Forest Beutel has been a nationally touring musician since he was 18 years old in Providence, Rhode Island. He played the drums in punk bands on the East Coast in his teens and early 20s. Then, he was drawn to the Pacific Northwest. He tried jamming his drum kit into his tiny Toyota Camry, but it wouldn’t fit. He did find room for his grandfather’s banjo, which ended up being his musical outlet after he landed in Tacoma. When he’s not playing banjo is his bands Barleywine Revue and The Rusty Clevers, Beutel is on stage as a soulful one-man band slinging banjo, guitar, harmonica, kick drum, and a hi-hat. A modern-day rambling man, his voice blends the high lonesome sounds of Hank Williams and Townes Van Zandt with gruff baritone vibrations akin to Tom Waits and Johnny Cash, making a twangy upbeat atmosphere that engages a crowd and gets folks off their blankets. Today marks Beutel’s final Tacoma performance before heading back to the east coast for nine months. He’ll open for the Joe Cook Blues Band at 5 p.m. in one of his favorite rooms, Kilworth Chapel, as park of the September Blues Vespers concert. Beutel is releasing his latest album at the show. The album Western Years has 11 original songs that he’s been writing for several years. He’ll have CD for sale. Stop by Peaks & Pints before or after the Blues Vespers show for our Forest Beutel tribute flight, Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: Forest Beutel Western Years.

Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: Forest Beutel Western Years

Belching Beaver Peanut Butter Milk Stout Nitro

5.3% ABV

Since track number 8 on Beutel’s new Western Years album is titled “Peanut Butter”, it’s only proper that a peanut butter beer is on this special flight. This San Diego-brewed, 2014 World Beer Championships silver medalist Belching Beaver Brewery milk stout hits a nostalgic note: Peaks & Pints remembers how good a creamy peanut butter sandwich tastes with a glass of milk. That same luscious, nutty peanut butter flavor flows alongside coffee creamer richness; slight coffee roast and peanut butter on our noses before a lightly roasted, bitter but creamy finish.

E9 Sapphire Bullets

6.6% ABV

Before opening Peaks & Pints with Robby and Justin Peterson, Ron Swarner ran the Weekly Volcano alternative newsweekly where he and his staff covered Forest Beutel’s musical career. Swarner told Beutel he was opening Peaks & Pints when the two were hanging outside the Engine House No. 9 in Tacoma, which was the former home of E9 Brewing before the brewery moved to the Tacoma’s Historic Brewery District. Therefore, it’s fitting an E9 beer is in this flight. Sapphire Bullets, a brand-new IPA formulated by E9 Brewing brewer Amber Machado, starts off with experimental hop HRC-003 on the hot side and finishes with heavy dry hop dose of Citra Cryo and Southern Hemisphere grown Motueka. Expect light citrus mingling with loads of tropical fruit and ripe peachy stone fruit.

Backwoods Cheap Entertainment, V2

5% ABV

Tonight’s Blues Vespers show, like all Blues Vespers shows produced by Dave Brown, is free; the bands play for whatever tips that guests offer in gratitude for the gift of music and song. A second fresh hop collaboration with Crux Fermentation Project, Backwoods Brewing’s Cheap Entertainment Volume 2 is a light, crisp, fresh hop lager this year.

Bale Breaker TrailBreaker

6.8% ABV

Since Forest Beutel adores IPAs, wrote a song titled “Peaks & Pints”, and has been a trail breaker for Americana music in Tacoma, we added our house beer, Bale Breaker TrailBreaker, to this flight. Peaks & Pints traveled to the Yakima Valley and Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood to brew our seventh house beer, Bale Breaker Brewing TrailBreaker IPA, which was first released at Peaks & Pints Seventh Anniversary Celebration Nov 1, 2023, and remains on tap until Nov. 1, 2024. We toured Loftus Ranches that ultimately grew the hops for TrailBreaker, and then brewed the IPA at Bale Breaker’s brewhouse in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. Brewed with Simcoe, Cryo Citra, and Cascade hops, this old school, amber-colored IPA has notes of pine and citrus.

Breakside Cowboys & Poets

7.1% ABV

The original cowboy poets based their poetry style on the experiences, culture, and lifestyle of cowboys in the American West. They used vivid imagery and descriptive language to convey the challenges, joys, and overall essence of cowboy life. Forest Beutel’s new album, Western Years, is based on his experiences, culture, and lifestyle in the Pacific Northwest, sung with one foot planted in country music of the past. Breakside Brewery’s Cowboys & Poets, a collaboration with Colorado’s Westbound & Down brewery, is a West Coast IPA brewed with HBC 586, which is now known as Krush hops, for exotic stone fruit and rhubarb aromas, plus Mosaic and Simcoe grounding the beer in familiar notes of resin and berry.

LINK: Peaks & Pints beer and cider cooler inventory