Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 7.3.19 The Fourth of July is a time for hanging out in the backyard, going to the beach and enjoying a craft beer or six while celebrating the independence of America. Drop by Peaks and Pints and load up for the holiday. … Baerlic Brewing FUZZ BOX HAZY IPA: Baerlic Brewing’s rotating Hazy IPA series Fuzz Box is back at Peaks and Pints with its overpowered haze of pineapple, mango, stone fruit, watermelon, candy, juicy fruit, sticky pine, resinous pitch, and earthy black tea. 6.7% LOUDER EVEN MORE PUNK ROCK DOUBLE HAZY IPA:
Founded on St. Patrick’s Day 2007, Double Mountain Brewery has a clear mission: “Make great beer for craft beer fans.” Ever since then owner Matt Swihart (when not playing banjo in the GreenNeck Daredevils band) has worked hard to meet this mission, focusing on uncompromising beer quality, with ingredients such as 2-row pilsner malts from British Columbia, Belgian yeast strains, fruit from Hood River orchards and Northwest hops. Famed for both their hoppy and sour fruit beers such as IRA, Vaporizer and Devil’s Kriek as well as their brewpub in downtown Hood River’s awesome pizza, family friendly atmosphere and live
Founder Paul Arney and his team are focused on one thing at the The Ale Apothecary — making truly unique beers, using strictly Oregon ingredients — including local barley, wheat, hops, barrels, and even the wild yeast drifting around the high desert air — aged in oak, waiting patiently for the right moment to express themselves. Ex-Deschutes brewer Arney doesn’t make much beer — just 300 barrels per year, all packaged in wine-sized bottles at wine-sized prices. All his beers are bottle conditioned, allowing for natural carbonation and more complex flavors that are unlocked after further aging, and as a
Good Day South Sound! TV says you got those high class blues. Seems the caravan to Aruba is not the road that you would choose. LET’S DRINK SOME CIDER! It’s Monday, which means Peaks and Pints offers a flight of five hard ciders. Peaks and Pints Monday Cider Flight 7.1.19 includes two new ciders: Winsome Passion Mango and Tieton The Dry Side Blues Infuses. Peaks and Pints Monday Cider Flight 7.1.19 Independent Lavender Perry 5.5% ABV Montana State University friends Micah Roberson, Michael Partheymuller and Kramer Christensen opened Independent Cider in the upper Wenatchee Valley near Leavenworth and Cashmere. They
The Tour de France is one of the coolest things on two legs operating two wheels, but it’s such a commitment of time, effort and frequent flyer miles to check it out. Then they ride by and it’s over. Fortunately, there are other options in bike racing — whether you’re a participant or a spectator — a bit closer to home. Formerly known as Tacoma Twilight Criterium, the Proctor Station Criterium consumes four blocks in Tacoma’s Proctor District today. Starting and finishing in front of Peaks and Pints, cyclists race down North 26th Street, turn right onto North Madison, race
Happy National Almond Buttercrunch Day! The crunchy candy, sometimes called just buttercrunch but other times referred to as almond buttercrunch, or here in Tacoma: Almond Roca. In 1914, Harry Brown and J.C. Haley started a candy company in the City of Destiny. Brown & Haley’s taffy chews and butterscotch balls became popular with soldiers stationed at Camp Lewis. After this country’s entry into the Great War in 1917, the population at Camp Lewis grew larger. Not surprisingly, the increasing demand for the new company’s sweets kept pace. After the WWI, Camp Lewis’ population shrunk. In 1923, the two confectioners’ efforts
Cooler Bagger: Ape Cave vs Block 15 Looking for something to do this weekend? Descend into the lower section of Ape Cave, a 2.5-mile cool (literally, it averages a temperature of 42 degrees year round) lava tube near Cougar, in Cowlitz County. Afterward, camp at nearby Beaver Bay Campground and tell Ape Cave stories while drinking Block 15 Brewing canned craft beer. The reputed home of Bigfoot, the Ape Cave was discovered in the mid-20th century by a local logger. The name is actually an homage to the Boy Scout group who helped map the site — the Mount St.
