6-Pack of Things To Do: March 14-15 2022 Welcome to the 6-Pack of Things To Do in the greater Tacoma area — home of many epiphanies, countless transformations, laughter and tears and awakenings of every flavor you can name, and most you really can’t, because Tacoma. Cheers! DREAM TEAM: Reuben’s Brews continues their 10th Anniversary celebration reuniting their friends Fort George Brewery and Great Notion Brewing — the team behind the spectacular 2017 Fort George 3-Way IPA. The Seattle brewery brings the other two breweries back, this time to Seattle, to meld minds and brewer paddle techniques for the satisfying
Long before Washington state had legal weed, it had apples. In 2008, Craig Campbell and his wife, Sharon, began experimenting with making cider from dessert apples grown in their 400-acre Eastern Washington commercial fruit orchards. They opened Tieton Cider Works. Since then, the Pacific Northwest craft cider scene has exploded. Add to all the great Washington and Oregon cider our sparkling blue skies, stunning scenery, and plenty of places to hike, bike and otherwise work off our cider bellies, and there’s no place in the world to drink craft cider. In celebration of the Northwest Cider Association’s 2022 NW Cider
Instagram Outsider: Women’s Day, Moisture Festival, Spring Forward From International Women’s Day brewing sessions to Hale’s Ales’ final Moisture Festival, from Finnriver’s heart to spring forward, 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: Women’s Day, Moisture Festival, Spring Forward. View this post on Instagram A post shared by We to Imbibe Craft Beer (@imbibebeer)
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock: 3.11.22 What are you drinking during this rainy weekend? Peaks & Pints has new beer in our cooler! 54°40′ Brewing 1862: Light bodied, dry, and crisp Mexican lager with a delicate touch of sweetness on the end, 4.3% Bale Breaker Brewing Clarity Rarity Release No. 8: Brewed with experimental hops HBC 685 and HBC 344, this Bale Breaker staff favorite hazy IPA has ripe fruit aromas of pineapple, orange, cantaloupe, and nectarine, 7% Ex Novo Brewing Bailiwick: Dry Irish stout brewed in collaboration with Single Hill Brewing with roast, chocolate, and coffee notes
Peaks & Pints suggests pairing our French Dip special with New Holland Brewing Dragon’s Milk Reserve Rye Barrel-Aged Stout with Cinnamon, Toasted Chilies And Vanilla Extract. Tacoma Sandwich Special of the Day: Dragon Dip FRIDAY, MARCH 11 2022: Welcome to French Dip Friday folks! Roast beef, horseradish cream cheese, and red onion on French are ready for a stout pairing PAIRING: New Holland Brewing Dragon’s Milk Reserve Rye Barrel-Aged Stout with Cinnamon, Toasted Chilies And Vanilla Extract This New Holland Dragon’s Milk Reserve (11.8%) is aged in rye whiskey barrels for earthy and spicy notes to
6-Pack of Things To Do: March 11-13 2022 If you liked rainy weather, you’re gonna LOVE tomorrow … and the day after that … and the day after that! But cheer up — Peaks & Pints’ 6-Pack of Things To Do has plenty of indoor options. Cheers! ART: Walk among sunflowers or lay beneath the stars to the sound of modern-classical music as world-famous art is brought to life at Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience. The digital art installation and interactive space runs at the Tacoma Arts Live hosted Tacoma Armory through April 16 with timed entries. Visitors can surround
You won’t find any piñatas or enormous velvet sombreros hanging from the ceiling at Peaks & Pints, but you will find beers brewed to taste like Mexican hot chocolate — albeit cold. Hot chocolate originated in Mesoamerica before being co-opted by the Spaniards (and sugar high kids the world over). Mexican chocolate is much different from the rich, cocoa butter compound most folks have floating around their kitchen. The secret ingredients? Granulated sugar and cinnamon. The granulated sugar gives the chocolate a gritty texture that’s muy differente compared to the smoother, European-style chocolate. Cinnamon, or canela, is the other secret
This year’s Peaks & Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Lagers centers around American and international light and pale lagers. Sunday, March 13, marks the last day to nominate your favorite regular lager brewed in Washington and Oregon into the Tournament, which begins April 8. Apparently, there’s a bit of disappointment Vienna lagers weren’t included in the Tournament. We apologize; most likely, someday, they’ll be a Tournament of Beer: Northwest Vienna Lagers. In the meantime, stop by Peaks & Pints today and grab our to-go flight, Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Vienna Lagers On the Fly. Introduced in 1841, Vienna lager
