Bale Breaker New Can Design Release Party

Bale Breaker Brewing Co. has released new can designs for its core four beers: Topcutter IPA, Bottomcutter IIPA, Field 41 Pale Ale and Leota Mae IPA. The Yakima Valley brewery has loaded an RV with the new cans and will tour the Pacific Northwest, stopping at Bottles in Spokane Dec. 18, Belmont Station in Portland Dec. 19, Peaks and Pints at 3:30 p.m. Dec. 20 and The Beer Junction at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 20.

Bale Breaker’s holiday beer tour is a natural progression in the evolution of the beer can.

4,300 BC – Oldest-known written recipe — a formula for beer — inscribed in clay cuneiform tablet. The Babylonians try to package their Suck It Sumerian Stout in a log.

500-1000 AD – The first half of the Middle Ages, brewing begins in European monasteries and convents; hops added to process. Bring Out Your Dead IPA was packaged in a clay pot.

1490 – Columbus finds Native Americans making beer from corn and tree sap in the Bahamas. First Caribbean bar fight breaks out when Columbus tried to steal their beer by dumping it in coconuts.

1620 – Mayflower docks at Plymouth Rock; ship’s log notes landing hastened by fears over dwindling supplies, “especially our beere.” The Puritans pointed fingers at the Pilgrims who hide the beere in iron pots.

1810 – Englishman Peter Durand introduces a method for sealing food in “unbreakable” tin cans.

1842 – Golden lager launched in Plzen, Bohemia. “Girls Night Out” Pilsner Urquell drunken karaoke is invented.

1844 – Milwaukee brewery later to become Pabst Brewing Company opens. Many years in the future, Portland hiccups.

1912 — The first commercial canning establishment in the U.S. was started by Thomas Kensett.

1935 — Krueger Brewing Company of Richmond, Virginia walked into a grocery store carrying a steel can that weighed in at almost 4 ounces and opened with a church key.

2003 — Dale Katechis, founder of Oskar Blues Brewery, cans Dale’s Pale Ale, Oskar Blue’s flagship American pale. The Canned Beer Apocalypse begins.

2009 — 7 Seas Brewing is the first craft brewery in Washington state to can its beer.

2013 — Bale Breaker Brewing releases Field 41 Pale Ale and Topcutter IPA in cans.

December, 2018 — Bale Breaker releases new can designs for its core four beers: Topcutter IPA, Bottomcutter IIPA, Field 41 Pale Ale and Leota Mae IPA. Each new can features an icon distinctive to each type of beer to help it stand out in the lineup of other craft brews down the beer aisle. They named the Topcutter IPA and Bottomcutter IIPA after the unique tractors used during harvest to remove hop vines from both the ground and the top of the trellis. The Field 41 Pale Ale after the hopfield their family plowed down to build the taproom, and the Leota Mae IPA after the woman who started it all for them back in 1932 — the year before Prohibition ended. Each can features the tagline, Fresh of the Farm that embraces the brewery’s rich history in hop farming in the Yakima Valley. One thing that stays the same however is each of the beer’s recipes.

Dec. 20, 2018 — Peaks and Pints will host a Bale Breaker can label artwork release party from 3:30-5:30 p.m. Bale Breaker will park their RV outside Peaks and Pints with all the matching apparel and other new brewery merchandise. In addition to the mountain of cans, we’ll tap a few fun tasty Bale Breaker beers on our Western red cedar tap log.

BALE BREAKER NEW CAN DESIGN RELEASE PARTY, 3:30-5:30 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 20, peaks and Pints, 3816 N. 26^th St., Tacoma, no cover