6-Pack of Things To Do In Tacoma: Sept. 22–28, 2025
Because sometimes Tacoma doesn’t just stack a week of events, it unleashes a riotous buffet of hop-soaked rituals, gourd séances, sequined slashers, indie-sleaze sweat storms, haunted cantina fundraisers, and even a free forest run that makes your lungs taste like incense — all colliding in one glorious stretch where the city feels like it’s vibrating too hard to stay inside its own skin.
Fresh Hoptoberfest: The Ninth Pour | Monday, Sept. 22–Sept. 30
September in Tacoma means one thing: Peaks & Pints morphs into a shrine of malt and resin, where Yakima’s hop harvest collides head-on with Bavaria’s lager gospel in a delirium of steins and sticky fingers. Now in its ninth year, Fresh Hoptoberfest floods the taps with four unshakable pillars—two fresh hop ales thrumming with just-picked lupulin fire, two Oktoberfests humming malted caramel nostalgia straight out of Munich’s centuries-old hymnbook. No pumpkin spice detours, no half-measures—just the fleeting electricity of beer in its seasonal prime. There will be pretzels. There might be polka. There could even be Bavarian techno sneaking onto the playlist after dark. Call it ritual, call it madness, call it Tacoma’s annual equinox where hops taste most alive and lagers carry history in their foam. Drink it greedy, drink it now—because once the Ninth Pour fades into October, it vanishes like smoke. Annual autumn celebration, 11 a.m.–11 p.m. daily through Sept. 30, Peaks & Pints, Basecamp Proctor, Tacoma, no cover
Grit & Grain Podcast: Episode 160 | Wednesday, Sept. 24
First, our apologies: last week’s pumpkin séance was derailed when a co-host received some tainted pumpkin seeds, and we had to blow out the jack-o’-lantern candles before the mics were even warm. But fear not—the gourds are patient, the spice rack eternal, and this Wednesday the saga resumes. Grit & Grain Podcast drags its gear back into Peaks & Pints’ Events Room to unravel the spice-smeared, amber-lit history of pumpkin beer: colonial survival brew turned modern pie-in-a-pint, imperialized arms race turned cultural lightning rod. Beloved and reviled, kitsch and craft, nostalgia and novelty—Episode 160 tastes through it all with pints lined like orange lanterns on parade. Expect debate, laughter, malt-heavy digressions, and storytelling that makes you believe pumpkins were always meant for kettles as much as porches. Beer podcast, 3:30–5:30 p.m., Peaks & Pints Events Room, no cover
Tap #23 Pairing: Forget prefunk or postfunk—this one happens in real time. As the panel dissects the pumpkin beer paradox, you’ll be drinking the evidence: Tap #23, our Proctor Pumpkin Pandemonium soapbox. Cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, roasted gourd—it’s all there in the glass as the arguments fly, proof that sometimes the only way to understand a style is to drink it as it’s debated.
Cadaveret: Horror Icon Game Show & Burlesque | Thursday, Sept. 25
What if Freddy traded his glove for a feather fan, if Jason learned to twirl instead of slash, if Chucky decided the real carnage was audience participation? That’s Cadaveret — Ethereal Chaos Productions and Tacoma Arts Live’s deliriously unhinged mashup of horror, burlesque, and game-show mayhem, where the Tacoma Armory Roosevelt Room becomes a haunted cabaret of trivia battles, absurd challenges, and sequined slasher struts. Contestant tickets put you on the chopping block (and maybe on stage), while audience tickets let you cheer, gasp, and scream-laugh as icons of the VHS altar shimmy through camp, kink, comedy, and chaos. It’s part haunted sideshow, part burlesque fever dream, wholly Tacoma—and the blood looks fabulous. Game show, 7–9 p.m., Tacoma Armory Roosevelt Room, 1001 S. Yakima Ave., Tacoma, $21 audience / $31 contestant, tickets at tacomaartslive.org
Peaks & Pints Cooler Prefunk: Before Freddy wiggles his feather fan and Jason pirouettes in sequins, brace yourself with a can of Evil Twin Even More Jesus. This imperial stout is midnight made liquid—thick as stage blood, sweet as a forbidden wink from Chucky in fishnets, boozy enough to make your trivia answers slur into prophecy. It drinks like velvet sin, like the backstage dressing room of a haunted cabaret, like dessert clawing back from the grave. One sip and you’re ready for Cadaveret’s riotous spectacle—and the realization that sometimes the most fabulous horror is best met with a glass as dark and decadent as the show itself.=
Tacoma Runners Free Saturday 5K | Saturday, Sept. 27
Forget entry fees, timing chips, or official bibs — Tacoma Runners’ Saturday ritual is pure community joy: a free, rollicking 5K dash (or stroll, or dog-trot) through Point Defiance Park’s car-free forest roads. Starts sharp at 8 a.m. just beyond the first gate on Five Mile Drive, where the trees arch overhead like green vaults and the hills will make you question your life choices before rewarding you with vistas and downhill glides. All speeds welcome, four-legged companions encouraged, no excuses accepted. It’s Tacoma at its best: sweaty, scenic, and stubbornly generous, a reminder that the city runs on legs and lungs as much as lattes and lagers. Community run, 8 a.m., Point Defiance Park, 5700 Five Mile Dr., Tacoma, free, register once via tacomarunners.com
Peaks & Pints Cooler Postfunk: After your legs are happily toasted and your lungs have burned their forest sermon, then you’ve earned something frosty. Grab a can of Reuben’s Brews Pilsner from the cooler — crisp, clean, and restorative, the lager equivalent of a cold splash of water straight from the Cascades. Post-run, it tastes like clarity itself: malt as backbone, hops as punctuation, carbonation as applause. It won’t undo the hills, but it’ll remind you why they felt so good in the first place.
