Here are a few things you might not know about Parkway Tavern manager Sean Jackson: He eats Belgian waffles every morning with a side of barleywine syrup; a statue of Manneken Pis of Brussels, the Belgian national symbol depicting a peeing boy, waters Jackson’s home backyard hop plants; he eats his fries with mayo; Jackson loves flower carpets; he named his first homebrewed “Much to my Chimay.” It’s not shocking to learn Jackson chose a Belgian blonde for his second collaboration with E9 Brewing, titled SJ² Project. It’s also not shocking E9 invited Jackson to their brew deck. He was
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.17.21 How about a lil’ Peaks and Pints midweek cooler check to get you over the hump? Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.17.21 offers some fresh and exciting new beers today. … AleSmith Brewing Tower of Flower: Collaboration with Beachwood Brewing, this West Coast style IPA is double dry-hopped with Galaxy, Cashmere, and Nelson hops for intense notes of passionfruit, citrus, peach, and melon, 6.8% Breakside Brewery Noble Pilsner: Bohemian-style pilsner with a clear golden body, freshly baked bread, floral and mild herbal bite, classic noble hop presence layered within a
Consider the saison. History did. During the 19th century, Belgian farmers brewed saisons, or “farmhouse ales,” using the leftover grains from the fall harvest. In fact, not only did farmers decrease leftover grains (and keep busy during the non-growing months) but also livestock ate the spent grain feed, and seasonal workers drank during the hot summer months to stay hydrated. That’s what you call a win-win. And back then, saisons only clocked in at about 3.5% ABV, making it a sessionable, hydrating beer during warm weather. The reason for so much of the funky yeast commonly found in saisons? Farmers
“Invention, my dear friends, is 93 percent perspiration, 6 percent electricity, 4 percent evaporation, and 2 percent butterscotch ripple.” Those are the words of Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory. Brewing beer could be said to be much the same, especially these days, when creative beer makers are using all kinds of sweet treats in their recipes, from candy and cookies to cereal and cinnamon rolls. While the notion of a sweet beer may be sickening to those who prefer their hops, malt, and water to be unadorned by ingredients more commonly seen in the sticky hands
The annual winter onslaught of Facebook photos from friends’ vacations to Hawaii, Mexico, or some decadent tropical destination never really irks Peaks & Pints. You’re sitting poolside in 72-degree weather — the temperature is always noted — drinking a Mai Tai and reeking of suntan lotion? Good for you, we guess. We’ll be hanging in Tacoma, where the winters are appropriately cold and gray, and the summers are superior to any other cities in the country. We think we’ll make it — especially with our Monday cider flight taking on a tropical theme. In a market dominated by high sugar
Be Dankful and Celebrate Toys For Tots Peaks & Pints announces the start of Be Dankful and Celebrate Toys For Tots — a week-long partnership with Sierra Nevada Brewing and Pierce County Toys For Tots, designed to celebrate the season of giving and enjoy delicious IPAs. Peaks & Pints will pour discounted pints of the Chico, California brewery’s Celebration Fresh Hop IPA and Dankful IPA and host a Marine Toys For Tots raffle drive Nov. 15-21 with a grand prize raffle party on the last day. Stop by Peaks & Pints Monday, Nov. 15 through Sunday, Nov. 21, donate a
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.14.21 Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.14.21. Go Hawks! Black Raven Brewing Splinters: Splinters starts life as Black Raven’s Second Sight Strong Scotch Ale before spending six months in Westland single-malt whiskey barrels for malty caramel, stone fruit flavors and woody character, 10.8% Icicle Brewing Peak Seeker IPA Series – Wonderland: The 2021 Gold Medal Winner at the Washington Beer Awards for American Strong Pale Ale, this fourth release in the West Coast IPA series features Cashmere, Mosaic, Citra, Azacca, El Dorado and Simcoe hops for notes and aromas of juicy