Peaks and Pints hosts Double Mountain Timbeer! A collaboration born of mutual admiration between Double Mountain Brewery and Timber! Outdoor Music Festival, the Hood River, Oregon brewery brewed Timbeer!, an “All Day Pale” for the Carnation, Washington music festival July 11-13. Peaks and Pints will host a Timber! prefunk with Double Mountain Brewery pouring Timbeer! from our Western red cedar tap log and loading the jukebox with the scheduled performers’ music. Peaks and Pints hosts Double Mountain Timbeer! release party at 6 p.m. Wednesday, July 3. Back for its seventh year, Timber! offers a full weekend of crowd-friendly folk, rock,
Chimay is brewed in Belgium by Cistercian Trappist monks who apparently have a direct line to God when it comes to the more ethereal matters of the brewers’ art. This champagne of beers goes down smooth, follows its creamy head with a silky mouth-feel and fruity aroma, and packs a serious wallop. The Trappist monks are cloistered away in Scourmont Abbey in Belgium (where they also make tasty Chimay cheese) with the operation’s profits paying for the monks’ pious lifestyle and charitable efforts. Having been around since 1862, Chimay’s a relatively new entry in the world of godly beverages with
It’s summertime! With this sun-dappled season sending spring showers skulking off into the upper reaches of the stratosphere, Peaks and Pints sees more folks into pilsners, craft lagers, radlers and low-calorie options. And, almost every style under the sun is being infused with exotic flavorings such as lingonberry saisons and Italian plum goses. Phooey! Breweries are still cranking out beautiful India Pale Ales at record levels. Remember this is America, and in America, everyday is IPA day, from Brut to Brett, clear to cloudy, fruit-forward to double-dry-hopped. Therefore, Peaks and Pints presents a flight of new IPAs that we call
It would be hard to determine what Tacoma tastes like. For starters, where would one sample the soil most indicative of the City of Destiny? Commerce Street? Or would the most-telling turf be found at higher elevations like Hilltop? And what would that flavor be like? You can be sure the topsoil would smack of scandal — but it would probably also taste a bit like Heidelberg. Deeper down, there would be traces of Puyallup Tribe intermingled with a Swedish loggers, Civil War veterans and a salty prospector tang. Then there’d be all that fossilized dinosaur crap to contend. When
Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock June 20 2019 Hello Peaks and Pints Pals! Be on the lookout for these new bottles and cans in our cooler. Cheers! Firestone Walker Brewing NAPA PARABOLA: Firestone Walker aged Russian imperial stout in French oak barrels from a prestigious Napa winery. Which one? No clue, so all we can do is speculate, but we do know that the barrels once held cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and merlot grapes. The result is an imperial stout with very different flavors: cedar, clove, mocha, ripe berries and dried chile peppers. And 2019 vintage dated bottles
In 2006, Chris Nemlowill and Jack Harris flew to Virginia Beach, Virginia to salvage an 8.5-barrel Saaz brewing system and drive it across the country to install it in their soon-to-open Fort George Brewery in Astoria, Oregon. While traveling with the equipment strapped to a flat bed, they met up with a tornado that nearly spread the brewery across a Nebraska cornfield. Fort George has brewed 3-Way IPA since 2013, featuring two different craft brewery collaborators every year — this year Cloudburst and Ruse Brewing. Tonight, Peaks and Pints hosts the South Sound release party for 3-Way with the beer
When you hear Alice Cooper’s perennial anthem “School’s Out” drowning out the tires’ squeal you might think the burnt-rubber exclamation mark of high school angst was a result of just enduring nine months of torturous classwork and a summer of freedom glee. But wait! Is the song blasting from a Honda Odyssey minivan? Indeed. Teachers have the same angst and glee. In fact, many can claim they felt the unbridled joy, sarcasm and jaded optimism — particularly the lyric “School’s out forever” — back in 1979 when they first heard the song on their last day of school. Let’s be
The midnight sun is a natural phenomenon that occurs during summer in places south of the Antarctic Circle and north of the Arctic Circle. The earth is rotating at a tilted axis relative to the sun, and during the summer months the North Pole is angled toward our star. That’s why, for several weeks, the sun never sets above the Arctic Circle. Midnight Sun Brewing began commercially producing ales and lagers for folks close to the Arctic Circle in 1995. Midnight Sun is Alaskan proud. Everything from their beer names to the beer labels portrays the pride they have in
Ah, Father’s Day, when all patriarchs become Clark Griswold on vacation and all filial conversations become sentimental diatribes: “Enjoy this, kids. Someday when you have families of your own, you’ll wish you had several hours together in the back of a cop car like this, just to sit and talk.” One of the best presents a father can get is peace and quite so he can watch the Mariners/Athletics game with his favorite beer, which can be purchased at Peaks and Pints today. We crafted a craft beer flight for dear ol’ dad — at least satisfying five different kinds
