Robyn Schumacher drops wisdom on the Grit & Grain Podcast about building Washington’s beer future from the ground up. Mashing-In News: PNW Brewery Showdown, Robyn Schumacher Podcast GOOD MORNING, SOUTH PUGET SOUND! Friday, April 3, 2026 — Eddie Murphy turns 65 today! Good morning, South Puget Sound—today’s craft beer news swings from bracket-busting brewery battles and hop-world breakthroughs to pilsner plot twists, ballpark beers, and the quiet, stubborn math of an industry learning how to bend without breaking. Tournament of Beer Returns with PNW Brewery Showdown Peaks & Pints launches its 2026 Tournament of Beer: Best
Peaks & Pints bartenders Matthew Usher and Phaedra Miller discuss how this year’s Tournament doesn’t involve styles but actually the best brewery in Washington and Oregon. Peaks & Pints Tournament of Beer: Best PNW Breweries Begins! Some regions make beer. The Pacific Northwest makes breweries — strange, stubborn, rain-fed organisms that take root between mountain shadow and saltwater, between hop field and highway, between a brewer’s quiet obsession and a community’s need for somewhere to land at the end of the day. And that’s the thing, really. Beer is the product. Breweries are the story. Over
Long before beer became branding, before haze turned fluorescent and cans started yelling from coolers, there was Tadcaster — limestone water, old stone, and Samuel Smith’s Old Brewery quietly doing its thing since 1758. Not merely old, but enduring, Yorkshire’s oldest brewery and one of the few remaining independents in England, stubborn in all the right ways: water still drawn from the original well, ales and stouts fermented in stone Yorkshire squares, tradition handled not as relic but as something alive, tuned, and still very much in motion. That discipline is what gives Samuel Smith its peculiar gravity. This is
The Tacoma Runners run downtown Tacoma via Odd Otter Brewing tonight. The Daily Outside: Tacoma Runners 4.2.26 Tacoma Runners Thursday Run, where downtown miles loosen the week and Odd Otter waits at the other end like a very reasonable reward Tacoma Runners Thursday Run Hosted by Tacoma Runners Thursday, April 2, 2026 • 6:30 p.m. Odd Otter Brewing Company, 716 Pacific Ave, Tacoma Free • About 3 miles • All ages, paces, abilities, kiddos, and doggos welcome for the run. This is the social kind of run, the kind that treats mileage less like punishment and
Somewhere between a Nooksack River childhood and a Seattle brewhouse humming with low-end frequency and quiet ambition, this flight unfolds like a two-part meditation on place — one voice etched in mountain light and river memory, the other shaped by oak, weather, and a patience that borders on ritual. On one side, Kulshan Brewing, grounded and unhurried, beers that feel like they’ve spent time outside and see no need to explain themselves. On the other, Holy Mountain Brewing, where even the lightest pour carries the sense that something deeper is unfolding just out of view, guided by time, intention, and
From bird counts to pavement pounding — today’s Daily Outside ends where the trail softens, a crowler of Buckhorn Dry Cider resting on stone like a quiet Pacific Northwest exhale. The Daily Outside: Feederwatch, Fleet Feet Fun Run 3.31.26 Tuesday balances the equation — a little quiet noticing in a room full of birds and good questions, followed by a few easy miles to shake the day loose and let the body remember what it’s for. Feederwatch at the Tahoma Bird Alliance Office Feederwatch at the Tahoma Bird Alliance OfficeHosted by Tahoma Bird AllianceTuesday, March 31
The Peaks & Pints Tournament of Beer: Best PNW Breweries kicks off Friday, April 3, on Peaks & Pints’ Instagram Stories. 6-Pack of Things To Do in Tacoma March 30–April 5 March in Tacoma slips into April like a well-timed costume change — podcasts talking to brewers, bracket fever played out in Instagram confessionals, burlesque feathers catching low stage light, wetlands murmuring ancient plant gossip, roller skates flirting with gravity, and saxophones easing the evening open — and the whole week hums with that loose, lovely sense that the city is stretching back into motion, one
A small pause at the feeder — wings folded, eyes sharp, the whole wild world briefly agreeing to sit still. Photo courtesy of Andrey Larionov/Unsplash The Daily Outside: Feederwatch, Monday Night Fun Run 3.30.26 Monday splits the difference — a little quiet observation, a little forward motion — birds first, miles later, the kind of day that starts with noticing and ends with letting go. Mysteries of the backyard feeder Feederwatch at the Tahoma Bird Alliance OfficeHosted by Tahoma Bird AllianceMonday, March 30, 2026 • 2–3 p.m.Tahoma Bird Alliance Office, 2917 Morrison Rd W, University PlaceFree
