Instagram Outsider: RIP Sonics Guy, Power Sleds, Flakes and Hearts From the sad loss of Kris Brannon to power sleds, from snowflakes to hearts, 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 for your chance to be featured on Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider. And, please, wash your damn hands; wear your damn mask. Until we meet back here again next week, enjoy Instagram Outsider: RIP Sonics Guy, Power Sleds, Flakes and Hearts. View this post on Instagram A post shared
Happy Valentine’s Day! As this saccharine-sweet holiday (or Singles Appreciation Day, if you prefer) rears its head, couples are clamoring for romantic plans while singles and casual daters are simply trying to let the day pass without a hitch. Why stress? It’s just a day. So to give you a little peace of mind on this hectic day of love, Peaks and Pints presents a Valentine-theme to-go beer flight that we call Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Valentine On The Fly. Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Valentine On The Fly Lindemans Framboise 2.5% ABV, 12 IBU Romance might be hard
Peaks and Pints New Beers in Stock 2.13.21 Happy Snow Day Proctor neighborhood! If you’re walking to Peaks & Pints, consider Peaks and Pints New Beers in Stock 2.13.21 for tonight and Valentine’s Day tomorrow. Cheers! Abomination Brewing Dreamsphere: Brewed with Skygazer Brewing, this sour ale has flavors of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, frosting, lactose and vanilla beans, 7% Baerlic Brewing Bright Thoughts IPA: Brewed with a 50/50 blend of wheat and pilsner malts, Citra, Mosaic, Strata, and Chinook hops for classic citrusy, piney, and tropical IPA, 6.9% Baerlic Pancake House: Russian imperial stout brewed with loads of coffee in the
Peaks and Pints Tap List includes Trap Door Brewing Lupuluminati Enlightened IPA. Peaks and Pints Tap List: Trap Door Lupuluminati Peaks and Pints houses a mind-boggling array of suds: 800-plus bottled and canned in our cooler, with another 28 on tap for Campfire Crowler fills (until pints return). While craft beer remains our foundation, you don’t have to be embarrassed for ordering artisan craft cider, wine, cold brewed coffee and kombucha as those delights are on tap too at Peaks and Pints. To follow our tap list live from your phone, click here for iPhone and
6-Pack of Things To Do: Friday February 12 2021 Due to the weather, Peaks & Pints should have listed only events that could be streamed from the comfort of your home, but there are Monkeyshines to find and coconut stouts to gather. 6-Pack of Things To Do: Friday February 12 2021 is on! MONKEYSHINES: Monkeyshines has unleashed marauding gangs of craftspeople, artisans, and their multitudinous admirers on the genteel people of Tacoma. The Tacoma art project known as Monkeyshines hid hand-blown glass balls and other forms of art throughout the streets and neighborhoods of Tacoma. Monkeyshines first became a news
The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Warning for the greater Tacoma area. The forecast calls for 4-5 inches tonight, and another 2-4 inches tomorrow. A great snow beer can only be understood in apocalyptic conditions, when roads disappear, and weather analysts show real fear. A great snow beer will fuel you through hours of shoveling. A great snow beer is fuel — deep, dark, rich, warming. A great snow beer will remind you of warmer times and incite tropical travel plans. A great snow beer is a coconut stout. Peaks & Pints has them. Coconut is an
6-Pack of Things To Do: Thursday February 11 2021 Rise and shine and don’t forget your booties cause it’s coooold out there today! Here’s today’s 6-Pack of Things To Do. Cheers! BEER CONTEST: In April 2021, Peaks and Pints will host the Tournament of Beer: NW Double IPAs — our fifth beer tournament. Through online voting, Washington and Oregon double IPA drinkers will pick daily winners until the best double IPA in the Northwest is crowned. It’s just like March Madness, only with way more fermentable sugars. First, we need you to help select the 64 Washington and Oregon DIPAs