Instagram Outsider: Washington Beer Awards, Veterans Day, Brew Battle From medal winners to veteran salutes, from Georgetown vs. Georgetown to new beer releases, Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider returns today with a photo essay of Instagram posts from the past week. Be sure to keep tagging us @peaksandpints and @ciderofdestiny for your chance to be featured on Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider. Until we meet back here again next week, enjoy Instagram Outsider: Washington Beer Awards, Veterans Day, Brew Battle. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Incline Cider House Tacoma (@inclineciderhouse) View this post
The porter style originated in England as the popular preference of the porters who worked in the shipyards. The style, an ale, is commonly dated to the mid-to-early 1700s. Porter is often confused with stout, which is also an ale, because of its similarly dark appearance. But porters can range from brown to deep black, a result of the chocolate or smoked brown malts that are used in brewing. For a chocolate porter, many brewers use chocolate malt to simulate some aspects of chocolate flavor, but the addition of real cacao will provide the sought-after character: chocolate aroma and flavor
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.12.21 Welcome to the weekend! It has been a good week at Peaks & Pints full of new product and some great restocks. The dark beer is starting to roll in with the cooler weather. Get at Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.12.21. … Barlow’s Brewery Cocoa-Loco Mocha Porter: Brewed with Kafiex Roasters’ single-origin Brazilian cold brew coffee with added lactose and Ecuadorian cacao nibs, 5.5% Boulevard Brewing Nutcracker Ale: Winter ale with hints of molasses balanced by the spiciness of Chinook hops, 7.8% Evil Twin Brewing Christmas Eve at a
When Utah’s strict liquor and beer laws changed in 2008, entrepreneurs David Cole and Peter Erickson were able to pursue their longtime dream of opening Epic Brewing — a strong beer microbrewery in Salt Lake City, Utah, like those found in their home state of California. Having started an international aquaculture company in Utah in 1992, Cole and Erickson were no strangers to food and drink (and the art of making them well), so when they teamed up with acclaimed brewmaster and fellow beer geek Kevin Crompton, the trio immediately set to work brewing a carefully curated collection of strong
Classic signs that Christmas is right around the corner: Carols play on the radio, a deluge of holiday romance plots hit the screen, and Peaks & Pints suggests a to-go flight of Christmas-themed beers on Veterans Day. You see, ours is a country divided between head-in-the-clouds idealists and stick-in-the-mud realists. Of course, we are referring to people who love to celebrate Christmas early and others who only want to hear a bell jingle, jangle, or rock, two days beginning Dec. 24. Peaks & Pints falls into the early holiday crowd. Good news! Santa’s reindeers delivered Christmas beers to Peaks this
Sgt. (Ret.) Jared Wharton lifts a bin of ingredients to Col. (Ret.) Colin Miller as they brew Until Valhalla IPA 2021 at Forward Operating Base Brewing in Dupont. Photo courtesy of Facebook Army veterans release Until Valhalla IPA on Veterans Day Army Sgt. (Ret.) Jared Wharton loves beer. So does Col. (Ret.) Colin Miller, who served with the 2nd Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne). Today, Veterans Day, the Army veterans release Until Valhalla IPA 2021, which is also on tap at Peaks & Pints craft beer bar, bottle shop, and restaurant in Tacoma’s Proctor
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.10.21 Ooooooowheeeee do we ever have the goods for you on this dreary Wednesday. Days like this were made for beer drinking, and Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.10.21 has you covered, fam! Check these out … 7 Seas Brewing Gimme Gimme: Collaboration with Big Gin, this Belgian-style golden strong ale is aged in peated gin barrels, then conditioned on citrus peel and ginger root for delicate notes of peat, spice, and citrus zest — a beer version of a gimlet, 8.7% Abomination Brewing Everyday Fog: Soft and creamy double dry
Today, Nov. 10, has been designated Vanilla Cupcake Day by someone. Nobody knows exactly who, and who cares? The real question is why it’s not a national holiday. According to NationalDayCalendar.com, cupcakes can be traced back to 1796, when there was a recipe for “a cake to be baked in small cups” in American Cookery by Amelia, Simmons, a great woman. They were originally baked in heavy pottery cups — sounds like a messy cleanup. The paper cups are less fussy. Vanilla beans, like coffee and chocolate, only proliferate naturally in tropical latitudes, and, like wine grapes, the various strains reflect the