Urban Family Brewing didn’t begin as a grand brewery plan so much as a small, slightly mischievous experiment in pouring good things for good people. Back in January 2012, Sean Bowman, Timothy Czarnetzki, and David Powell opened Urban Family Public House in Old Ballard — a taproom first, a gathering place with a few house beers quietly slipping onto the board from a humble 15-gallon system. It didn’t take long for that curiosity to outgrow the room. By 2014, the operation moved to Magnolia, upgraded to a 7-barrel brewhouse, and began the slow, steady transformation into something far more distinctive
Snowshoes on, pace slowed, senses turned up — a ranger-led wander at Mount Rainier where winter does the talking and every step feels like a quiet conversation with the mountain. Photo courtesy of Rainier Guest Services The Daily Outside: Guided Snowshoe, Birding Walk, Feeding Frenzy 3.29.26 Sunday softens everything — snow quieting the mountain, birds stitching the afternoon with small bright notes, and saltwater creatures turning dinner into a brief, delightful frenzy worth lingering for. Snowshoe into the hush Snowshoe Guided Experience Hosted by the National Park Service Sunday, March 29, 2026 • 11 a.m.–1 p.m.
Hops don’t just grow in Yakima — they loom, they hum, they perfume the entire valley with that unmistakable green electricity, fueling nearly three-quarters of the nation’s supply like some quietly heroic agricultural engine. Yakima has long known how to keep some of that magic close to home — Single Hill simply found its own way to pour it back with fresh intention. Enter Ty Paxton and Zach Turner, who first crossed paths at a cider pressing party in 2013 — because of course they did, this is Yakima, fermentation is practically a social language — and then, three years
WSU Extension’s hour-long veggie gardening presentation focuses on climate resilience in the home garden, using its tidy little EASE framework: evaluate your carbon footprint, adapt to climate realities, sustain soil health, and enjoy your garden. Photo courtesy of Unsplash The Daily Outside: Work Parties, Gardening, Guided Snowshoe 3.28.26 Saturday arrives with dirt under its fingernails and something like intention — a loose, generous invitation to step outside, touch the soil, rethink the yard, or wander into the quiet where snow softens everything it meets. Ursich Park Work Party, where civic virtue finally trades theory for mud
Before the haze glowed neon and the cans started looking like tiny altars to mango pulp and citrus lust, there was Fieldwork Brewing — founded in Berkeley in 2014 by Barry Braden and Alex Tweet, the latter arriving by way of a homebrew win, professional brewing chops, and the sort of palate that clearly has no interest in mediocrity. This was never some sleepy little one-style operation. It was built to move, to roam, to chase flavor the way certain people chase weather or records or the exact right taco truck at 11:17 p.m. — with devotion, appetite, and a
Finnriver Buckhorn Dry in a Peaks & Pints Campfire Crowler — crisp orchard apples, a clean Northwest snap, and just enough wild edge to feel like the breeze coming off Buckhorn Mountain on a clear day. The Daily Outside: Uphill Weekend, Feeding Frenzy 3.27.26 Saturday leans into the quiet work of wonder — lungs filling on the uphill and the slow realization that the Cascades aren’t asking you to conquer anything, just to pay attention. Uphill Weekend, where lungs burn sweet and the mountain teaches you how to listen Uphill WeekendHosted by Crystal Mountain Ski ResortFriday,
Grit & Grain hits Hood River for Double Mountain’s 19th anniversary. Mashing-In News: Double Mountain Party, Pickle Beer Day GOOD MORNING, SOUTH PUGET SOUND! Friday, March 27, 2026 — Quentin Tarantino turns 63 today! Today’s craft beer news moves from anniversary reflections and pickle-powered experiments to new brewery openings, cider collaborations, spring releases, and fresh looks for coastal classics. Grit & Grain Visits Double Mountain’s 19th Anniversary Party Grit & Grain Podcast Episode 182 features a visit to Double Mountain’s 19th anniversary party in Hood River, where the team sits down with the brewery’s crew to
Before the barrels, before the orbiting stout names and the quiet cult of people who plan their week around release days, there was Corvallis — and Nick and Kristen Arzner building Block 15 out of travel, cooking, brewing, and the stubborn belief that beer should be thoughtful, local, and worth paying attention to. Not hype, not haste, but a slower, more deliberate impulse — ingredients that matter, process that matters, and beer that lands exactly where it should. That intention settled in and grew, not louder, but sharper. Hop-forward beers shaping a region without needing to announce it. Lagers that
