lot easier to mishandle than a keg. Keep trying. When experts are involved, this is a damn fine way to do your drinking. Last night experts at Engine House No. 9 tapped a firkin full of their damn fine Don of Time American Pale Ale loaded with grapefruit flavor, due in part to the fresh squeezed citrus profile of Waimea hops. Because cask-conditioned beer is unfiltered and unpasteurized beer that is conditioned and served from
The walled-off entrance to the jail below Old City Hall during the construction phase at Pacific Brewing & Malting Co. / photo courtesy of Facebook We’ve always loved October. Flora is in full regalia for its last fashion show, summer’s hiccups butt into winter’s tentative icy thrusts, and animals are ferociously busy with gathering, storing and various forms of copulation wherever the eye may fall. The best part of October, though, has to be the supernatural event that peeks out from the edge of the calendar — that beautiful, exuberantly wicked holiday that provokes us to
You’ve probably already sipped some craft beers from Fort Collins-based New Belgium Brewery — like a Fat Tire Amber Ale. The Colorado hallmark was actually first brewed a couple years before New Belgium was founded in 1991, in the basement of (future) co-founder Jeff Lebesch. It was aptly was named after the vacation that Lebesch spent biking on “fat tires” through little villages — in search of good beer, of course. Glancing at the menu for New Belgium’s brewmaster’s dinner at The Swiss Restaurant & Pub next month, Fat Tire graces the menu. Shocker. The popular amber ale with its
Blue Lightning Brew co-founder and head brewer Toren Heald / photo credit: Pappi Swarner My first sip of alcohol at age [fill in the blank] was from a bottle of Johnny Walker passed to me by older roughians. We listened to Led Zeppelin on the 8-track (yes, 8-track — it only played one way, no rewind) and polished off the bottle. It didn’t go well for me. Lesson learned. It was years and years before I was brave enough to try scotch again, and single malt peated whisky from Islay became my choice. When I drink
Odd Otter Brewing Company distribution manager Charles Gibb / photo credit: Pappi Swarner We walked into a building full of Odd Otters. They were busy Odd Otters moments after a staff meeting: one was brewing beer; one was planning marketing, two were pouring beers, one was hugged every 15 seconds by other Otters and the last Otter was chatting up Stars Wars with us. The building, built in the late 1880s, past home of a Sailors and Soldiers Club during World War I and a USO Center in World War II, will be filled with balloons
Hey kids! Want to black out tonight? Then you’re in luck, cause Avery Brewing is bringing its demonically strong Mephistopheles Stout to the Parkway Tavern as part of the joint’s “Avery Demons of Ale” night. First brewed in 2005 as the third installment in Avery’s “Demons of Ale” series, it measures in at 14.5%. That’s evil. Take note Uber drivers: The tavern on Tacoma’s North Slope will also pour Avery’s other Demon beers — super-caramelly, oak-aged English-style strong ale Samael’s Oak-Aged Ale and the dates, plums, raisins and molasses rich The Beast Grand Cru. Other Avery ales to sip tonight
Aaron Poole, left, and Ben Brown discuss recipes in their Destiny City Brewing garage brewery. Photo credit: Pappi Swarner Eighteen new breweries have been added to the Washington State Liquor Control Board’s official list of licensed Washington breweries, including Destiny City Brewing operating out of Ben Brown’s garage in Central Tacoma. Destiny looks like a neighborhood, at least from Brown’s garage facing south toward Cheney Stadium. Inside the garage shoving the camping gear to the edge, sits a hot liquor tank, mash-lauter tun and boil kettle half-barrel system, also known as Destiny City Brewing, where Brown
Photo courtesy of Three Magnets Brewing’s Facebook As Three Magnets Brewing Co.’s owners Sara and Nate Reilly and I stood in centerfield during the Inland Northwest Craft Beer Festival at Avista Stadium in Spokane, they let the bottled up glee burst out announcing they would begin bottling their beers last week. The downtown Olympia brewery will launch their bottle program with three beers from their Fresh Hop Series, one beer from their Farmhouse Series, and one beer from the Olympia Coffee Roasters Series, celebrating with two bottle release parties Saturday, Oct. 17. Future bottle releases include
