6-Pack of Things To Do In Tacoma: Sept. 8-14, 2025

Because this week Tacoma explodes in a kaleidoscope of excess and ache: fresh-hop steins and Bavarian hymnals clashing in foamy delirium, polyester saints resurrected under mirrorballs, Downton chandeliers trembling with scandal, mercaditos spilling sabor and soul, a moon festival glowing against the Sound like a lantern-lit heartbeat, and Everclear screaming us back into the sun-bleached roar of 1995.

Fresh Hoptoberfest: The Ninth Pour | Through Sept. 30

September in Tacoma means one thing: Peaks & Pints turns into a shrine of malt and resin, where Yakima’s hop harvest collides head-on with Bavaria’s lager gospel in a 30-day delirium of steins and sticky fingers. For the ninth year, Fresh Hoptoberfest floods our taps with four unshakable pillars—two fresh hop ales thrumming with just-picked lupulin lightning, two Oktoberfests humming malted caramel nostalgia straight out of Munich’s centuries-old songbook. No days off, no pumpkin spice distractions (OK, maybe Tap #23), just the raw, fleeting electricity of beer in its seasonal prime. There will be dessert pretzels. There might be polka. There could even be Bavarian techno sneaking onto the playlist when the night grows long. 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 now, drink it greedy, because once the Ninth Pour fades into late October, it’s gone for another year. Oktoberfest meets fresh hops, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily through September, Peaks & Pints, Basecamp Proctor, Tacoma, no cover, just pours

Brickhouse at Jazzbones | Friday, Sept. 12

Summon the wigs, unearth the bell-bottoms, polish those platform heels until they glint like a Studio 54 fever dream—because Brickhouse, local perennial kings of disco revival, are about to detonate Jazzbones into a swirling glitterball of nostalgia. For 25 years, these funk shamans have been channeling the saints—KC & the Sunshine Band, Kool & the Gang, Earth, Wind & Fire, the falsetto phantoms of the Bee Gees—until the walls drip polyester and the dance floor buckles beneath the weight of pure groove. This is no tribute show—it’s time travel, soul medicine, a reminder that sometimes the only cure for modern dread is a four-on-the-floor bassline and the unapologetic shimmer of sequins under stage lights. Get Down On It, Doors at 8, music at 9, 21+, Jazzbones, 2803 6th Ave., Tacoma, GA advance $21.61.

Peaks & Pints Cooler Prefunk: Before Brickhouse cranks Jazzbones into polyester combustion, sweeten your Saturday groove with Second Chance Brewing’s Fistful of Gummies—a fruit-candy riot in liquid form. It’s juicy, tart, mischievous, and somehow perfectly in step with the era: after all, Haribo’s “modern” Goldbears first hit the shelves in 1975, the very same year disco ball fever broke across America. So picture it—Bee Gees falsettos soaring, bell-bottoms blazing, KC & the Sunshine Band commanding you to shake, and a fistful of neon gummy bears dancing right along. That’s this beer in a glass: edible nostalgia, liquid glitter, your personal soundtrack to platform shoes and polyester redemption.

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale | Friday–Sunday, Sept. 12–14

The Crawleys are finally hanging up their silverware, but not before one last chandelier-lit waltz across scandal, legacy, and inherited melodrama. Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale unfurls in the early 1930s, as Lady Mary stares down a divorce scandal sharp enough to rattle teacups while Robert Crawley surrenders the estate’s reins, the old guard yielding to a jittery new world. Expect the usual pageantry—Highclere Castle glowing like a secular cathedral, wardrobes that could bankrupt Paris, dialogue as barbed as it is devastating—plus a farewell that doubles as an elegy for Dame Maggie Smith’s indomitable Dowager Countess. It’s pomp, ache, and closure in equal measure, staged with the lush self-seriousness only Julian Fellowes can wring from a drawing room. And where better to watch it than Proctor’s own Blue Mouse Theatre, velvet-worn and utterly ready for your sighs, gasps, and suppressed sobs. Film, Blue Mouse Theatre, Proctor District, Tacoma, showtimes at bluemousetheatre.com

Peaks & Pints Cooler Prefunk: Before you slip into Highclere Castle’s chandelier glow and brace for Dame Maggie Smith’s last razor-edged quip, fortify yourself with the brooding elegance of Samuel Smith’s Taddy Porter. Dark, creamy, and steeped in Yorkshire gravitas, it pours like mahogany velvet and tastes of roasted malt, cocoa whispers, and faint smoke—an ale that carries its own Dowager Countess energy in liquid form. It’s less a beer than a study in restraint and depth, the perfect palate armor before Downton’s final swirl of scandal, pomp, and whispered heartbreak. One sip and you’re ready to face Julian Fellowes’ grand finale with the proper mix of dignity and indulgence.