Tacoma Tree Foundation Executive Director Lowell Wyse will help translate trees at People’s Center today. The Daily Outside: Urban Forest Class, Tacoma Runners 3.26.26 Thursday slips between chalkboard and pavement — a day where learning wanders outside under leaf and sky, then laces up for a few easy miles through Proctor, chasing that small, perfect balance between thinking and moving. Clipboards & Canopy Dreams The Urban Forest in Your Classroom – Teacher WorkshopHosted by Tacoma Tree Foundation with Tacoma Public Schools and Tacoma CreatesThursday, March 26, 2026 • 4–6 p.m.People’s Center, Madrona Room1602 Martin Luther King
There was a moment — late March, 1933 — when breweries across America flickered back to life, kettles warming, bottling lines clattering, a low industrial heartbeat returning after thirteen long, unnecessary years of national restraint. The law hadn’t quite loosened its grip yet, but you could feel it coming, like carbonation gathering in a glass not yet poured. This is that moment. Not the party, not the roar, but the quiet, electric anticipation just before the first legal sip. Our New Beer’s Eve Warm-Up Flight lives in that space — where beer is still something to be respected, maybe even
The Northwest has a particular relationship with darkness — not the heavy, brooding kind, but something more alive, more layered, like forest shade flickering with light, like rain that sharpens rather than dulls. In beer, that instinct shows up as contrast: pine and citrus cutting through roasted grain, bitterness dancing with cocoa, everything balanced on that thin, electric line between depth and drinkability. This Northwest Dark Beer Flight wanders that line with purpose. It begins in the resin-soaked woods of Cascadian Dark Ale — all evergreen bite and citrus spark wrapped in midnight malt — then gradually loosens its grip,
A bee is doing the real work. Photo courtesy of Pexels The Daily Outside: Feederwatch, Native Bees, Puyallup Fun Run 3.24.26 Tuesday hums with small awakenings — birds named at last, bees invited back, and a few easy miles through town that remind you the world is alive whether you notice or not. Bird chatter, field-guide sleuthing, and the quiet thrill of finally getting the finch right Feederwatch at the Tahoma Bird Alliance Office Tahoma Bird Alliance Tuesday, March 24 • 2–3 p.m. Tahoma Bird Alliance Office 2917 Morrison Rd W, University Place Free • Drop-in
Finnriver Farm & Cidery is not one of those outfits that merely make cider and call it a day. It’s a full-on land romance, a living sermon to soil, creek, pollinator, orchard, and the ancient, holy weirdness of fermented apples. Tucked into 50 organic acres in Chimacum Valley along a salmon-bearing stream, the place hums with intention — part farm, part gathering ground, part ecological love letter written in bubbles and tannin. Apples here are never just apples; they’re watershed, history, community, and the quiet promise that the land still knows what it’s doing. That sensibility carries straight into the
Fleet Feet crew rolling through Proctor like a moving conversation — steady feet, easy miles, and just enough evening light to make Monday behave. Photo courtesy of Fleet Feet The Daily Outside: Birders Walk, Black Hills Audubon, Park Board, Fleet Feet 3.23.26 Monday hums with a quieter kind of momentum — birds in the morning, policy in the evening, a few miles in between — the sort of day where paying attention feels like progress and even the smallest step counts. Soft trails, borrowed binoculars, and the quiet thrill of finally knowing who’s making that sound
Before the tanks hummed and the taproom lights came up, there was a trail. Pure Project began, naturally, not in some polished boardroom of branding jargon and stainless certainty, but on a backpacking trip — two San Diego friends stomping through Colorado in 2013, talking beer, Costa Rica, local ingredients, hidden beaches, and what might happen if reverence and wanderlust opened a brewery together. The original dream bloomed in Manuel Antonio, then rerouted back to San Diego when jungle logistics proved less romantic than advertised, but the soul of the thing came home intact: seasonal ingredients, environmental devotion, a little