Despite yesterday’s afternoon downpour, the crowd’s disposition seemed sunny inside Top Rung Brewing Company. The Lacey brewery’s second annual Hoptoberfest set the record for most people to walk through their door on a single day, and won me over on the taste side. As guitarist Murray plucked a mighty fine tune or 20, I sipped the most delightful Top Rung Imperial Barrel Aged Pyrolysis Stout — dark and malty with notes of coffee and chocolate boosted with a smooth, bourbon finish. Co-founders Casey Sobol and Jason Stoltz also released their new Shift Trade IPA, a 6.2% ABV shot of pineapple
Adam Paysse, Colin Lenfesty and Mike Murphy opened Holy Mountain Brewing Company in Seattle one year ago. After stints at Schooner Exact Brewing Co., Bainbridge Island Brewery and Westland Distillery, the three well-respected local beer veterans have gain quick respect for their outstanding farmhouse and sour barrel-aged beers, as well as hoppy west coast styles and lagers. Paysse climbed the mountaintop and descended with a clean, visual brand idea. With the help of designer Brian Steely, certain Holy Mountain bottles don beautiful line art animals. The blended oak aged Brett Saison “The Gray Tower,” cherry and raspberry “Clarette” and the
The kings of the beer geeks, in our book, are the brewery sales representatives, or beer reps. It’s their job to know beer inside and out. They need the knowledge to have intelligent conversations with their boss, the brewery owner, the brewery’s brewmaster, as well as the distributor who, er, distributes their beer, the establishments that sell their beer and the consumers who attended their brewery promotions — the people who matter the most. Here are our favorite photos of beer reps, as well as a few beer distributor reps, we snapped this past summer. Enjoy.
Few craft beer entrepreneurs contemplate selling their business when they first get started. Unlike, for example, the typical entrepreneur in the software industry, craft brewers — at least the ones we know — were inspired by the love of magnificent beer, a spirit of adventure and the romance of creating a small manufacturing business. When home brewer Steve Navarro approached venture capitalist Brent Hall of Pinnacle Capital Partners to help finance his dream of resurrecting the Pacific Brewing and Malting Co. in Tacoma, Hall was so moved by Navarro’s passion for his craft, that he became a co-partner in the
It wasn’t just the biggest comeback of the week, the month or the year. Warren G. Harding’s come-from-behind win Friday night was the largest in his Craft Beer Fan League history, as he overcame a nine-beer deficit with late pumpkin ale and cider rallies en route to earning an 15-14 victory over his league-rival Magic Realism, the name he goes by in league play, at the Washington Beer Commission’s Inland Northwest Craft Beer Festival in Avista Stadium, Spokane. For the second year, Inland Northwest Craft Beer Festival is taking the field at Avista Stadium, the home of the Spokane Indians
Pat Nagle squeezed past a long table of diners to adjust the hi-fi player loaded with oompah songs, which was sitting atop of several beer barrels beneath white and blue-checkered pennant flags. He paused, studying the capacity crowd where once were his fermenters and Brite tanks. The Harmon Brewery & Restaurant – the flagship Harmon Brewing Co. restaurant in downtown Tacoma – recently converted its brewing room into an event space and future café for Harmon’s Hop Coffee franchise. All brewing production takes place at the Harmon Tap Room in Tacoma’s Stadium District. Last night, the room took the shape
In this modern world of impersonal digital connections face-to-face relations between maker and consumer seem as out of date as clay tablets. Enter the beer-pairing dinner — or in case of last night’s dinner at The Swiss Restaurant & Pub, the beer/cider-pairing dinner. Velvety voiced, wildly charismatic Eric Willard shared his beers, his cider and his wisdom with a group of 40 or so. Willard is somewhat of the ultimate authority on beer and cider as he is part owner of Two Beers Brewing Co. and Seattle Cider Company, the sister companies — located a quarter inch from each other