After finishing his West Olympia postal route for the day, botanist Patrick Jansen grabbed his homebrew for a weekend at the Helsing Junction Sleepover, a rad summer K Records music festival at Helsing Junction Farm in Rochester. Darby’s Café owners Nate and Sara Reilly danced with Jansen’s homebrews in their hands. Yes, their joy had roots in the music, but their beer foam-covered smiles announced they found their dream brewery head brewer. Jansen became the founding head brewer for the Reilly’s Three Magnets Brewing Co., a downtown Olympia brewery that gobbled up awards. But, the daily hustle and bustle of
Summer Con team assemble! You and your friends are stoked to attend the Washington State Summer Con at the Washington State Fairgrounds this weekend. This catch-all geek festival will combine new and vintage toys, comic books, video games, movies, celebrities, and “anything pop culture” under one roof. But, you and your friends need a plan of attack. You’ve called a special planning meeting at Peaks and Pints today. Attending will be you, a Celtic folk singer; Farmer Ted, a swordsman from Fife; Charles De Mar, a swordsman from Ruston; Craig Schwartz, a puppeteer from Yelm; Walter (Gib) Gibson, a role
Fort George 3-Way vs. The Rusty Cleavers While summer days are great for lounging, it’s the hot summer nights that will truly make memories. And nothing heats things up faster than a Fort George Brewery’s 3-Way release party. Peaks and Pints has been selected to host the Astoria brewery’s annual IPA collaboration release party for the South Sound Thursday, June 20. How do we present such a coveted IPA to the region? Gotta have more washboard. Tacoma’s punkgrass band The Rusty Cleavers will rattle the 3-Way pints and cans live during the release party at Peaks and Pints. Fort George
We know what some of you are thinking. Beer for breakfast? Who does that? But the true advocate of craft beer knows there is nothing quite like waking up, making scrambled eggs and bacon and cracking open 22 ounces of your favorite brew. In an effort to repeat the magic of the day’s first meal, some genius breweries have injected quintessential breakfast flavors into their beers. Who are we to judge? After all, our “breakfast” beers sit comfortably next to eggs and orange juice in our cooler. In that context, the beer seemed right at home. Enjoy our Craft Beer
Tommy Gunn and Tony Aman formed Mythic Valley in 2015. Hailing from Salt Lake City, the duo set out to combine the earnest intimacy of folk with the grit of indie music. Their sound is eclectic, yet warm and personal, echoing the timeless storytelling of Americana, with a modern twist. Inspired by contemporary artists as diverse as The Shins, My Morning Jacket, or Fleet Foxes. The band blends in lush melodies with introspective lyrics and beautiful soundscapes, which you can hear at Peaks and Pints tonight at 8 p.m. Peaks and Pints peeked at Mythic Valley’s tour and crafted a
Skookum Brewery’s story could not be more emblematic of Washington’s craft beer explosion. The Arlington brewery started as a homebrew operation in a 1918 dairy bar repurposed to be a home, grew gradually, won medals and now brews in a giant building, using locally-sourced ingredients, churning out what seems like three different IPAs a week, and is the darling (with a bold growl) of most serious craft beer drinkers. It was 2007 when Ron and Jackie Walcher opened the brewery down a dirt road near Arlington. Today, Skookum head brewer Hollis Wood and his small team churn out “big bold
Pink alcohol has long had a bad rap. From cosmos to white zin to Lancers and Mateus, a glass of pink often points to a drinker with little taste, class or sanity. Or all three. Anyway, let’s talk rosé. The Greeks and the Romans made rosé. Monks made rosé. Rosé has the added benefit of coming in a shade that has become known as “millennial pink.” The blush-tone burst onto the scene sometime in the last three years and has been prominent in clothing, housewares and food ever since. It is a trendy, aesthetically pleasing tone that is associated with
Fifty years ago this summer, New York City bar patrons of many genders, sexualities, and racial identities trapped a group of police officers inside the Stonewall Inn after they shut down the bar in yet another routine raid. Riots continued the following two nights as the LGBTQ community spread word that something unique was happening in Greenwich Village. Every June, Pride month, we celebrate their uprising with Pride parades that have come to resemble corporate advertisements rather than riots. It’s the time when lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, queer and questioning folk celebrate their heritage, continue and intensify their ongoing struggle