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 3.9.22 Happy Hump Day Peaks & Pints Pals! It’s been a pretty, pretty, pretty good week of new craft beer arrivals so far, including Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 3.9.22. Cheers! Backwoods Brewing S’mores: Golden milk stout finished with chocolate, marshmallows, and vanilla, 5.5% E9 Brewing Starbreaker: Slightly hazy unfiltered IPA copiously dry hopped with Idaho 7, Cashmere, and Strata hops for loads of tropical fruit and piney resin characteristics, 6.4% Ecliptic Brewing 5000: Ecliptic’s 5000th brewed batch is celebrated with this golden barleywine aged in Old Tom gin barrels for
Trappists monks make other sought-after, high-quality goods besides insanely delicious beer. Many make cheese; some make wine and distill liquor; but 11 Trappist breweries have the “Authentic Trappist Product” seal of approval to brew using beautiful yeasts, all with their own distinctive smell and taste. The seven OG Trappist breweries have deep roots in Europe — Chimay, Rochefort, Orval, Achel, Westmalle, and Westvleteren in Belgium, and La Trappe in the Netherlands, although a lack of monks forced Achel to turn in their beer robes in January 2021. Stift Engelszell wears the ATP patch in Austria. Tre Fontane Abbey is legit
Peaks & Pints suggests pairing our turkey dip special with Fast Fashion’s Pils. Tacoma Sandwich Special of the Day: Turkey Dip Zoolander MONDAY, March 7 2022: The Peaks & Pints Kitchen struts its stuff with the Tacoma Sandwich Special of the Day: Turkey Dip Zoolander — a turkey dip featuring horseradish-cilantro mayo, red onion, and Gouda on French with a side of au jus. PAIRING: Fast Fashion Brewing Pils Collaboration with Halfway Crooks Beer in Atlanta and Resident Culture Brewing in Charlotte, this pilsner is hopped with Hersbrucker and Tettnang for a bigger body and sweeter
You have dragged your weekend-weary, sorry self through the first day of work-week drudgery. It wasn’t easy, though, and you deserve a little reward. On your walk over for a much-needed ice cream cone at Ice Cream Social stop by Peaks & Pints and grab our imperial cider flight, Peaks and Pints Monday Cider Flight: Imperials. Every Monday, Peaks & Pints offers a flight of ciders. Today we’re bumping up the alcohol by volume greater than eight percent. So, skip the OG magnum of Yellow Tail Shiraz and grab our afterwork reward you were looking for. Stay for dinner. Peaks
Instagram Outsider: 7 AM Cryo, Brave Noise At Home, WA Beer Open House From early morning beers in the woods to homebrewing Brave Noise world-wide collaboration, from Sue Kidd tributes to Washington Beer Open House pics, 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: 7 AM Cryo, Brave Noise At Home, WA Beer Open House. View this
R.I.P. Armand Debelder Armand Debelder, who was the owner, head brewer and blender of Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen until 2019, when he retired due to severe illness, has passed away. “It is with a heavy heart and great sadness that we announce the passing of Armand. The inspirer of 3 Fonteinen and an inspiration for many, a gentle teacher to his team, Opa Geuze to the brewery kids, and as a second father to some of us,” states Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen in a release. Founded in the municipality of Beersel, Belgium in the 1880s, 3 Fonteinen began
There are so many worthy breweries in Washington state that you could never dream of covering them all in a day, but you can get a taste of several if you plan right. The Washington Beer Commission invites you to visit some of our state’s many innovative, esteemed, and downright friendly craft brewers noon to 5 p.m. Saturday, March 5. The WBC calls their annual event the Washington Beer Open House. We call it an excellent theme for our daily to-go beer flight. We suggest you pick a region and make a day of it. May we suggest you pick
Peaks and Pints New Beers in Stock 3.4.22 Peaks and Pints New Beers in Stock 3.4.22 has your weekend adventures. … 450 North Brewing Slushy XL Blueberry Muffin: Fruited sour conditioned on blueberry, blueberry muffins and vanilla cream, 5.3% 450 North Slushy XXL Fast Froot Munchies: Fruited sour conditioned on strawberry, pineapple, mango, and banana, % ABV NA 450 North Slushy XXL Filet of Fruit: Fruited sour conditioned on passionfruit, dragonfruit, starfruit, and jackfruit, %ABV NA Boulevard Brewing Cinnamon Bun Ale: Imperial brown ale with aromas and flavors of cinnamon and vanilla, minus the sticky hands, 9.5% La Trappe Practise
