Like most beer festivals, Brew Five Three: Tacoma’s Beer & Music Festival will begin with a branded taster glass, thirsty drinkers sporting pretzel necklaces, the faint whiff of sunscreen in the air and the view of the saltwater shoreline, urban creek and canyon, and breathtaking mountains and Puget Sound scenery from Chambers Creek Regional Park. But once the organizer Tacoma Arts Live hands the guests the day’s tap list, the mood will shift. Some will grab for golf pencils and started crossing off old familiars while others start circling the can’t-misses from the 30 beer, cider, and mead booths. Many will grab an IPA and sip it while watching the Grit & Grain Podcast and bands live on the big stage. Today, Peaks & Pints presents a preview of Brew Five Three with beer from five participating breweries beyond Tacoma’s city limits. Stop by our craft beer and cider bar, bottle shop and restaurant, grab our Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: Brew Five Three 2024, and sip the deliciousness while purchasing your tickets on the Tacoma Arts Live’s website. Cheers!
Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: Brew Five Three 2024
pFriem Las Piñas
6.6% ABV
Seattle native Josh Pfriem began homebrewing while at Western Washington University in his early 20s then moved to Utah as a ski bum. He worked at Utah Brewers Cooperative for a few years before moving back to his old college town of Bellingham to brew at Chuckanut Brewery, where he helped win the Great American Beer Festival Small Brewpub of the Year in 2009. He moved to Hood River, Oregon to work at Full Sail but left in December 2011 to open pFriem Family Brewers — across the highway from Full Sail along the banks of the Columbia River — in August 2012. Barrel-aged with fresh, chopped Costa Rican pineapple, their Las Piñas golden hued fruited sour is your liquid passport to the tropics. It hits the nose with pineapple, white grape and jasmine followed by flavors of lemon, guava, and pine before a bright, tart, spritzy finish.
Victor-23 Cooper Country
5% ABV
On a stormy evening in November 1971, a man known as D.B. Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 flying from Portland to Seattle. In Seattle, D.B. released all the passengers once the plane was refueled and he was given 2 parachutes and $200,000 in cash. The plane soon departed, and the pilot was directed to fly south on the Victor-23 airway. Somewhere in Southwest Washington, DB Cooper lowered the rear stairway and parachuted to an uncertain fate. Victor-23 Craft Brewery in Vancouver, Washington, celebrates this unsolved crime and invites you to ponder the case over their Cooper Country light, dry, and slightly sweet lager.
Ilk Pretty Boy Shumway
5% ABV
Aubrey “Abe” Burt and Pat Jansen met working at Three Magnets Brewing where Pat was head brewer and Abe held multiple positions over the years eventually becoming the Three Mags’ sales executive. Together, they’re opening Ilk Beer in the old Fish Brewing complex in downtown Olympia. Their Pretty Boy Shumway hazy pale ale — a collaboration with Here Today Brewing in Seattle — is brewed with ginger and galangal.
Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout
5% ABV
Founded in 1758, Samuel Smith Brewery is one of the last remaining independent breweries in England. Samuel Smith is the last to utilize the classic Yorkshire Square system of fermentation solely in stone squares. Popular in the late 1800s, the last oatmeal stout was brewed before the First World War until Samuel Smith reintroduced this style in 1980. Oatmeal conjures stick-to-your-ribs fullness, but Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout is incredibly easy to drink. It hits the nose with sweet and roasted malt. The taste follows the nose with a big abundance of roasted malt with some sweet tones followed by a nice oatmeal flavor. It’s creamy and full-bodied with just a hint of graininess — and it just nails that almost-coffee, almost-chocolate flavor profile.
Monkless The Trinity
8.1% ABV
Organic chemist (Ph.D.) Todd Clement fell in love with traditional Belgian/Abbey-style ales during work trips to Antwerp. After spending 7 years in the pharmaceutical industry as a process chemist Clement moved to Bend, Oregon. When he couldn’t find his beloved Belgian-style ales, he began homebrewing them — his first batch a Belgian tripel. In 2014, he founded Monkless Belgian Ales with his friend Kirk Meckem who then left the brewery in 2016. Monkless is now owned and ran solely by Clement and his wife, Robin. The Trinity is a Belgian triple with a grainy malt, wheat, clove, and saison yeast nose. The flavor is husky grainy malt, clove, lemon, mild light stone fruit with a medium body, light creaminess, and sharp carbonation.
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