Sig Brewing releases Oak + Age: The Mighty Baryshnikov Baltic Porter It’s a beautiful beer. Boozy aroma leads to notes of chocolate milk, oak, maple, dark fruit, and molasses. Aged in Copperworks Whiskey barrels, it’s not Jeff Stokes first barrel aged beer, but Oak + Age: The Mighty Baryshnikov Baltic Porter takes the stage as Sig Brewing Company’s first barrel-aged bottle release. Stokes released many barrel-aged bottles during his time as head brewer at Three Magnets Brewing in downtown Olympia. When he helped open Sig in Tacoma’s Historic Brewery District last spring, he took time away from handing out mason
The state of Idaho has two distinct hop growing areas — the sunny reaches of the high desert in the south and the somewhat damper climes of the panhandle — making the Gem State ideal for growing the pungent beer ingredient and preservative. According to USA Hops, Idaho ranks second in hop production nationwide with 17.19 million pounds. In southern Idaho’s Treasure Valley, the long summer days and warm weather allow for hops high in alpha acids. The higher the alpha acid percentage or rating, the more bitter the beer. In Treasure Valley sits the city of Caldwell, home of
As you set your sights and stomach on your Thanksgiving feast; consider cranberries. No doubt you’re thinking turkey or roast ham, mashed taters, glazed carrots, finger stuffing black olives, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, and Yorkshire pudding, but don’t forget the most important condiment: cranberry hard cider. You should have saw that coming. After all, it’s Monday, which means Peaks & Pints suggests a cider flight to-go. Cider has roots in the holidays after all — going back to the Middle Ages, people would go wassailing to orchards in the English countryside, chanting recitations in hopes of spurring a good harvest in
It’s strange the 2021 Washington Beer Awards were held this weekend in Puyallup — but then again, all of 2021 has been strange for craft brewers, who have had to deal not just with the effects of the continuing pandemic, but also with a staffing shortage, a can shortage, social issues, and festivals that have been canceled, rescheduled, and then canceled again. Despite being forced to cancel the festival portion of Washington Beer Awards — the Washington Brewers Festival held at Marymoor Park in Redmond during Father’s Day Weekend — the Washington state brewing community rallied together to make this
Craft beer is best fresh. If you drink a fresh hop IPA the day it is bottled or canned, it will be at its peak. Never again will it taste so good. Day by day, by degrees, its lushness will fade. Beer, unlike vinegar and Pop Tarts, is not a fixed food product. So why then do brewers barrel-age beer? Because the barrel’s porous, wood allows for very slow oxidation, which can make darker, malty beers more complex. Wood can also host microflora, bacteria that add the sourness to wild ales and lambics. The barrel’s former resident — the wine
Poland is currently the third biggest producer of beer after Germany and the UK, with the third biggest consumers of beer after Germany and the Czech Republic. Yet, their beer scene is relatively small. Unlike countries such as Germany or England, where you can find breweries in pretty much every town and city, Polish beer tends to come from just a small group of breweries, including Browar Fortuna, which was built in 1889 at the behest of the town leadership of Miloslaw. The steam powered brewery was technologically advanced as any brewery in the world at that time. During World
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.3.21 It’s the middle of the week, and what better way to climb over that hump than with Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.3.21. Cheers! E9 Brewing Sekiu BA Barleywine: Aged in Heaven Hills Bourbon barrels for 12 months, this classic English barleywine offers notes of dried fruit and fig with rich caramel lingering on the palate, 10% Grand Teton Brewing Black Cauldron: Imperial Stout with beechwood-smoked malt, caramel, roasted malts and subtly spiced with American Chinook and Styrian Goldings hops, 9.5% Grand Teton Mocha Porter: Brewed with fresh Alpine Air