Snowshoes on, pace slowed, senses turned up — a ranger-led wander at Mount Rainier where winter does the talking and every step feels like a quiet conversation with the mountain. Photo courtesy of Rainier Guest Services The Daily Outside: Dog Days, Guided Snowshoe 3.22.26 Sunday splits its loyalties between paws and powder — a leash in one hand, snowshoes in the other, one path led by a very enthusiastic dog, the other by a very patient mountain. Leashes, wagging tails, and a wildlife park briefly handed over to the dogs Dog Days at Northwest TrekHosted by
Pizza Port began the way many California legends do: with a beat-up coastal storefront, some youthful nerve, and an almost unreasonable faith that pizza, beer, and sunshine could solve a surprising number of problems. In March 1987, siblings Gina and Vince Marsaglia bought a struggling pizza joint in Solana Beach, just north of San Diego. Vince started homebrewing in spare storage space, the hobby caught fire, and by October 1992, they were pouring their own beer on site, turning a beach-town pizza shop into one of Southern California’s defining brewpubs. That matters, because Pizza Port didn’t just arrive during San
All day — Pride in the Pow at Crystal Mountain / photo courtesy of Crystal Mountain Ski Rrsort The Daily Outside: MTN PRIDE, Work Parties, Beach Cleanup … 3.21.26 Saturday splits wide open — alpine glitter and drag at elevation, muddy gloves in neighborhood parks, bees and seedlings and saltwater bravery down at sea level — all of it quietly insisting on the same thing: get outside, pay attention, leave something better behind. Powder, pride, and a mountain weekend built on joy, visibility, and very good après MTN PRIDE: Pride in the Pow Hosted by Crystal
Saturday, March 21, Peaks & Pints pours 10-ounce tulips of the quietly feral, monk-blessed legend that is Orval — that golden valley miracle where wild yeast hums, hops whisper like old forests, and time itself feels slightly negotiable. Peaks & Pints celebrates Orval Day 2026 There are beers you drink because they’re cold, convenient, politely alcoholic. And then there is Orval — the strange, luminous monk of the beer world, humming softly to itself in a stone chapel somewhere between devotion and wild yeast delirium. One day a year, bars across the globe pause the noise,
Trillium Brewing began as one of those deceptively simple ideas that carries a quiet charge — take New England agriculture, old-world brewing reverence, modern hop obsession, and a distinctly Boston sense of place, then let it all ferment into something alive. JC and Esther Tetreault opened the doors in Fort Point in March 2013, naming the project after a wildflower and grounding it in a kind of contemporary farmhouse ethos — local ingredients, thoughtful hospitality, and beer that reflects where it stands instead of chasing whatever haze happens to drift by. Congress Street became both origin myth and megaphone, and
TopWire launches a beer club at Crosby Hop Farm, pulling drinkers closer to the source. Photo courtesy of Crosby Hop Farm Mashing-In News: TopWire Beer Club, Pelican Expands GOOD MORNING, SOUTH PUGET SOUND! Thursday, March 19, 2026 — Bruce Willis turns 71 today1 Thursday’s craft beer news moves from hop farm beer clubs and coastal expansion to major awards season, industry storytelling, and the economic pressures reshaping how breweries survive and grow. TopWire Beer Club Launches at Crosby Hop Farm TopWire Hop Project at Crosby Hop Farm will launch its new TopWire Beer Club on March
The Daily Outside: Free Parks Day, Bird Walk, Gardening, Tacoma Runners 3.19.26 Thursday throws the doors wide — no pass required, birds in the morning, dirt under your nails by dusk, and just enough daylight left to chase a few miles through Tacoma in something green and slightly ridiculous. Thursday loosens the gate — no pass, no dashboard guilt, just a clean invitation to wander Free Entrance Day at Washington State ParksHosted by Washington State Parks, Washington Department of Natural Resources, and Washington Department of Fish & WildlifeThursday, March 19 • All dayState parks and state-managed lands across WashingtonFree day-use
Stoup Brewing has always felt like a place where lab coats and pint glasses share the same hook by the door. Born in Ballard in 2013, it carries that quietly radical idea that beer can be both rigorously studied and joyfully consumed — chemistry humming beneath the surface while laughter spills across the bar top. Recipes behave like living hypotheses, balance remains the north star, and the lineup moves easily from crisp lagers to hop-bright IPAs to deep, contemplative barrel-aged stouts, each one tuned with a kind of scientific grace that never forgets beer is, first and last, for people.
