Beer gurus Matt McLaren (Orcas Distributing), and Ron Swarner (Peaks & Pints), and Bethany Carlsen (The Funk Busters) explore and celebrate the craft beer industry, community, and history in Tacoma, Washington, and surrounding Pacific Northwest region, with assistance from opinionated beer industry insiders, on the Grit & Grain Podcast every Friday on YouTube, Amazon, Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play, iHeartRadio, and Channel 253. The Grit & Grain records episodes at 3:30 p.m. every other Wednesday at Peaks & Pints craft beer bar, bottle shop and restaurant in Tacoma’s Proctor District. All are welcome to hang, drink along with them, and meet fascinating folks from our regional beer scene. Today, the Grit & Grain records a double episode: Urban Family Brewing Sales Manager David Maravilla discusses his brewery and his recent trip to the Great American Beer Festival at 3:30 p.m., followed by a review of this year’s fresh hop beers with Michael McCourt and Austin Padjents who drank 120-plus fresh hop beers this year. In conjunction, Peaks & Pints presents an in-house flight of beer of Urban Family and fresh hop beers — a flight we’re calling Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: Grit & Grain.

Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: Grit & Grain

Urban Family Dark Hymn

7.5% ABV

Sean Bowman, Timothy Czarnetzki, and David Powell founded Urban Family Public House in the heart of Old Ballard in January 2012. The partners initially served a range of styles from other breweries, but later devoted a few of their taps to house beers made on a 15-gallon system. A little over two years later, the renamed Urban Family Brewing traded Ballard for Magnolia and upgraded to a 7-barrel brewhouse. Andy Gundel started helping the company with social media and logistics soon thereafter, and in 2016 became a majority owner. In the years since, Urban Family moved back to Ballard into a 20-barrel brewhouse, a large walk-in space, an expanded taproom, and a larger outdoor area. Their Dark Hymn boasts notes of chocolate covered raspberries, with a delightfully rich and complex body, this beer will take you on a journey into the darkness.

Urban Family Treehouse In the City

13.6% ABV

Urban Family’s Treehouse In the City is a barleywine aged in ex-Madeira, rum, scotch, and whiskey barrels from Copperworks Distilling Co. It hits the nose with apple skin, sweet rum, molasses, buttery oak, burnt caramel, walnut, light pear, and earthy whiskey, followed by subtle brown sugar, sweet rum, molasses, vinous dark fruit, tannic red wine, and peat nuances to the medium-bodied finish, further obscuring a silky-smooth booziness.

Wet Coast Soppin’ Wet Centennial Lager

5.8% ABV

Wet Coast Brewing brewed a fresh hop zwickelbier this season. Refreshingly sessionable, the traditional German style (also referred to as kellerbier) has all the crisp, clean elements of a fresh pilsner, but because it’s unfiltered, there’s a slightly hazy appearance and a touch yeastier intrigue. Think of it like a hybrid of a cloudy hefeweizen and a slightly bitter pale ale. Wet Coast’s Soppin’ wet zwickel is brewed with freshly picked Centennial hops are added during knock-out to give Wet Coast Brewing’s Soppin’ Wet Centennial Lager that displays the delicate Centennial hop flavor and aroma, and provides a full, delicious mouthfeel. 

Everybody’s Head Stash Fresh Hop IPA

6.7% ABV

This year marks the 15th consecutive year that Everybody’s Brewing has worked with Loza farms to source their fresh hops. Loza is the only known Mexican American owned commercial hop farm in the U.S. Everybody’s raced fresh Simcoe from Loza back to the waiting kettle in White Salmon. Because they canned Head Stash, Everybody’s added the Simcoe to their whirlpool to provide plenty of juicy flavor while guaranteeing the quality of the beer. Inhale deeply to experience the bold, dank aroma of this year’s crop, followed by pine and citrus ­flavors of orange and grapefruit mingle. This year’s Head Stash won gold at the Best of Craft Beer competition.

Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale

6.8% ABV

Now that it’s toward the end of October, where do all the hops go? They’re currently hibernating in this yearly fresh hop seasonal from California’s Sierra Nevada Brewing. Amid the many big and malty winter ales, Celebration Ale provides a comfortable winter home for fresh Cascade and Centennial hops with a little Chinook, plus 25 percent of the dry-hop addition is still whole-leaf Cascade and Centennial in the tank, while the rest is recirculated via the torpedo. A little darker than the average American IPA, and dry-hopped for a lively, intense aroma, this ale has a citrusy, piney, and resinous hop character and a medium body.

LINK: Peaks & Pints beer and cider cooler inventory