According to Daffodil Festival organization hype, “The 55th Annual Junior Parade is hosted by the Proctor District of Tacoma and is geared to children, by encouraging the growth of creativity and fun in even the youngest. Costumes, pets, music and non-motorized floats make this parade a very special event. And you know the Daffodil Princesses will be there to kick things off, by leading the Parade and sticking around to watch all of the other entries perform, too!” Peaks and Pints is thrilled to have a front row seat to this annual parade. We love the annual parade in the rain. We love the parade of fleece, baggy Gore-Tex and clumpy hiking boots. We love the soggy, crying kids and smeared princess makeup. Head inside our little 21 and older lodge for a sandwich and our special Junior Daffodil Parade themed flight: Craft Beer Crosscut 4.22.17: A Flight of Daffodil Parade. Will we have “Singin’ in the Rain” on the hi-fi? What are you, 90 years old? This means Led Zeppelin’s “The Rain Song” and Morphine’s “You Look Like Rain.” Because obviously.
Ordnance Bloops Blueberry Wheat
4.6 % ABV, 21 IBU
What’s a Junior Daffodil Parade without bloops? Who cares if Ordnance Brewing’s Bloops started as an accident. It’s reminiscent of blueberry pie. Ordnance did a pretty remarkable job with this much-maligned style; creating a cloudy, juicy blueberry wheat that delivers everything you could ever want from a fruit wheat. The secret is in the berries, grown by Ordnance owner Craig Coleman on his farm. Ordnance does use some berry powder to increase the intensity of the flavor — made partly with berries Coleman sells to a fruit processor.
Breakside Rainbows and Unicorns
5.2% ABV, 30 IBU
Nothing says Junior Daffodil Parade than rainbows and unicorns. Breakside Brewery’s version was originally made for the Oregon Brewers Fest; brewed for the summer with flaked rice to create as light bodied a beer as possible with juicy, tropical, and fruity hop flavors, alongside notes of peach, breakfast cereal, honeydew, apricot and pineapple — thanks to Galaxy, Comet and El Dorado hops. The other reason Breakside’s Rainbows and Unicorns session IPA made our salute to the parade? The Portland brewery donated a portion of its proceeds to one of the city’s elementary schools. Nice.
Snoqualmie Falls Spring Fever
6% ABV, 32 IBU
Along with the daffodils and parade floats, a signal of the arrival of spring is another round of seasonal beers from local brewers. The Snoqualmie Falls Spring Fever, a Belgian-style Grand Cru, is brewed with Two-Row, Munich, Carastan and Belgian Aromatic malts, Columbus and Czech Saaz hops, Belgian Ale yeast and coriander. This year’s version has a spicy finish, nice malt structure and slight hop bitterness. Bonus: The Spring Fever label artwork has a reddish-orange color scheme and a picture of a robin. It should have its own float in today’s parade.
Wingman Perfect Proctor Porter
6.1% ABV
We can’t have a Junior Daffodil Parade craft beer flight without the beer named after the neighborhood for which the parade, er, parades around. Wingman Brewers and Peaks and Pints collaborated on the Perfect Proctor Porter, a slight deviation of Bert Grant’s famous Yakima Brewing & Malting Co. Grant’s Perfect Porter. We skipped the Scottish peated malt and added a whole vanilla bean plus Cascade hops for bittering. Our version of the porter, perfect really, pours smooth with roast, slight hop and mellow vanilla notes.
Three Magnets Rainstorm IPA
7.1% ABV, 50 IBU
Three Magnets makes some great farmhouse beers, but you wouldn’t know it from the initial hoppy can lineup, which includes Rainstorm IPA as our nod to today’s weather. Tropical fruit, berry, and resin are abound in this stormy (hazy) version of Three Magnets’ flagship beer, 3Mag Rain IPA. Washington 2-Row and German toasted wheat malts and flaked oats create a full body with a smooth mouthfeel. Cascade and Centennial hops in the whirlpool, and dry hop additions of Mosaic and Centennial, make for a dank, savory experience.