This is an underwater adventure where you don’t have to commit to neoprene or the full-body chill of Puget Sound at night. The Daily Outside: Dirt Class, Indoor Gardens, Pier into the Night 3.18.26 Wednesday’s Daily Outside starts beneath your boots, drifts up to a windowsill, and ends peering into dark water — a day that begins with soil and ends with whatever curious, many-legged, softly glowing thing decides to wander across a screen. Compost, microbes, and the quietly powerful layer doing all the real work Compost and Soil: It’s All About What’s Below Your Feet
St. Patrick’s Day has a way of turning the ordinary into something faintly enchanted. The afternoon seems a little greener, the laughter a touch louder, and the simple act of lifting a pint suddenly feels tied to a centuries-old rhythm of celebration. Somewhere between old Dublin pub tradition and modern craft mischief lives this flight — a gathering of beers that nod respectfully to Ireland’s brewing roots while allowing a few playful interpretations to wander in from farther corners of the beer world. The Peaks & Pints St. Patrick’s Day Flight begins where many Irish beer stories do: beneath the
Lucky Envelope drops a PA-inspired lager, fresh WC IPA, and a gloriously weird pickle beer day. Photo courtesy of Northwest Beer Guide Mashing-In News: March Mildness Showdown, Attack the Block GOOD MORNING, SOUTH PUGET SOUND! Tuesday, March 17, 2026 — Rob Lowe turns 62 today! Today’s craft beer news moves from playful pickle beers and cross-country mild ale showdowns to brewery expansion, anniversary releases, massive tap takeovers, and the policy work shaping beer’s agricultural future. Lucky Envelope Drops Collab Lager, IPA, and Pickle Beer Event Seattle’s Lucky Envelope Brewing has released a Pennsylvania-inspired collaboration lager with
The Daily Outside: Treasure Hunt, Master Gardeners … 3.17.26 Tuesday’s Daily Outside stretches from snowy ridgelines to backyard feeders to the rich underground kingdom beneath your garden beds — a day that begins with a treasure hunt on a mountain and ends with a few easy miles through town, reminding you the outdoors is equal parts adventure, curiosity, and community. Treasure hunt clues and lift-served scavenging Red Bull Treasure Hunt Tuesday Hosted by Crystal Mountain Resort Tuesday, March 17, 2026 • All day Crystal Mountain Resort, 33914 Crystal Mountain Blvd, Enumclaw Open to all ages This is less organized ski
Founded in August 2020 by CEO Caitlin Braam, with cidermaker Monique Tribble helping steer production from the beginning, Yonder Cider arrived in Wenatchee like a cheerful little rebellion against boring apples. The mission: savory, slyly sweet, occasionally sneaky-strong cider that refuses to behave like polite orchard juice. These are ciders with opinions. Some even dress like cocktails. Braam has never been shy about that part. The operation now pours from a Ballard taproom shared with Bale Breaker Brewing — Yakima hop country shaking hands with apple country under one very happy roof — and recently opened Yonder East in Cashmere,
Breweries love to talk about recipes, hop schedules, and the quiet mathematics of fermentation. But every so often the whole thing gets wonderfully simpler. Two brewers lean across a stainless-steel table somewhere in Yakima hop country; someone cracks another beer; someone else says, “What if…,” and suddenly the plan involves tropical fruit, hop bales, and the thrilling possibility of something ridiculous and delicious. That’s the beating heart of the Frenz series — Bale Breaker’s long-running project that treats brewing less like solitary craft and more like a friendly conspiracy. Since 2016, the Quinn family’s hop-farm brewery has invited brewers from
Dog Days at Northwest Trek: Leashed pups explore forest trails while wolves, elk, and bison watch from the hills. The Daily Outside: Work Party, Dog Days, Feeding Frenzy 3.13.26 Friday’s Daily Outside moves through three very Pacific Northwest moods: muddy stewardship beside Commencement Bay, a mossy forest outing where dogs follow their noses through Northwest Trek, and a quick stop at an aquarium tank where hermit crabs and surf perch turn feeding time into a tiny underwater spectacle. Around here the outdoors shifts easily between service, curiosity, and simple wandering — muddy gloves, wagging tails, and the occasional octopus cameo.