Here are a few things we know about hoppy beers: American drinkers flip out over them, which means breweries are going to keep brewing them, which means we’re going to see continued releases of variations such as sour versions. Brewers are marrying two disparate flavors of hoppy and sour by subduing those major traits, but playing up the fruity qualities each share to create something unique. They can make hoppy beer brighter, complex, and tantalizingly unique and refreshing. These brewers know bitterness is often going to be more prominently “on display” due to the clean playing field, but they’re OK
The New England IPA is juicy, with assertive tropical notes of grapefruit, peach, melon and/or tangerine. They are also made with wheat or oats and served unfiltered, which leaves them hazy. To achieve haze, brewers mess with malt, hops, and yeast. Malted grains provide the sugars that yeast snack on and transform into alcohol, but they also add proteins to the mix. Usually, brewers use a base of mostly malted barley, but other grains such as oats and wheat have higher protein contents, which make for a cloudier beer appearance, a “soft” body, and a little haze in IPAs. Brewers
Tournament of Beer: NW Double IPAs nominations open In April 2021, Peaks and Pints will host the Tournament of Beer: NW Double IPAs. Chosen through the nomination process below, the top 64 vote getters — DIPA slam dunkers — will compete Monday-Friday on our website April 2-24. Through online voting, Washington and Oregon double IPA drinkers will pick daily winners until the best double IPA in the Northwest is crowned. It’s just like March Madness, only with way more fermentable sugars. The IBU-to-IBU battle of the DIPAs’ grand champion will be announced at the Tournament of Beers Party April 24
6-Pack of Things To Do: Tuesday February 9 2021 Old or new, it’s important that we passionately support our present to ensure a future. Today’s 6-Pack of Things To Do offers suggestions. Cheers! FILM FESTIVAL: From Feb. 26 to March 7, Destiny City Film Festival will showcase 39 independent films from around the world. Now in its eighth year, the 10-day virtual experience is much more than just video on demand — “this is your chance to escape, to dream, and to experience another life that you’d always wanted or been curious about,” states DCFF hype. “With 18-plus hours of
Instagram Outsider: So Many Dogs, Goat Spikes, McLaren Matt McLaren From doggie hangovers to goats spiking footballs, from frogs on frogs to outdoor drinking, 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 for your chance to be featured on Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider. And, please, wash your damn hands; wear your damn mask. Until we meet back here again next week, enjoy Instagram Outsider: So Many Dogs, Goat Spikes, McLaren Matt McLaren. View this post on Instagram A post shared
6-Pack of Things To Do: Saturday February 6 2021 There’s a vast amount of positive energy swirling about that’s been held back, and this energy has now found a conduit, a lightning rod — 6-Pack of Things To Do. Cheers! STOUT MONTH: Just when Peaks & Pints thought we’d have to cancel our annual February Stout Month celebration, Gov. Jay “Stout Is Life” Inslee allowed us to re-open for in-house drinking and dining Feb. 1! February 2021 Stout In and Out is on! The Tacoma Proctor District craft beer lodge has tapped five stouts on our Western cedar tap log
Scottish style beers can be a malt lover’s dream beer, with its smooth sweetness and body. The epitome of malty, scotch ales is boiled twice as long as ordinary beer, caramelizing the sugars to build these deep flavors of maple and molasses. Recipes may include peat-smoked malt, which can lend smoky, earthy tones to the aroma and flavor. Scottish ales commonly fall into four general types: Light, Heavy, Export and the Scotch Ale. Historically these distinctions carried labels of the shilling currency, which reflected the price charged per barrel of beer in the 19th century. For example, 60 shilling was
Peaks and Pints Tap List includes Fort George Skies of Wonder (Gett Out). Peaks and Pints Tap List: Fort George Skies of Wonder Peaks and Pints houses a mind-boggling array of suds: 800-plus bottled and canned in our cooler, with another 28 on tap for Campfire Crowler fills (until pints return). While craft beer remains our foundation, you don’t have to be embarrassed for ordering artisan craft cider, wine, cold brewed coffee and kombucha as those delights are on tap too at Peaks and Pints. To follow our tap list live from your phone, click here