Green Tacoma Day 2015 includes an opportunity to volunteer at Oak Tree Park. Photo credit: Pappi Swarner National Public Lands Day, which calls for volunteers to spend a day working to improve and restore trails, campgrounds and natural habitats, officially fell on Sept. 26 this year. But related events across the South Sound and the nation take place over a two-week period, during which time the call will be answered by helping hands. If you’d like to be among them, Oct. 10 is the day when the eighth annual Green Tacoma Day consumes area parks. Volunteers
If you like drinking beer in public places, well you’re in luck, our tippling exhibitionist friends, because there are some pleasurable opportunities this week in the South Sound. TUESDAY, SEPT. 29 >>> Spokane’s No-Li Brewhouse will pair five of its beers with a five-course dinner at Pints and Quarts in Lacey. 6 p.m., $55, Pints and Quarts, 1230 College St. SE, Lacey, 360.438.9183 WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 30 >>> Each year Green Flash Brewing introduces a limited-release beer starring a new pinup-inspired icon. For 2015 they have the national debut of Treasure Chest, an IPA brewed with grapefruit, prickly pear juice and
Once an infinitesimal share of the beverage market, hard ciders have seen great increases in interest over the last several years and are starting to register in the consciousness of American consumers, especially in Gig Harbor. The second annual Cider Swig was held Saturday, Sept. 26 — National Public Lands Day — at Sehmel Homestead Park in Gig Harbor. Proceeds from the Cider Swig support environmental education and conservation to maintain and expand area parks, trails and natural areas around the Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula community. After everyone found parking, the fun-filled, family-friendly afternoon of cider sipping and apple
The difference between fresh hops and dried hops in beer brewing is like the difference between a mug of Laurelwood Fresh Hop Free Range Red and a bottle of Miller Lite. Unlike conventional beers, tasting a freshly hopped brew is a seasonal experience as the hops’ cone-shaped flower only blooms once a year. The fresh hops need to be trucked to the brewery right away, and the brewery needs to make the necessary adjustments to its equipment. Also called wet-hop beers, these creations utilize hops within 48 hours of their harvest, at which point they are added to the brewing
Ten Washington state breweries earned 13 medals Saturday in the Great American Beer Festival competition this weekend in Denver’s Colorado Convention Center, including six gold medals, one silver medal and six bronze medals. The South Sound was in the big house, with Fish Brewing Co. and Three Magnets Brewing Co. earning bronze medals in the prestigious competition, and Silver City Brewery out of Bremerton scoring gold. More than 6,600 beers were entered by 1,552 breweries from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, searching for medals in 92 categories covering 145 different beer styles. A total of 275 medals
Pacific Brewing and Malting Co. head brewer Steve Navarro will lead brewery tours during the one-year anniversary party. Photo credit: Pappi Swarner Pacific Brewing and Malting Co. celebrates its first anniversary with — you guessed it — beer. Yes, seems like just yesterday Pacific Brewing was a newborn brewery, entering our lives at a time when breweries seem to be popping up everywhere. From the ashes of the original Pacific Brewing & Malting that graced Tacoma’s Brewery District in 1897, the brewery reopened last year on the other side of town, with a family-friendly taproom to
At some point this summer Pacific Brewing and Malting Co. sales executive Andy Kenser was hanging out at Half Pint Pizza Pub. Kenser digs this vibe in the joint, as well as the large selection of craft beer. He struck a conversation with employee Joe Abarca, who is also lead singer for Tacoma rock-reggae band The Approach. They chatted up craft beers and local music. Kenser is a fan of the band. When Kenser mentioned Tacoma brewery Wingman Brewers brewed a beer, Mighty HighPA, with local reggae band Mighty High, Abarca face lit up. With a thumbs up from Pacific