Peaks & Pints Tournament of Beer: Best Northwest Breweries bracket released Some traditions sneak up on you. One year you’re hosting a fun little beer bracket, the next thing you know it’s spring again and the tenth Tournament of Beer is arriving like a familiar Northwest ritual — equal parts community debate, friendly chaos, and regional pride poured into a pint glass. The official bracket for the 2026 Peaks & Pints Tournament of Beer: Best Northwest Breweries is now set, and 64 breweries from Washington and Oregon are ready to begin the long walk toward the championship. Peaks & Pints
Candy history has its quiet revolutions, and one of them arrived in 1923 when Frank C. Mars unveiled a candy bar that wasn’t really about chocolate at all. The Milky Way was built around a soda-fountain dream — malted milk nougat whipped light and fluffy, draped in caramel, and cloaked in chocolate like a sweet little tuxedo. Forrest Mars, Frank’s ambitious son, reportedly borrowed the name from the wildly popular malted milkshakes of the era, those frothy countertop elixirs that made America briefly believe the future would be powered by milk, sugar, and optimism. The bar was marketed as “a
Crystal Mountain Military Appreciation Day — veterans and active military receive 50 percent off lift tickets and a mountain-wide flag treasure hunt. The Daily Outside: Military Mountain, Bird Walk, Tacoma Runners … 3.12.26 Thursday spreads the Daily Outside across the whole regional map — snowy Cascades ridgelines, tidal marsh boardwalks, a civic room where tree plans quietly take root, and finally a small herd of runners chasing the longer daylight through Tacoma streets. One moment you’re scanning cattails for the flash of a red-winged blackbird, the next you’re watching chairlifts drift above Crystal Mountain, and by
Wednesday’s New Beer Six-Pack lands in the Peaks & Pints cooler like a strange little pub crawl across continents — Irish reds and dry stouts, velvet Baltic depth, hazy mischief, and a bright West Coast riff humming through the taps. Peaks & Pints New Beer Six-Pack March 11 2026 Today’s New Beer Six-Pack arrives like a pub crawl through several dimensions — Irish reds and dry stouts, velvet Baltic depths, mischievous hazy mischief, and a bright West Coast jazz solo humming through the cooler. BLOCK 15 BREWING CHARMED LIFE IRISH RED ALE: Ruby malt glow and
Some days the outdoors arrive as a hike or a mountain view. Other days they appear in quieter ways — a garden bed beside a historic lodge, a glass tank full of hungry sea creatures, or a science talk that casually informs you that sixteen-foot sharks glide beneath the waters of Puget Sound. That’s the spirit behind The Daily Outside, Peaks & Pints’ ongoing look at the small, fascinating ways people connect with nature around Tacoma and the South Sound. It’s less about epic adventures and more about noticing the living world threaded through everyday life — gardens, shorelines, parks,
Marine biologist Malik Johnson dives into the strange truth that 16-foot sixgill sharks live in our Salish Sea backyard at Ocean5 tonight. Photo courtesy of Facebook The Daily Outside: Point Defiance Garden Club, Harbor WildWatch 3.11.26 Tacoma and the South Sound spend Wednesday tending roses, feeding sea creatures, and learning that somewhere beneath the dark water of Puget Sound swims a prehistoric shark — a reminder that the Daily Outside can begin in a garden bed, pause beside an aquarium tank, and end with the strange, wonderful science of the Salish Sea. Roses, rain-soaked soil, and