Peaks and Pints suggests pairing our pastrami on rye sandwich special with Silver City’s Copper Mountain Maibock. Tacoma Sandwich Special of the Day: Mountain Of Flavors FRIDAY, MARCH 4 2022: Happy Friday! Tacoma Sandwich Special of the Day: Mountain of Flavors is pastrami, blue cheese, beer mustard, crispy onions, and provolone on rye. PAIRING: Silver City Brewery Copper Mountain Maibock Early spring is the ideal time to indulge in blue cheese and seasonal maibock beers, which are traditionally brewed in the dead of winter in anticipation of the coming spring. The Copper Mountain Maibock pairs well
6-Pack of Things To Do: March 4-6 2022 R.I.P. Sue Kidd FILM: The Batman starts its run at The Grand Cinema today. It’s has the makings to be one of the best in the series. It’s directed by Matt Reeves (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, War for the Planet of the Apes), which is extremely cool. The casting, the color palette, the odd contouring of the Batman costume itself, the burly runtime, and Robert Pattinson in the suit — it looks like a hard-boiled super noir. Noon, 3:45, and 7:30 p.m., Friday-Sunday, March 4-6, The Grand Cinema, 606
Sue Kidd, a longtime food writer for the Tacoma News Tribune, Dine Pierce County and other publications, died Tuesday from an aggressive form of cancer. She was 52. That’s how the sad news is written in newspapers. As the founder of the now defunct alternative newsweekly Weekly Volcano in November 2001, I would have written it with more F-bombs as Sue (I’m using her first name for this story) was a skilled F-bomb practitioner. She was also a top-notch food critic and feature writer. She ran circles around my Volcano coverage of the local food and beverage scene. Every Wednesday
After sharing their different and experimental variations of saisons working as gypsy brewers, brothers Chase and Colin Healey decided it was time to have a brewery of their own. They raised more than $20,000 on Kickstarter with the help of fans and formed Prairie Artisan Ales in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2012. Chase Healey grabbed the brewhouse while his brother is the talent behind the fun, funky branding, and logo design. Together, they brought a unique perspective to brewing — especially big bold barrel aged stouts and super crisp and funky farmhouse ales. Today, Peaks & Pints presents a to-go flight of
Peaks and Pints New Beers in Stock 3.2.22 May your hearts and beer fridges be full. … Bombastic Brewing 5th Anniversary: Aged in Martinique Rhum, Nevada Bourbon, and Kentucky Bourbon barrels for more than a year, then blended, this imperial stout drinks like a Russian imperial stout meets Belgian quad meets deliciousness, 12.5% Bombastic Raspberry Dazzle: Wit style ale treated with a copious amount of all natural raspberries, 6.5% Bombastic Attempted Murder – Batch 3: Based on their Murder stout, this variant features vanilla and cinnamon, 10.5% Bombastic Murder: Imperial Stout with cocoa nibs, vanilla, cinnamon, ancho chiles, and cayenne,
6-Pack of Things To Do: March 2-3 2022 And with the notable exception of a few essential bodily functions, Peaks & Pints’ 6-Pack of Things To Do is an enjoyable read in the bathroom. It’s that relaxing sort of instant solitude, that immediate disconnection, that delicious kind of “At last I can hear the voices in my head” and “I am master of all I survey in this smelly eight-foot cube” and “Hell yes I’m going to nominate my favorite local lager for the Tournament of Beer: Northwest Lagers” between flushes. Nearly invisible you are, despite the windows; no one
If you enjoy the outdoors, you’ve undoubtedly noticed that it’s becoming more expensive to visit one of Washington’s 124 state parks, or explore our three national parks: Mount Rainier, North Cascades, and Olympic National Park. It costs $10 a day or $30 a year to use Washington’s state parks. It costs $50 for a Mount Rainier Annual Pass. You probably can’t convince the state Legislature to cut the park fees right now. But there’s another way you can reduce what you potentially may pay to visit a national park in our state: Donate to Washington’s National Park Fund. Washington’s National