In the centuries before temperature controls, grain for brewing was dried over an open flame, imparting a smoky quality to the resulting malt. Over the years, brewers have learned ways to keep that often acrid flavor out of their beers. In Bamberg, Germany, the rauchbier (smoked beer) tradition is still going strong with a handful of breweries that produce different types of smoked beers, including Schlenkerla Rauchbier Märzen. While the beers of Bamberg are almost exclusively lagers, most American smoked beers have a dark ale as their base. Porters are most common, the most iconic of which is Alaskan Brewing
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.2.21 Wall o’sippers! Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock includes the latest Four Seasons monster from Mother Earth Brewing, Wayfinder’s Funeral Bock, Holy Mountain Primordial Sky Double IPA and more. Belching Beaver Brewery Dichotomy Double: Double IPA brewed with Idaho 7 and Galaxy as its two predominant hops sprinkled with Nelson and Citra for true hoppy bitterness and slightly sweet malt, 8.1% Breakside Brewing Cuddle Puddle: Northwest pale ale with orange and tropical fruit notes, plus a dry finish, 5.5% Dru Bru Bru Ski Patrol: Inspired by a Munich-style dunkel, this deep,
An extraordinary beer is always the right combination of essential elements. It’s beautiful, poured with care into the proper vessel for its style. It should be aromatic enough to encourage a swift, thirsty transfer of its potential goodness from nose to mouth. It should have a pleasant mouthfeel. And, of course, it must taste delicious. Peaks & Pints has poured many extraordinary beers over our five-year history, including the beer on tap during our 5th Anniversary Party tonight. But if you ask Peaks co-owner and beer buyer Pappi Swarner what beers he’ll crack open around his backyard fireplace with friends
Instagram Outsider: Halloween, Dry Ice, Dr. Nigel From tricks to treats, from Making Plans With Dr. Nigel to all the dry ice, Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider returns today with a photo essay of Instagram posts from the past week. Be sure to keep tagging us @peaksandpints and @ciderofdestiny for your chance to be featured on Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider. Until we meet back here again next week, enjoy Instagram Outsider: Halloween, Dry Ice, Dr. Nigel. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Boneyard Beer (@boneyardbeer) View this post on Instagram A post
Another scary Halloween is upon us. And, once again, it’s scarier than usual. We’re dealing with a pandemic and have to watch out for deranged anti-maskers and deadly overcrowded spaces. It’s enough to make you want to stay in and curl up with Food Network’s Halloween Wars instead. Because of COVID, many plan to spend Halloween trapped in their houses. If Halloween is your time to thrive, you can still have a good ol’ scary time at home. There are still pumpkins to carve, costumes to buy or make on your own, and scavenger hunts to be held inside the
You can stick your zombies, stuff your vampires, and ram your Frankensteins where the sun doesn’t shine. This Halloween is about one monster and one monster only-the chittering, flea-infested, nut-clutching, buck-toothed, beady-eyed demon-beast of the increasingly denuded urban treetop: our satanic friend the Proctor District Squirrel. You’ve probably noticed the little buggers getting extra excited — fighting, chasing each other, and squealing with devilish glee-as they scurry hither and thither in frenzied pursuit of their demonic master plan. Haven’t you felt the sheer visceral thrill of squirrelishness crackling in the air like some sort of evil rodent electricity? Head to
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 10.29.21 Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 10.29.21 includes Sierra Nevada’s Fresh Hop Celebration in cans, Bale Breaker’s winter IPA, Hoof Hearted’s Discount Nachos IPA, Skookum’s Scary Joy and others. … Abomination Brewing Harvester: Fruited sour brewed with strawberry, kiwi, and pear, 7.1% Bale Breaker Brewing High Camp: Named for the ski lodge atop of White Pass Ski Resort, this winter IPA is brewed with chocolate and rye malts, then dry-hopped with Mosaic, Simcoe, and experimental hop HBC 630 hop for aromas of caramel, coffee, citrus, pine, and spice, 7.3% Culmination Brewing