Festival Herencia Latina | Saturday, Sept. 13

Tacoma Armory transforms into a five-hour kaleidoscope of sabor and soul as Tacoma Arts Live and Latinx Unidos of the South Sound throw down Festival Herencia Latina—a mercadito of handmade treasures, a feast of tamales, empanadas, pupusas, and street food heat, a soundtrack of live bands and folklórico dancers that makes the walls vibrate like a heartbeat. It’s art booths and bilingual books, kids painting their own papel picado, comedy riffs colliding with cumbia, advocacy orgs swapping resources between beats, and the kind of joyful chaos where cultures don’t just meet, they braid into something brighter. Free, all ages, and unapologetically alive, this is Tacoma’s Latine heritage in full technicolor pulse, equal parts history lesson, family reunion, and block party you didn’t know you needed. Festival Herencia Latina, 12–5 p.m., Tacoma Armory, 1001 S. Yakima Ave., Tacoma, free, all ages, details at tacomaartslive.org

Peaks & Pints Cooler Postfunk: After the last folklórico skirt has twirled and your pockets still rattle with mercadito treasures, drift back to Peaks & Pints and smooth out the day with Wren House La Clara Mexican Lager. Clean as sunlight on tiled floors, crisp as fresh lime over street tacos, it’s the kind of beer that doesn’t compete with your festival memories but quietly amplifies them—refreshing, balanced, and just sly enough to remind you that joy often tastes best when it’s simple and cold. Think of it as the encore you didn’t know you needed: a pint that hums with the same easy rhythm the Armory just drummed into your chest.

Tacoma Moon Festival | Saturday, Sept. 13

Consider this: Tacoma’s Chinese Reconciliation Park gets swallowed whole by a giant glowing moon for five hours—1 to 6 p.m.—and refuses to behave. Tacoma Moon Festival is the city’s annual mid-autumn juggle of lion dancers, cumbia meets kabuki, pop-up mercaditos, lanterns lifting like helium prayers, and the Moon Princess herself escorting the evening sky into ceremony. Since its inaugural 2012 whisper, this has grown into a multicultural billboard for Tacoma’s immigrant soul—families handing out mooncakes, kids chasing craft stations, stage acts from China, Japan, India, Brazil, and the Philippines, plus a citizenship welcome mid-festival that makes the laws of gravity feel… optional. It’s heritage doing cartwheels, cultures colliding in tapestry, and connection glowing brighter than any moon-lit sky. Tacoma Moon Festival, 1–6 p.m., Tacoma Chinese Reconciliation Park, 1741 N. Schuster Pkwy, Tacoma—free, family-friendly, and lit.

Peaks & Pints Cooler Postfunk: After the drums quiet and the Moon Princess has bowed the sky into darkness, slip back into Peaks & Pints for a pour of Japas Cervejaria’s Neko IPA. Brewed in homage to the Maneki Neko—the beckoning cat of luck—it’s a bright, citrus-laced IPA (5.7%) that drinks like fortune itself just raised its paw in your direction. Light enough to glide after a day of mooncakes and lion dancers, bold enough to remind you that heritage can purr, claw, and sparkle in your glass all at once. Consider it your post-festival amulet in liquid form: luck, laughter, and lupulin, all summoned with a single sip.

Everclear Sparkle and Fade 30th Anniversary Tour | Sunday, Sept. 14

Thirty years later, and Art Alexakis is still sneering into the mic like the ’90s never ended, dragging Sparkle and Fade back onto the stage with all its sun-bleached bitterness intact. The album that gave us “Santa Monica,” “Heroin Girl,” and “Summerland” is reborn loud, ragged, and unapologetic, a love letter to disillusion that somehow still hits like hope. Tacoma’s EQC Event Center will shake under the full nostalgia freight train—Everclear up front, with Local H and Sponge slamming open the time capsule like it’s 1995 all over again. Expect guitars sharp enough to strip paint, choruses that demand to be shouted until your throat gives out, and the kind of communal catharsis only three decades of radio anthems can deliver. Everclear, doors 6 p.m., show 7 p.m., EQC Event Center, 2920 East R St., Tacoma, tickets via Ticketmaster, photo credit Brian Cox

Peaks & Pints Cooler Prefunk: Before you hurl yourself headlong into Santa Monica catharsis and three decades of sing-shouted angst, steady your hand with a pint of Bale Breaker’s Topcutter IPA—the kind of West Coast bruiser that snarls with grapefruit pith, pine resin, and just enough malt backbone to remind you why bitterness is beautiful. It drinks like neon static, like the guitar crunch of “Everything to Everyone,” like a long drive with the windows down and your past chasing close behind. Exactly the kind of IPA to prime your throat for a night of screaming the lyrics you swore you’d outgrow but never did.

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