Traditionally, cider was an alternative to contaminated well water on our founding fathers’ agrarian homesteads, but today’s ciders span from bone-dry to syrupy bourbon barrel-aged options and weird, fruity varieties made with apricots and hops. Two of the best artisan ciders will take over Three Magnets Brewing Company’s taps Thursday, Sept. 17, in celebration of Washington Cider Week Sept. 10-20. In fact, the owners of Reverent Nat’s Hard Cider and Whitewood Cider Co. are good friends of Three Magnet’s owners Sara and Nathan Reilly. When his North Portland neighbor begged him to take his backyard apples off his hand in
The following is what I learned during day two of the California Craft Beer Summit in Sacramento Sept. 12, which included a late afternoon Brewers Showcase Festival featuring 150 California breweries lined up outside between the State Capitol Building and the Sacramento River. According to Dr. Charlie Bamforth, professor of Malting and Brewing Sciences at the University of California Davis, there’s a beer for everybody. “Some people say to me: ‘I don’t like beer.’ That’s nonsense. You just haven’t found the right beer for you yet. If you like Miller Lite, then I’m sad for you. But at least you
As I drove 725 miles through jockeying semi trucks, dusty lakes and sweltering heat toward the inaugural California Craft Beer Summit, I was certain I would be surrounded by astonishing epiphanies offered up by the beer-famous, controlled debauched, hops overloaded spectacle now underway in the Sacramento Conference Center. After all, it’s been a helluva week in their $6.5 billion industry, one that featured Petaluma’s Lagunitas Brewing Co. announcing a 50-50 partnership with Heineken International and San Diego’s Saint Archer Brewing Co. being gobbled up by MillerCoors LLC. Somewhere soon in Amsterdam, Loote van Leeuwen will be kicking back on his
On sprawling farms clustered around Yakima and Sunnyside, thousands of green Humulus lupulus vines snake vigorously skyward. A relative of marijuana, these hop plants produce resiny, cone-shaped flowers prized for their use as a bittering agent in beer. The fall hop harvest is in full stride in Washington state. That means a steady increase in fresh hop brewing in the weeks ahead and into October, in which the moisture level in hops have reached the optimum 80 percent level and are picked fresh from fields. While Willamette and Centennial hops have been a bit disappointing, YCH Hops — a 100
After the turn of September / In the cloudy skies over Tacoma / Came a roar and a thunder people had never heard / Like the scream and the sound of a big war bird. Up in the sky, a beer in a plane / Baron von Huth is its name. Many breweries tried, but two hit their stride / Early October they’ll release it on the countryside. Tacoma breweries Wingman Brewers and Pacific Brewing & Malting Co. have collaborated on an Oktoberfest beer titled Baron von Huth. The idea soared after Wingman head brewer Ken Thoburn and Pacific Brewing
Carl and Stephanie Leach of North 47 Brewing Co. / photo credit: Pappi Swarner Husband and wife duo Carl and Stephanie Leach have always had beer in common. Their relationship started at Central Washington University when Stephanie enjoyed helping Carl with his home brewing. It became their passion — when Carl wasn’t studying to be an eventual reservist in the Air Force and Stephanie wasn’t fine-tuning her studies that eventually lead to a career in tourism. Currently, the Kent-based home brewers look toward the future as founders/business partners of North 47 Brewing Co., a taproom in
It was around beer o’clock yesterday when the South Sound Craft Beer Festival felt like a full-blown happening. Yes, we can use beer o’clock in a sentence. It’s officially a thing. The online platform oxforddictionaries.com announced dozens of new additions earlier this week, including beer o’clock, wine o’clock, awesomesauce, manspreading, butthurt and hangry. Yesterday, beer o’clock was 3 p.m., at least that’s when the Tacoma Dome Exhibition Hall was jumping — full of Seahawk jersey-wearing beer drinkers tasting the IPAs and other awesomesauce from more than 30 Washington state breweries. For us, the “appropriate time of day to start drinking