Specialty beer importer Merchant du Vin’s Trappist Tuesdays continues at Peaks & Pints with another to-go flight of Trappist beers — although only one of the beer, Trappistes Rochefort Triple Extra, is imported by Merchant du Vin. For the uninitiated, Trappists are Roman Catholics who follow the Rule of St. Benedict, a 73-chapter book of precepts written in the sixth century by St. Benedict of Nursia that maps out a doctrine for life in self-supporting communities set apart from the material world. They don’t perform public ministry, and their days are structured with set hours for reading, study, prayer, and
Tournament of Beer: Northwest Lagers nominations open In April 2022, Peaks and Pints will host the Tournament of Beer: Northwest Lagers. Chosen through the nomination process below, the top 64 vote getters — the real lagers of genius — will compete Monday-Friday on our website April 8-30. Through online voting, Washington and Oregon pale lager drinkers will pick daily winners until the best lager in the Northwest is crowned. It’s just like March Madness, only with way more burps. The crispy boi battle grand champion will be announced at the Tournament of Beers Party April 30 at Peaks and Pints
There are lots of reasons to drink ginger beverages. For one thing, they’re one of the few drinks that use an actual natural flavor rather than artificial flavor. That’s because no one has synthesized a convincing ginger flavor yet. Raw ginger is relatively cheap, and so potent that a little goes a long way. Another reason to drink it is that ginger has medicinal properties; next to cannabis, it’s one of the world’s great anti-nausea agents, which is why parents give it to children with upset stomachs. A third reason lies in the making of ginger cider — the sweetness
Peaks and Pints New Beers in Stock 2.27.22 Looking for beer to enjoy while watching the Seattle Sounders’ home opener versus Nashville? Peaks and Pints New beers in Stock 2.27.22 features more new arrivals to the Peaks & Pints cooler. Go Sounders! Aslan Brewing High Fives: Old school West Coast double IPA with a resinous pine aroma, assertive bitterness, citrus and tropical fruit mingle with flavors of flaky biscuits with honey, plus drying bitterness finish, 8.3% Block 15 Brewing Charmed Life: Irish-style red ale with malty nose and subtle caramel flavor, 5% Icicle Brewing Dragontail: Named after the beautiful Dragontail
Instagram Outsider: Peak Baquetters, Can Fail, Breadlab From Fremont Brewing’s Peak Baquetters to 20 Corners Ghost Trees, from Breadlabs to can fails, 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: Peak Baquetters, Can Fail, Breadlab. View this post on Instagram A post shared by 20 Corners Brewing Co. (@20cornersbrewing) View this post on Instagram
Peaks & Pints suggests pairing our turkey and Awesome Hot Sauce sandwich special with Ascendant’s Awesome Sauce Hazy IPA. Tacoma Sandwich Special of the Day: Awesome Sauce SATURDAY, FEB. 26 2022: The Peaks & Pints Kitchen witnessed the beer’s arrival and whipped up a sandwich special of turkey, Awesome Hot Sauce, rosemary mayo, Beecher’s Cheddar, crispy onions, tomato, and arugula on French. PAIRING: Ascendant Beer Awesome Sauce Hazy IPA Awesome Sauce Hazy IPA (6.1%) is brewed with oats and wheat for a dense and creamy body, plus late-boil hop addition and copious dry hopping of Mosaic,
If it were socially acceptable to drink beer in the morning, one with Amarillo hops would be the perfect way to start the day — combined with a balanced breakfast (of course). Amarillo provides a super-citrusy aroma verging on oranges, lively citrus flavor, and a medium-high bitterness, that is sure to wake the taste buds. The hop may seem as though they might be grown in the foothills of the Spanish Pyrennes but in fact come from Washington’s Virgil Gamache Farms. And while most strains can be propagated independently through the purchase of rhizomes, Amarillo is not one that you
Here’s Hoosier’s starting line-up at Peaks & Pints. Smoothie Sours Dairy: Hoosier Brewing A coach with a checkered past and a local drunk train a small-town high school basketball team to become a top contender for the championship. Wait! Wrong Hoosier! Hoosier Brewing runs the picket fence on the growing trend in independent beer: smoothie sours. These beers are often with so much fruit puree that they look less like beer than a thick smoothie. Unlike the 7-Eleven Slurpee, smoothie sours — or pastry sours — are kettle sours in which the wort is allowed to