Since opening in August 2017, Dwinell Country Ales has been named one of the “The Six Best Washington Breweries Outside Seattle” by The Stranger, as well as “Top Three Small Breweries” in the country by beer writer Jeff Alworth for Craft Beer & Brewing magazine. Located in downtown Goldendale, Washington, Dwinell founder Justin Leigh not only brews Belgian style farmhouse ales, but also mixed-culture beers, delicately hopped rustic ales, barrel-aged “country ales” aged in barrels from nearby wineries in the Columbia River and Yakima Valleys, natural wine, and French style ciders. Last year, Leigh planted Domaine, an heirloom French apple
Sunny Parsons founded Heathen Brewing in 2012 in a converted barn near his home in outer Vancouver. With “Progressive Ales for the Promiscuous Palate” as the mission statement, Parsons and co-owner and head brewer Rodney Stryker made small batches with local ingredients basically in the backwoods before opening their Feral Public House, a 2,000-square-foot restaurant and taproom in downtown Vancouver in 2015. Then, in October 2016, Heathen acquired a 20-acre vineyard in Brush Prairie. It opened the following April. Heathen just unleashed their big barrel-aged beers, plus a smoothie sour with Great Notion. Therefore, it’s time for a to-go flight
If you visit peaksandpints.com, you know we observe pseudo-holidays and exploit them into beer flights. But today — well, today is National American Beer Day, an occasion we’ll let serve as an excuse to enjoy made-in-the-homeland brews. Not that we really need one. Last year, as the Brewers Association reports, the number of breweries in this country was at its highest since the 19th century — and many of those 8,884-plus establishments turned out some pretty innovative, complex, and downright delicious stuff. Beer was once the unfussy option, the tonic of the masses. On Cheers, Norm simply orders beer —
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 10.26.21 Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 10.26.21 includes the return of Alaskan Smoked Porter, Stone’s Xocoveza Tres Leches, Ecliptic eighth anniversary pilsner and more. … 21st Amendment Brewery Fireside Chat: Rich, dark, English-style ale with spices, 7.9% Abita Brewing Christmas Ale: Brown ale brewed with 10 types of malted barley then hopped and dry hopped with Columbus, Cascade, Centennial, and Amarillo for a nice piney and citrus hop flavor and aroma, 5.5% Alaskan Brewing Smoked Porter: Robust woodsmoke aroma backs up the beer’s name even from a distance with the flavor
October in Washington brings juicy plums, the smell of boiling Dungeness crab, and pumpkin spice lattes. But for beer drinkers, October still means wet hop beers. One of the most seasonally specific styles that a brewery can make, wet-hop (or fresh-hop — there isn’t a difference) beers are brewed with just-harvested whole-cone hops rushed from farms to brew kettles to capture the most vibrant flavors and aromas of these pungent flowers before they begin to fade. This limits the brewing period to the very short hops harvest season every August and September, with the bounty arriving in early October, at
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 10.25.21 Week 7 of the 2021 NFL season concludes tonight when the Seattle Seahawks play host to Alvin Kamara and the new Orleans Saints. Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 10.25.21 has your back for the game. Cheers! Bale Breaker Brewing Brewshed IPA: Limited release collaboration with Washington Wild with a portion of beer sales to benefit WA Wild’s Brewshed® Alliance to defend, protect, and restore Washington’s wild lands and watersheds. Dry hopped with Simcoe, Citra, Chinook, and Strata hops for pine, zesty citrus, melon, pineapple and gassy notes, 6.6% Block 15
Because cider is delicate, barrel-aged ciders are often either too light on cider flavor, or too light on added flavor. It’s been said barrel-aged ciders can taste like a tulip glass of water-down booze or a glass of expensive cider. But oak aging can be a useful technique to create balance in ciders made with more tart apples With oak, cider becomes micro-oxygenated from breathing and playing between the staves and outside air. It’s this process that imparts the smooth and rounded-out qualities that are the hallmark of an aged cider. Today, Peaks & Pints presents a to-go flight of
Instagram Outsider: Spooky Season, Pumpkin Prince, Sip Awards From Halloween prep to The Pumpkin Prince, from the Sip Magazine Best of the Northwest to a Fortune Teller, Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider returns today with a photo essay of Instagram posts from the past week. Be sure to keep tagging us @peaksandpints and @ciderofdestiny for your chance to be featured on Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider. Until we meet back here again next week, enjoy Instagram Outsider: Spooky Season, Pumpkin Prince, Sip Awards. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rachyl (@beersandbedtime) View this post