6-Pack of Things To Do: Friday, February 5 2021 The jam is live in effect, and I don’t waste time on the mic with a dope rhyme. On to 6-Pack of Things To Do! CLASSICAL: Led by the University of Puget Sound’s School of Music in partnership with African American Studies, Tacoma Public Schools, Tacoma Youth Symphony Association, and the Tacoma Youth Chorus; the Jacobsen Series: Sphinx Virtuosi will be performed virtually via Schneebeck LIVE. Sphinx Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra is one of the nation’s most dynamic professional chamber orchestras, comprised of 18 top Black and Latinx classical soloists. This broadcast
Bryan Shull’s grandfather and father worked at and retired from Great Western Malting Company located at the Port of Vancouver USA, which makes Trap Door Brewing a fourth-generation Vancouver beer family-owned business. Shull, who left a 25-year career in renewable energy engineering to start a brewery with his two sons, Zakary and Zane Singleton, opened the 15-barrel facility in the Uptown neighborhood of Vancouver October 2015 because he loves beer and the community of people that make up the brewing industry. Dave Forster, a silent owner, and Michael Parsons, taproom general manager, joined the venture. In October 2020, Kyle Larsen
6-Pack of Things To Do: Thursday February 4 2021 A centaur blares a horn on top of a mountain. The sun cuts through gloomy clouds. The beat kicks in. Cherubic unicorns and pegasi awaken from a long slumber, and a rainbow-trailing fairy flies overhead. Welcome to Peaks & Pints’ 6-Pack of Things To Do: Thursday February 4 2021. BEER FESTIVAL: Today marks the last day you can order your Brew Five Three To Go virtual tasting kits. Tacoma Arts Live hosts three different Zoom-style virtual tasting events (Feb. 13-14), one for each of the three themed kits, highlighting what you’re drinking,
Just when Peaks & Pints thought we’d have to cancel our annual February Stout Month celebration, Gov. Jay “Stout Is Life” Inslee allowed us to re-open for in-house drinking and dining this past Monday. February 2021 Stout In and Out is on! The Tacoma Proctor District craft beer lodge will tap five stouts on our Western cedar tap log through February for in-house enjoyment and Campfire Crowlers to go. Enjoy stouts, milk stouts, imperial stouts, pastry stouts, nitro stouts and other variations from your barstool or from your couch. Today, we add a to-go flight of stouts — a flight
Mead, which is made of honey and water fermented with yeast, is perhaps the oldest alcoholic beverage in the world. Mead-making likely started when a sack of honey would catch some rain, which leads to fermentation. Consuming what’s in the bag would create a state of inebriation, which of course led people to experiment with making more. A process evolved. Often associated with the Viking Age, enjoyed by the ancient Greeks and mentioned in Chaucer’s 14th-century The Canterbury Tales, mead is having resurgence thanks to the craft brewing trend and Game of Thrones. But far from the sticky-sweet beverage sold
Instagram Outsider: Brew Five Three To Go, Beerselfie, SMaSH Ella From Brew Five Three tasting kits to beerselfies with The Butcher, from SMaSH Ella to all the snowsports, 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 for your chance to be featured on Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider. And, please, wash your damn hands; wear your damn mask. Until we meet back here again next week, enjoy Instagram Outsider: Brew Five Three To Go, Beerselfie, SMaSH Ella. View this post on Instagram
Funnier than saying “Hoof Hearted” Brewing are the Ohio brewery’s can art. The cans’ artist, Thom Lessner, met Hoof’s head brewer Trevor Williams in the second grade. Lessner met another Hoof co-owner, Jarrod Bichon in the fourth grade, and eventually met the last owner, Ryan Bichon. They’re all on the same zany page. Lessner doesn’t brew the delicious craft beer, but he take’s their beer name — influenced by hops, hair metal, and video games — and runs with it — recently toward John Cusack’s Better Off Dead movie. Williams and Jarrod Bichon, a wine salesman and welder, respectively, met