Peaks & Pints suggests pairing our Polynesian sandwich special with Modern Times’ tropical Technomancer imperial hazy IPA. Tacoma Sandwich Special of the Day: The Martin Denny FRIDAY, FEB. 25 2022: Throw in your AirPods and stream the “father of exotica,” Martin Denny, will enjoying our chicken, pineapple pico, Polynesian sauce, Havarti, and light mayo on French. PAIRING: Modern Times Technomancer The imperial hazy IPA (8.2%) is hopped with exorbitant amounts of Bru-1, Strata, and Galaxy hops for notes of pineapple, peach, and passionfruit, which adds another layer of tropical goodness to the meal. THING TO DO:
6-Pack of Things To Do: February 25-27 2022 After a few days spent under your quilt watching Netflix (or CNN), you’re ready to go out again. Fortunately, this last weekend of February is full of interesting activities — from the Destiny City Film Festival to record release party to drunk local serial killer history. Cheers! MUSIC: Armed with husky harmonies, bluegrass instruments, and a heaping dose of one-liners, moonshinegrass band The Rusty Cleavers will rattle the empties at the Spanish Ballroom inside McMenamins Elks Temple in downtown Tacoma. The Rusty Cleavers is a working-class kind of band, combining the world
Stillwater Artisanal Ales is a brewery distinguished by its avant-garde, Belgian-inspired ales — with an emphasis on saisons, or farmhouse ales — and haute-couture labels, and the company’s founder, Brian Strumke, says he’s always looking to push himself further — in his goals or actual miles — to turn beer into art. Strumke has been a nomad. Whether in Stratford, Connecticut at Two Roads Brewing or Baltimore, Maryland at Of Love and Regret, Stillwater functioned as more of a living organism than a brewery, led by Strumke’s wanderlust to go wherever the road, beer or art takes him. In 2018,
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 2.23.22 What are you drinking this week? Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 2.23.22 has a bunch of new beer to make your decision more fun. Cheers! BreakThru Brewing Chilly Bin: New Zealand-style pilsner brewed with Phantasm, CZ Saaz, Nelson Sauvin, and Riwaka, then lagered for 8 weeks for a clean, crisp, and crushable pilsner, 5.7% Breakthru Hype Beer Checklist: Thiolized hazy IPA brewed with CZ Saaz, Phantasm Strata, and Riwaka, then double dry hopped with Nelson Sauvin, Strata and Strata Hop Hash, 6.9% Claim 52 Brewing Paradice: “IcePA” brewed with 2-row
Peaks & Pints suggests pairing our Chicken Bacon Caesar sandwich special with Monkless’ Peppercorn Imperial Wit. Tacoma Sandwich Special of the Day: Chicken Bacon Caesar Wit WEDNESDAY, FEB. 23 2022: Today’s Peaks & Pints Chicken Bacon Caesar sandwich special with Parmesan, tomato, and romaine on rye pairs well with Monkless Belgian Ales’ Peppercorn Imperial Wit. There are numerous aromatic and flavor crossovers between this sandwich and the Belgian-style witbier. The fresh orange peel and coriander aromas, with slight spicy notes from the peppercorns, bridge well with the texture of the chicken and the flavor of the
It’s freakin’ freezing outside. You have bundled up kids in thermal wear, ski socks, turtlenecks, snow pants, parkas, waterproof gloves, hats, and scarves. You cut your hand while trying to climb over bikes in garage to get the deicer bags. You bleed profusely onto your white Bronco. Frighten children, who have fallen on a patch of ice, run back into the house with wet boots and undo the hours of bundling it just took to get them outside for five minutes. You realize that these are hours of your life that you will never get back. You call your spouse
Peaks & Pints suggests you pair our turkey sandwich special with Pelican’s fancy barrel-aged amber, Siren of the Sea. Tacoma Sandwich Special of the Day: Turkey Of The Sea TUESDAY, FEB. 22 2022: The Peaks & Pints Kitchen whipped up a turkey sandwich special with cream cheese, pesto, olives, tomato, and spring mix on French. PAIRING: Pelican Brewing Siren Of The Sea Since it’s Twosday 2-22-22, we suggest pairing our sandwich special with Pelican’s Siren of the Sea, a true tale of two seas as it’s a collaboration with Clonakilty Distillery in County Cork, Ireland. Traveling
Abbey beers are that family of beers originally brewed by monks dating back to the Middle Ages, Peaks and Pints suspects, but certainly a common feature of monastic brewing from the 19th century forward. Included in that family is the dubbel — a medium-strength amber/brown ale that serves as a great platform for lots of fantastic malt flavors and fermentation characteristics, along with some supporting herbal/earthy hops. Dark fruit, burnt sugar, citrus esters, clove, a touch of banana and more all feature in what ends up being a surprisingly dry beer. It’s week four of Merchant du Vin’s “Trappist Tuesday”