Born in the Hallertauer region of Bavaria, Germany, the Hallertau hop is found most commonly in German lagers, altbiers (German style brown ale), and Belgian ales. German hop researchers continue to tinker with the hop, creating a variety of strains. The hop usually has a second designation to denote where the hop is grown — the most common of these cultivars is the Hallertau Mitterfruh. Hallertau is one of four noble hops (also including Saaz, Spalt, and Tettnang), meaning that it grows in the wild rather than is selectively bred. Noble hops are best known for their flavor and aroma
Barrel aging is totally a thing. Well, it has been for centuries. Before industrialization, Europeans fermented beer in wood, stored and shipped in wood, and poured directly from wood. Beer spoiled often. Life was hard. By the mid-20th century, most breweries had happily traded their temperamental wooden barrels for the reliability and convenience of metal tanks. Beer spoiled less. Life was decent. However, brewers have long known that wood-aging can add flavor and depth to beer, especially if said barrel previously contained Kentucky bourbon, Jamaican rum, or Washington state wine. The result is a beer more complex than most, as
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 10.22.21 Another round of cans has made it into Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 10.22.21 for the weekend. The always reliable (and delicious) Great Notion is back with their newest round of sour smoothies, IPAs and a pilsner, plus more! Aslan Brewing Gold Goose Organic Canadian Lager: Brewed with Pilsner malt from Armstrong, B.C. and Aslan’s favorite low alpha European hop, triple decoction mashed, and fermented at 8°C, thoroughly aged and 100 percent naturally carbonated, for a clean, malty, good old days pale lager with just enough hops for balance, 5%
An impressive bomb cyclone is centered about 500 miles west of the Washington state coast. Thankfully, the storm is tracking north and may not have much of an impact on the Puget Sound. That said, expect today to be breezy in the South Sound with gusts up to 30 mph. Expecting the full force of the bomb cyclone, Peaks & Pints gathered a few winter warmers as our to-go flight today. These brews are not within a narrowly defined style; rather, they’re a broad range of beers that offer bold flavors, often with sweet maltiness and lots of alcohol. In
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 10.21.21 Did you hear a Bomb Cyclone of rain arrives to the South Sound this weekend? Does your refrigerator need more beer? Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 10.21.21 to the rescue! Holy Mountain Brewing Autumnal Rustic: Saison brewed with Pilsner, Munich, rye, purple barley, spelt, and Scots bere barley grains, then hopped with freshly kilned Local hops, with additions of Saaz, Cashmere and New Zealand Cascade for a classic, complex, dry, and yeasty farmhouse ale, 6% No Boat Brewing Illuminaughty: Double IPA brewed with massive late additions of Simcoe, Cascade, and
Happy National Apple Day! That’s right; Oct. 21 is National Apple Day. Apple pie. Apple sauce. Apple crisp. National Apple Day celebrates the apple in all its various forms and reminds us that apples are shiny, tasty, and healthy. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” “Apple of my eye,” and “as American as apple pie” are all very common phrases in our language. Be it good health, familiarity or love, all are used to denote something we hold to be very important to our concept of culture in America. They also call attention to a humble fruit that
“Invention, my dear friends, is 93 percent perspiration, 6 percent electricity, 4 percent evaporation, and 2 percent butterscotch ripple.” Those are the words of Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory. Brewing beer could be said to be much the same, especially these days, when creative beer makers are using all kinds of sweet treats in their recipes, from candy and cinnamon rolls to cereal and cookies. While the notion of a sweet beer may be sickening to those who prefer their hops, malt, yeast, and water to be unadorned by ingredients more commonly seen in the sticky