6-Pack of Things To Do: Saturday January 30 2021 Today’s grab bag of new shows uncovers the variety of Tacoma’s art scene. Give thanks for our city’s artsy melting pot by participating in the 6-Pack of Things To Do. Cheers! COOKING: “Little Mary Ester, Sat upon a tester, Eating of curds and whey. …” Dutch cheese is a less common name for one way of serving curds and whey. The whey is drained off, the curds are mixed with butter and salt and formed into balls, and then they are topped with cream, sugar, and nutmeg. For Victorians, curds and
Located in the Seattle neighborhood of Interbay, near the Magnolia Bridge, and started by friends Colin Lenfesty and Mike Murphy who worked in the local beer business, Holy Mountain might sit at sea level but its name gives nod to Mount Rainier, the ominous holy mountain that looms over Seattle, as well as a song and album by doom/stoner band, Sleep. Holy Mountain’s heart is its foudres and innumerable barrels, which churn out saisons and wild ales that tend to have mild sourness and stunning depth thanks to complex malt bills and a mix of Brettanomyces and local microflora. While
6-Pack of Things To Do: Friday January 29 2021 There is still time to join the Tacoma Arts Live Brew Five Three To Go beer and music festival held in February. In the meantime, here is today’s 6-Pack of Things To Do. Cheers! BEER FESTIVAL: Remember sitting next to the salmon fountain with your branded taster glass, pretzel necklace and the faint whiff of sunscreen in the air. It was 2019; the 2020 Brew Five Three Beer and Music Festival was canceled last year. It’s back this year — but nearly six months earlier and you’ll most likely be sitting
Triple IPA: It’s a palate-smashing beast of an ale designed for those times when a hazy IPA simply won’t cut it. yet, the style still isn’t recognized — and debate rages among the pimpliest of beer nerds over whether it’s a style at all. Peaks & Pints believes the triple IPA is a massively hoppy beer of 10 percent ABV with outrageous amounts of dry hops, hop flavor, malt flavor, alcohol and bitterness. The triple IPA may be similar to a double IPA in hop character, but is differentiated from the style by a thick, syrupy body accented by intense
On this date in history, 1973: Louis Pasteur patented process of brewing beer and ale. Up until Pasteur’s invention, the sugar-containing liquid (the “wort”) was always boiled and then exposed to air for cooling, before the yeast was introduced to initiate alcoholic fermentation. According to the patent application Pasteur’s invention “consists in expelling air from the boiled wort while confined in a closed vessel or closed vessels, and then cooling it by the application of sprays of water to the exterior of such vessel or vessels.” This new method eliminated the exposure of wort, the boiled extract of malt, to
Peaks and Pints New Beers in Stock 1.27.21 Peaks and Pints New Beers in Stock 1.27.21 features new craft beer we received today, including the return of crazy-long named Evil Twin IPAs. Cheers! Decadent Ales Coconut Swirl: Triple milkshake IPA with coconut and vanilla, 10.2% Decadent Ales Orange Gusher: Double IPA with orange purée, 8.5% Evil Twin Brewing E.T. Left Home v.1: Sour IPA with blueberries and raspberries, 7% Evil Twin IPA is not a Problem to be Solved, but a Reality to be Experienced: Triple IPA brewed with Waimea, Citra, and Wakatu hops for tropical and earthy flavors, 10%
6-Pack of Things To Do: Wednesday January 27 2021 There are a few virtual classes and events going on despite the pandemic, including a Bart Simpson celebration and best photos of 2020 events. Find out more in today’s 6-Pack of Things To Do Today. Cheers! ART: Bart Simpson — that irritable, back-talking hellion who creator Matt Groening pulled the strings — is the focus of the Tacoma Art Museum’s Cocktails w/ Curatorial tonight. The downtown Tacoma museum takes us back to July 2019 when they brought Bart Simpson to town featuring special guest animation cel collector Bill Heeter who lent
After being relentlessly hounded by a spamming cake marketer — which conjured up horrific mental imagery of frosting — we are capitulating. We will inform you that today, Wednesday, January 27, is National Chocolate Cake Day. In the spirit of National Chocolate Cake Day — which has yet to be declared an official holiday — we’re playing to our craft beer. Luckily for us craft beer lovers, there are many delicious and unique chocolate beers being crafted by U.S. breweries — just in time for this national day. Chocolate adds complexity, well-roundedness, and smoothness to a beer’s flavor, whether its