Always looking for an excuse to party, the astronomically inclined people of Earth recently enjoyed the Perseid meteor shower. In the aftermath, many folks anticipate the changing hue of the falling leaves. Others toil under the rapidly diminishing daylight, raking away said leaves. But if the only seasonally affected vegetation concerning you is the particular combination of malt and hops in your pint glass, this is the most relevant blog you’ll read, ever. Until winter. Pacific Brewing & Malting Co., Tacoma The downtown Tacoma brewery will be releasing several German-style beers to coincide with their one-year anniversary party Oct. 3,
Portland doesn’t have the patent on big-fat beer celebrations. Bend can get down too, with more than 70 purveyors sharing their drinkable bounty over the course of four days, with lively DJs and food to help chase it down. The annual Bend Brewfest wraps up today from noon to 8 p.m. at the Les Schwab Amphitheater. If it was anything like yesterday, expect body paintings, multiple wedding parties, dance parties and piles and piles of gourmet fries. Along with the addition of a Sunday schedule, this year’s festival features a “cider row” of eight regional cideries and two Oregon mead
It’s a wickedly simple concept. Gather ye together a large group of craft beer enthusiasts, targeted for their obsessive adoration of hoppy beers and their preference for Malt Lite and their curious taste in T-shirts, and also for their ability to drink under control and self-deprecate and laugh easily and look at each other like each was sort of crazy for his or her weird and borderline obsession with India Pale Ale. But, you know, in a good way. Thirty Washington breweries bring their IPA, maybe two, maybe a double, even a triple. They will also bring a Pale Ale
FRIDAY, AUG. 7 Slingload Pils release, 5 p.m., Wingman Brewers Wingman Brewers releases a special pilsner for the weekend. The reason is twofold: celebrate beer in the northwest and to give 10 percent of all the sales from that weekend to BRAVO 1-214th GSAB’s Family Relations Group at JBLM. “We encourage people to come down to the taproom, buy some beer and help support their neighbors who are going on deployment and also their neighbors who are having to live without their spouses, mothers, fathers who are deployed,” says Ken Thoburn, Wingman co-owner and head brewer. White IPA release, 6
Unless you’re older than 62 or live in a Tacoma Chinese Tunnel, odds are remarkably good that you’ve already shot a selfie or 20, maybe a 100. What’s your default? What’s your favorite go-to expression? Sweet smirk? Goofy grin? Smoochy duck-face? You know you have one. This is what we do now. This is what we deem important. Because life is nothing if not fruitless, outlandish and wonderful, all at once. Haven’t you heard? Have you heard Harmon Brewing Co. will release a sour beer named after a selfie pose resembling the same facial expression many bust out after drinking
THURSDAY, AUG. 6 Seattle Luvs Tacoma Day, 11 a.m. to close, The Red Hot Seattle breweries flood the taps with discounts. Battle of the Gorge, 6 p.m., Parkway Tavern Washington vs. Oregon. Head to Head. You crown the champions. Famed breweries of the Columbia Gorge battle it out in a head to head taste blind test. Everybody’s Brewing of White Salmon, Wash. and Backwoods Brewing of Carson, Wash. vs. Double Mountain Brewing and pFriem Family Brewers of Hood River, Oregon. Friendships will end this night. Red X release, 6 p.m., Wingman Brewers Tacoma Wingman Brewers will be supporting their friends
WEDNESDAY, AUG. 5 3-Way with friends, 5-8 p.m., The Copper Door Brewers’ night featuring Fort George Brewery, pFriem Family Brewers and Georgetown Brewing with an outdoor beer garden, food trucks and free swag. Randall Night, 5 p.m., Harmon Tap Room Gigantic Brewing Ume Umai & Solid Launch, 5 p.m., The Red Hot Gigantic Brewing co-owner Ben Love will be in the house as Ume Umai (black rice and plum beer) and Solid (American hoppy wheat beer) are launched. Hot Winter Night, 6 p.m., The Swiss Restaurant and Pub Christmas is coming early this year. The Swiss will pour two different