Haunted Cantina: Tacoma Halloween Parade Fundraiser | Saturday, Sept. 27
Step into the shadows, Tacoma, and let The Church Cantina do what it does best: turn tequila and candlelight into a séance for the unholy and the hilarious. This is no ordinary night out — it’s a carnival of tarot decks shuffling the future, terrariums sprouting like haunted souvenirs, raffle prizes tempting your soul, and music that howls until the walls sweat. Costumes are encouraged (because of course they are), and every scream, spell, and sip funnels straight into the 2nd Annual Tacoma Halloween Parade, set to unleash its spooky street fair on Proctor next month. Call it a haunted mixer, call it Tacoma’s rowdiest dress rehearsal for October. Just remember: the blood looks fabulous. Spooky fundraiser, 7:30 p.m., The Church Cantina, 5236 S. Tacoma Way, Tacoma, 21+, photo courtesy of Facebook
Peaks & Pints Cooler Prefunk: Before you offer your fate to tarot cards and terrariums, brace yourself with Abomination Brewing’s Rotting Earth (2025) — a 9.3% double dry-hopped DIPA that drinks like an apocalypse in technicolor. Mosaic, Nelson, El Dorado, Citra, Columbus, and Galaxy collide in one dripping haze bomb, equal parts citrus glare and resinous menace. It’s lush, it’s brutal, it’s the kind of beer that feels like the floor just shifted under you — perfect armor for a night where Freddy twirls, Chucky struts, and Tacoma’s Halloween future gets conjured in feathers, sequins, and screams.
Sleaze Freaks: An Indie Sleaze Dance Party | Saturday, Sept. 27
Dig out the leather jackets, smear on the eyeliner, and pretend it’s 2007 all over again: Sleaze Freaks takes over Airport Tavern Music Hall with a sticky, glitter-smudged resurrection of the indie sleaze era. This is Tacoma’s chance to scream-sing The Strokes, pogo to LCD Soundsystem, lose your voice to Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and remember when Crystal Castles and electroclash bloghouse ruled the night. Airport Tavern’s floor becomes a Vice-magazine fever dream—skinny jeans, thrift-glam, cigarettes-as-accessory, heat-slick bodies bouncing off every bass drop—proof that the revival is real and it’s loud. Nostalgia? Absolutely. But also liberation: a reminder that before algorithms and playlists sterilized nightlife, the dance floor was chaos, sleaze, and communal release. Come messy, leave grin-slick, wake up buzzing. Dance party, 9 p.m., Airport Tavern Music Hall, 5406 S. Tacoma Way, Tacoma, 21+, $20.13 advance, tickets at whatthedance.com
Peaks & Pints Cooler Prefunk: Before you fling yourself into Airport Tavern’s eyeliner-smeared indie sleaze time warp, prime your system with a Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA — the beer that hit shelves right when Is This It rewired rock radio. Bold, sticky, unapologetic, it was the craft world’s shot across the bow in the early 2000s, just as garage rock and electroclash were teaching kids to sweat in basements again. Malty backbone, relentless hops, an almost arrogant density — it drinks like a Strokes riff translated into lupulin, sharp and swaggering, swaggering, and a little dangerous. Crack one, taste the era, and let it blur your edges just enough so that when LCD Soundsystem drops “Daft Punk Is Playing at My House,” you’re already halfway to 2007.
LINK: Receive the Peaks & Pints 6-Pack of Things To Do via newsletter
LINK: Peaks & Pints beer and cider cooler inventory
