Before Spokane had Lumberbeard, Bret Gordon had to escape the desk. The story begins with a familiar little craft-beer conversion: a Southern California finance guy discovers homebrewing at 21, realizes spreadsheets do not foam properly, and eventually goes back to school for a professional brewing certificate at UC San Diego — despite, by his own telling, having sworn he would never return to school. Beer, naturally, ignored this vow. Gordon then worked professionally in Southern California, including time at The Bruery, where creativity is less a department than a condition, before looking north toward Spokane, where family ties were already tugging on the sleeve. His sisters lived in the area; his father, Norman, became a partner; his wife, Hannah, helped shape the brewery’s voice; and in 2018 the Gordon family pointed the whole beautiful, slightly unreasonable dream toward downtown Spokane. By late 2019, after renovating the production space, Lumberbeard Brewing opened on East Third Avenue with a 20-barrel brewhouse and the deeply correct belief that Spokane was ready for more hop saturation, more personality, and more excellent nonsense in a pint glass.
What Lumberbeard specializes in, more than anything, is hop fluency with a Spokane accent: hazy IPAs that glow like tropical weather systems trapped under glass, West Coast IPAs with pine teeth and clean bitter posture, rotating hop experiments, collaborations, and beers that understand “fun” does not require technical sloppiness. The brewery became a family affair — Bret brewing, Hannah helping steer the public voice, Norman involved in management — but the beer itself speaks in loud little bursts of Citra, Mosaic, Simcoe, Idaho 7, El Dorado, cryo-hop vapor, and whatever fresh lupulin madness happens to be calling from the cellar that week. It’s not just haze for haze’s sake or bitterness for old-school suffering points. Lumberbeard tends to build beers that are plush without becoming lazy, aromatic without becoming perfumed wallpaper, and playful without forgetting that balance still matters even when the can name sounds like it was invented during a group text at midnight.
So Thursday’s Peaks & Pints Lumberbeard Flight wanders straight into that Spokane hop forest with both sleeves removed and absolutely no plan to behave. Tropic Mayhem brings the fruit-market portal. Cryo Sauna turns hop oils into wellness satire. Flavor Nuggets V19 offers rotating haze-lab mischief. Lupulin Reign climbs onto the bitter throne and starts issuing citrus decrees. Cut-Off Flannel IPA, our own beautifully vandalized house-beer energy, drags the whole thing back into Tacoma with pine resin, grapefruit peel, and the eternal truth that flannel is better when it has been slightly modified by questionable decisions. Five beers from a brewery built on family, risk, California training, Spokane grit, and the sacred Pacific Northwest conviction that hops should never be boring.
Peaks & Pints Lumberbeard Flight
Lumberbeard Tropic Mayhem
6% ABV | Hazy IPA | Spokane, Washington
The whole thing drinks like a tropical weather alert issued by somebody wearing mirrored sunglasses and holding a bag of fresh hops instead of emergency supplies. Mango nectar and bright pineapple burst forward immediately before softer layers of peach candy and passionfruit haze begin drifting through the body like humid motel-pool air carrying equal amounts of sunscreen, bad ideas, and distant synth-pop, the double dry-hopped structure staying lush and expressive while little flickers of citrus bitterness keep the sweetness from wandering completely off the rails, finishing radiant, juicy, and gloriously committed to vacation logic.
Lumberbeard Cryo Sauna
7% ABV | Hazy IPA
Cryo Sauna feels like somebody converted a Scandinavian wellness retreat into a tropical hop laboratory and then accidentally discovered emotional healing through mango saturation. Passionfruit, ripe berry, and glowing citrus surge across the palate first before waves of soft peach, tropical haze, and sticky orange sweetness begin drifting underneath like eucalyptus steam rolling through a cedar sauna occupied entirely by brewers discussing hop oils with alarming sincerity, the pillowy body staying smooth and vapor-soft while concentrated cryo-hop aromatics keep everything vivid and expressive without dragging bitterness across the finish, lingering juicy, radiant, and wonderfully overcommitted to the idea that hops might actually possess restorative powers.
Lumberbeard Flavor Nuggets V19
6.8% ABV | Hazy IPA
Somewhere between laboratory experiment and convenience-store fever dream sits Flavor Nuggets V19, glowing softly like a classified hop document accidentally left inside an arcade claw machine. Ripe citrus, mango pulp, and soft stone fruit spill across the palate first before flashes of pineapple candy and faint grapefruit bitterness begin ricocheting through the haze like neon reflections bouncing off wet pavement after midnight, the body staying cloud-soft and dangerously drinkable while the rotating hop blend — NZ Cascade, Citra, and Simcoe this vrsion — keeps everything fresh and energetic instead of collapsing into sugary fatigue, finishing fragrant, hazy, and suspiciously easy to keep ordering.
Lumberbeard Lupulin Reign
6.25% ABV | West Coast IPA
Every proper hop kingdom eventually requires a ruler slightly intoxicated by its own power, and Lupulin Reign steps onto the throne carrying enough pine resin and citrus authority to make lesser IPAs nervously reconsider their policies. Grapefruit peel, sticky orange zest, and sharp evergreen bitterness strike across the palate first before waves of tropical fruit, ripe berry, and faint candied citrus begin unfolding underneath like sunlight flashing off chrome motorcycle tanks somewhere outside a Spokane dive bar with excellent jukebox instincts, the Superdelic, Simcoe, Citra, Mosaic, and Idaho 7 hop combination building a structure that stays bright, dry, and aggressively aromatic without collapsing beneath its own hop excess, finishing crisp, resinous, and magnificently commanding in the exact way a beer named Lupulin Reign absolutely should.
Lumberbeard Cut-Off Flannel IPA
7% ABV | West Coast IPA
Cut-Off Flannel IPA — Peaks & Pints’ house beer — possesses the exact energy of somebody removing their sleeves with scissors five minutes before a backyard fire pit conversation about which Pacific Northwest city actually invented proper IPA culture. Pine resin and grapefruit bitterness land first before waves of tangerine, honeydew melon, and sticky citrus oils begin rolling through the palate like late-August campfire smoke drifting past patched denim jackets and half-empty coolers, the Simcoe Cryo, Citra, Chinook, and Idaho 7 hops keeping everything sharp and vividly aromatic while the bitterness stays structured instead of punishing, finishing crisp, unruly, and wonderfully unconcerned with its janky tap handle.
LINK: Peaks & Pints beer and cider cooler inventory
