Fort George 3-Way IPA 2026 Lands at Peaks & Pints May 18
The first sign of Pacific Northwest summer is not sunshine. The first sign is Fort George Brewery 3-Way IPA appearing cold in a draft line somewhere near saltwater while beer people begin texting each other like migratory birds who suddenly remembered exactly where they’re supposed to be this time of year.
Fort George‘s 2026 3-Way IPA officially lands at Peaks & Pints Monday, May 18, giving the South Sound one of the Northwest’s earliest release parties for the annual collaboration series that has quietly evolved from “popular seasonal IPA” into something much stranger, larger, and more emotionally loaded: a yearly state-of-the-union address for West Coast hop culture. Peaks & Pints will have cans at 11 a.m. Friday, May 15.
This year’s edition brings together Fort George Brewery in Astoria, California’s Shred Beer Co., and Spokane’s Uprise Brewing Co. for a 7% ABV West Coast IPA built with Mosaic, Mosaic Cryo, Citra, Citra Cryo, Simcoe, Simcoe Cryo, Chinook Cryo, Enigma, and Nectaron hops over a malt base of Gambrinus Pilsner malt, LINC White Wheat, and Weyermann Acidulated malt — a sentence that reads less like a recipe and more like someone trying to summon a weather system directly into a pint glass.
And honestly, that’s kind of what 3-Way IPA has become.
The series began in 2013 when Fort George teamed with Gigantic Brewing and Lompoc Brewing for an experiment in collaborative IPA brewing. At the time, brewery collaborations already existed, but Fort George pushed the idea further by involving three breweries instead of two — not simply for marketing novelty, but as a way to blend brewing philosophies, challenge assumptions, and force everyone involved to leave the comfort zone a little dented.
Over the years, 3-Way became a running archive of Pacific Northwest IPA evolution itself.
The early editions leaned classic Northwest: pine, grapefruit peel, resin, bitterness sharp enough to scrape the emotional moss off your internal architecture. Then came 2017 with Reuben’s Brews and Great Notion, the year the series pivoted fully into the juicy haze era and helped document the region’s changing relationship with IPA. Suddenly, softness mattered. Saturation mattered. Aroma mattered differently. The old bitterness arms race started giving way to texture, tropicality, hop oils, expressive yeast, and beers that smelled less like forests and more like fruit markets collapsing in slow motion.
Since then, every 3-Way release has functioned like a snapshot of wherever IPA culture currently lives.
Some years pushed modern haze. Some leaned back toward sharpened West Coast clarity. Others explored hybrid territory where bitterness returned, but cleaner, brighter, less punishing, less interested in proving masculinity through palate damage.
The 2026 edition feels deeply aware of all of that history.
This is not a nostalgia IPA pretending it’s 2012 again. It’s modern West Coast IPA after a decade of haze evolution, Cryo technology, New Zealand hop influence, and brewers collectively realizing that drinkability and intensity no longer need to fight each other in a parking lot behind the fermenters.
The result drinks bright, saturated, and fast-moving — citrus oils, tropical fruit, soft dankness, flashes of berry and stone fruit, crisp bitterness arriving late enough to feel refreshing instead of aggressive. It tastes engineered by people who understand that summer beer should still make you want another sip before you finish processing the first one.
Part of what makes 3-Way beloved among Northwest beer obsessives is Fort George’s willingness to openly workshop the beer before release through its Beta IPA program. Peaks & Pints followed those Beta pours closely leading into this year’s release, watching the recipe evolve through hop adjustments, Cryo additions, and refinement passes before the final version emerged.
Which makes the official release feel less like a random seasonal drop and more like the final chapter of a months-long public brewing conversation.
And for Tacoma, Monday’s party arrives with extra connective tissue thanks to Uprise Brewing’s involvement.
Founded in Spokane, Uprise has rapidly built a reputation for sharp modern hop expression while still carrying the kind of welcoming, unpretentious energy that fits naturally into the 3-Way lineage. Peaks & Pints will pour several additional Uprise keg beers during the release party, turning the evening into both a 3-Way launch and a broader showcase for one of Washington’s ascending breweries.
Which is exactly how these nights are supposed to work.
Not just “here is new beer.” More like: here is where Pacific Northwest brewing currently lives. Here are the people shaping it. Here is what happens when breweries from different corners of the West Coast build something together instead of competing for oxygen all the time.
And somewhere underneath all the hops and mythology and annual anticipation, 3-Way IPA still carries the simple emotional charge it always has: this beer means summer has started.
Not metaphorically.
Actually started.
Fort George 3-Way IPA Release Party
Monday, May 18, 2026 • 5 p.m. until the kegs surrender
Peaks & Pints
3816 N. 26th St., Proctor District Tacoma
No cover • 21+
LINK: Peaks & Pints beer and cider cooler inventory
