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 worship the dead, revel in the unknown, and rally for all that is scary: Halloween.
Being in the beer writing business, we decided to pay all the respect we could muster to this great holiday, and went on the search for scary brewery stories in the South Sound. First stop: Pacific Brewing & Malting Co.
The Pacific Brewing & Malting Company, formed in downtown Tacoma in 1897, grew to be one of the largest breweries in the Northwest with a stock house, cooling plant, stable, warehouse … several of the structures still stand today and are on the national registry of historic buildings. The Pacific Beer brand was hugely popular along the entire West Coast. Success was cut short by statewide Prohibition in 1916 and Pacific Brewing closed its doors shortly thereafter.
Now, nearly 100 years later, Pacific Brewing recently celebrated its one-year re-opening anniversary as the occupant in the lower level of the historic Old City Hall Annex Building on Pacific Avenue, near the corner of South Seventh Street in downtown Tacoma. The Old City Hall Annex Building’s age presented certain challenges that lead to opening delays, as was to be expected when building a brewery in 100 year-old building. In the end, all is well … or is it?
“I actually think there are a couple ghosts that hang around the brewery,” says Bethany Carlsen, new head brewer at Pacific Brewing & Malting’s Tacoma plant after the Tacoma brewery purchased American Brewing Company in Edmonds, elevating former head brewer Steve Navarro to director of brewery operations for both breweries. “At night, I see things out of the corner of my eye pretty regularly, or hear empty kegs being moved around when no one else is in the building,” add Carlsen.
Could it be the spirit of a creepy criminal of days gone by? The 7,800-square-foot Annex was built in the early 1900s as Tacoma’s police stable and storehouse.
Carlsen says she hasn’t seen anything too scary, even with the former jail sitting directly across a courtyard in the lower level of the dilapidated City Hall building. And, the spookiness unfolds only during the wee hours.
What scary Pacific Brewing beer can you drink this Halloween?
“I’m going to make a keg of Jake’s Blood Red Ale for Halloween,” says Carlsen, “our Red Ale infused with raspberries. Jake Bird was a serial killer that served time in the jail cells next door … before being executed back in the 1940s.”
Let’s hope the ghost of Jake Bird doesn’t flee the coop.
PACIFIC BREWING & MALTING CO., 4-10 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, noon to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday, noon to 6 p.m. Sunday, 610 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, 253.383.2337
