Menefee Tree Farm just delivered … for the fifth consecutive year … a ginormous tree to Peaks & Pints in Tacoma’s Proctor District. It’s another beauty, which we’ll decorate soon. In the meantime, we constructed a Saturday Christmas tree beer flight in celebration of Menefee’s dedication to adding amazing aromas for the holidays. In 1980, Lou Menefee along with his son, Scott, began selling Christmas trees in the empty lot next to their house. Lou would drive out to Shelton, cut down trees, and load as many trees into his 1972 Datsun Pickup as he could. Then, he would drive back to his home on 72nd and Tacoma Avenue and lean the trees against the fences next door. Lou retired in 2012; Scott, his brother Jeff, and the kids run several lots today making everyone’s holidays bright, including Peaks & Pints. Stop by Peaks, grab Peaks and Pints Menefee Christmas Tree Beer Flight and drink a tree.
Peaks and Pints Menefee Christmas Tree Beer Flight
Hellbent Everglow Winter IPA
7.5% ABV
May 30, 2015, longtime friends and restaurant industry veterans Jack Guinn, Chris Giles, and Randy Embernate opened Hellbent Brewing Company in Seattle’s Lake City neighborhood. For years they homebrewed and toiled over their business plan. Then, they met Brian Young — award winning brewer, co-owner, and fast friend — who turned out to be the missing link. Their Everglow Winter IPA is brewed with pale malt and a touch of wheat and caramel malts and hopped with Simcoe, Azacca, and Chinook hops with spruce tips added. It’s a light coppered beer with fruit and berry flavors intertwined with pine and spruce.
Hellbent All Spruced Up
7.5% ABV
Hellbent’s All Spruced Up Winter Ale is a traditional winter beer, dark in color, yet has a mild malty richness. The hops — Citra, Chinook, and Cascade — along with fresh spruce tips add a citrus floral and “candy-like” aroma. Expect smooth caramel and spice up front, with spruce on the finish.
Sig Spruce Luups
8.2% ABV
A collaboration with Stemma Brewing, Sig Brewing‘s West Coast double IPA is brewed with Bravo hops and foraged spruce tips in the whirlpool/flameout of the brewing process. It’s then double dry hopped with Lotus and Simcoe Cryo hops — plus and more spruce tips — for a surprisingly light double with notes of citrus, white wine grape, resiny spruce, blueberries, and a sweet, hoppy finish.
Fort George Magnanimous IPA
7% ABV
Magnanimous IPA is a yearly offering, a joint effort once again between Fort George Brewery and Earth & Sky Farm in Oregon City. Brewed with real Grand fir Christmas trees, the IPA is a straight-up ode to one of the more pungent essences of the Christmas tradition. Hundreds of pounds of fir tips were picked, packed, and vacuum-sealed into 10-pound bags. We’re not sure if “O Tannenbaum” was blasting from the truck’s speakers, but we do know the fir was trucked back to Astoria and delivered to a dedicated chest freezer located in the basement of Fort George co-owner and brewer Chris Nemlowill’s home. It’s safe to assume the fir tips were nestled all snug in the basement, while visions of Magnanimous IPAs danced in Nemlowill’s head. When in the brewery there arose such a clatter, Earth & Sky Farm owners Tim Ensign and Jana Daisy-Ensign sprang from their bed to see what was the matter. Magnanimous IPA hit the kettles with generous amounts of hand-harvested Grand Fir trimmings and bountiful additions of Simcoe and Chinook for a noble blend of lush piney hops and fresh evergreen aroma.
Block 15 Hoppy Holidays
9.2% ABV
Brewed with a sleigh-full of Northwest-grown hops, sweet orange zest, and local spruce tips foraged by Block 15 Brewing, Hoppy Holidays’ seasonal flavors of pine and citrus blend with a hearty malt backbone to evoke holidays of past, like opening a gift box of citrus under a holiday tree. Hoppy Holidays!
LINK: Peaks & Pints beer and cider cooler inventory