Peaks and Pints New Beers in Stock 1.26.21 We are so damn grateful for your continued support, Peaks & Pints Pals. The fact that y’all keep showing up on our little corner of Tacoma makes us thankful for our community. You’re awesome. Peaks and Pints New Beers in Stock 1.26.21 includes a few new beers that arrived today. Cheers! Double Mountain Brewery Bullwheel IPA: Brewed with Mt Hood Meadows to celebrate their Sahale lodge expansion, this IPA sports citrus and pineapple flavors with a little pine plus a solid malt base, 6.3% Kulshan Brewing Last Chair: Brewed with Mount Baker
Smoked beer may sound like some newfangled trend, but it’s actually a centuries-old tradition that has been making a comeback. 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
6-Pack of Things To Do: Tuesday January 26 2021 If your quarantine routine is getting stale, see below for our picks for today’s 6-Pack of Things To Do. Cheers! TACOMA READS: As part of the Tacoma Reads program, Professor Carlos Gil, an emeritus professor of history at the University of Washington, sought to understand immigration by tracing his family’s history from the 1920s to the 1970s. In the process, he discovered the excitement, culture shock, inter-family conflict, and questions of identity that many immigrants face when seeking a better life in another country. Based on his book, “We Became Mexican-American:
You’re an orchard farmer. You want to be a cidermaker. What are you going to plant? It’s a major financial investment. You need patience. The payoff is down the road. Do you plant for sweetness? Do you plant for floral? After all, cider making, for the most part, is a blender’s art, so planting for variety is key. Most of the ciders we drink today are a blend of base apples, aromatic apples, and cider or crab apples for acidity, tannins, structure and tartness. Peaks & Pints agrees, but we also believe that the first step to creating a good
Instagram Outsider: Bemitten Bernies, Buffalucci, Butts From all the Bernies to Todd The Bod, from new beer releases to nude butts release, 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 for your chance to be featured on Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider. And, please, wash your damn hands; wear your damn mask. Until we meet back here again next week, enjoy Instagram Outsider: Bemitten Bernies, Buffalucci, Butts View this post on Instagram A post shared by Peaks and Pints (@peaksandpints)
We celebrate just about every special occasion (i.e. birthdays, really good weeks and sometimes really bad weeks) with a cake. And while Tacoma dessert options are more than plentiful, we’ve somehow exhausted our local options (eating our way through Met Market’s whole cake menu in a few short months) and began thirsting for something new — something worth celebrating, which meant it needed to have craft beer. Happy National Peanut Butter Day! Seriously, it’s today. Skipping traditional desserts, we’re celebrating with a to-go beer flight that combines our love of nuts and craft beer. Go nuts over our Peaks and
Peaks and Pints Tap List includes Western Red Brewing’s Main Line Red. Peaks and Pints Tap List: Western Red Main Line Red Peaks and Pints houses a mind-boggling array of suds: 800-plus bottled and canned in our cooler, with another 28 on tap for Campfire Crowler fills (until pints return). While craft beer remains our foundation, you don’t have to be embarrassed for ordering artisan craft cider, wine, cold brewed coffee and kombucha as those delights are on tap too at Peaks and Pints. To follow our tap list live from your phone, click here for
6-Pack of Things To Do: Saturday January 23 2021 Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future … On to the 6-Pack of Things To Do! CELEBRITY: Best known for originating the role of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton in Broadway’s critically acclaimed show Hamilton, as well as earning a 2016 Tony Award nomination, Phillipa Soo will discuss her career and answer questions in the University of Puget Sound ASUPS Zoom Room. Soo can currently be seen in the film version of Hamilton and heard in the film Moana, and will soon appear with Peter Saarsgaard and Michael Keaton in Hulu’s Dopesick. 6