Californian Gary Fish established his brewpub concept, Deschutes Public House, in downtown Bend in 1988. Named after the Deschutes Rover, Deschutes was Central Oregon’s first brewery. Fish hired John Harris (founder of Ecliptic Brewing Co.) from McMenamins. Legislation and a growing provincialism for locally crafted beers soon turned the microbrewer of Mirror Pond Pale Ale and Black Butte Porter in obscure Bend, Oregon into a macro success, as the state’s largest brewer by barrel count. Still family and employee owned, the brewery is known for brewing a diverse line-up of award winning beers including the popular Fresh Squeezed IPA, Black
In July 2019, Two Beers Brewing and Seattle Cider Co. are sending eight of their staff to Mount Rainier’s summit in order to raise money for Washington’s National Park Fund, or WNPF, the official philanthropic partner of Mount Rainier, North Cascades and Olympic National Parks. The funds raised by WNPF help fund 50-75 projects annually in these parks, which the staffs at Two Beers and Seattle Cider visit, climb and bike monthly, if not weekly. Peaks and Pints will host a fundraiser for that WNPF Climb For A Cause team at 6 p.m. tonight. In addition to games, raffle prizes,
Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock June 5 2019 Exhausted, you just want to hunker down and quit trying all the damn workshops and clinics and healing centers and therapies and just shut up and watch South Park and feel the Mystery swirl and just get calm let the following liquids inside Peaks and Pints’ cooler flow into your being like the cool rays of the morning sun. Welcome to Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock June 5 2019. … Block 15 Brewing THE AUDACITY OF OPACITY: Block 15’s clear IPA has returned, with the same bright pineapple,
In 2008, Craig Campbell and his wife, Sharon, began experimenting with making cider from dessert apples grown in their 400-acre commercial fruit orchards in Yakima, Washington. Despite naysayers who warned that cider apples required a maritime climate, Craig also planted a two-acre test orchard with 25 varieties of cider apples. Today, their two-acre experiment expanded into Cider View, a 30-acre “high-density” cider orchard. In their commercial cidery, Tieton Cider Works, they blend American heritage, English and French cider varietals with dessert apples to capture the best of what each variety brings to the bottle: sweetness, acidity, tannin and aroma. Tonight,
The beer cocktail is a fickle friend. Dropping a shot of sake, Baileys Irish Cream, or Jagermeister into a pint of lager might get you smashed but it won’t taste very good, and mixing in another liquid can overpower a beer’s subtle flavors. But brewers, who know a thing or two about beer, brew craft beers that mimic mixed drinks. When beer is your job, you don’t necessarily want to go home and drink more beer. So it’s no shocker that on his or her down time, brewers like a stiff cocktail — which has led to craft beers that
The wine industry is fond of speaking about the individual flavor characteristics that it takes from its environment. This terroir is present in all growing things that are tended with passion and care. The environment that builds flavor is more than simply the soil or the climate: it is also the passion and commitment of the grower. Craft cider believes in the same values. The “estate” cidery concept stems from European beer origin, in which beer was brewed at individual farmhouses with ingredients grown onsite and fermented with naturally occurring, airborne yeast. Many modern-day cideries are making an effort to
Hey you! Put down that pina colada! Peaks and Pints suggests you reach for five coconut accented ales in our beer flight, Craft Beer Crosscut 6.1.19: Flight of Coconut Beer. The word “coconut” can also be confusing because the word “nut” is contained in the word. A nut can be defined as a one-seeded fruit. With that loose definition, a coconut can also be a nut. However, a coconut is not a true nut, but is rather the fruit of the coconut palm. Technically, it’s a “drupe” belonging to the same family of fruits as peaches, plums, mangoes cherries and
The idea of a fruit beer may seem a bit too, well, fruity. But before you write it off, you should know it’s not some new style invented by a marketing guru to try and tempt non-beer drinkers away from their wine coolers. Blending fresh fruit with fermenting beer dates back 500 years, particularly in Belgium’s Lembeek village, in the region of Flanders. And the star fruit? Kriek, the Flemish word for “cherry.” There are two main cherry styles: lambic and Flanders Red Ale. Both are brewed using the spontaneous fermentation triggered by natural, native yeasts that impart their trademark
West Pierce Fire and Rescue firefighters Bryan Copeland and Aaron Johnson are the brewers and co-owners behind the business, along with their wives Molly Copeland and April Johnson. They started planning their brewery for years, but didn’t get serious until 2012. They opened in Gig Harbor in 2015 on a 3.5-barrel brewing system, with three 7-barrel bright tanks and four 7-barrel fermenters, which has since been replaced by a much larger system. The love affair with the Prohibition era is particularly evident at their Wet Coast Brewing. In the 1932 presidential election, King, Pierce, and Spokane counties voted “wet,” meaning
In 2010 — with his Siebel Institute education, training in Germany and Belgium, and degree from Yale tucked under his arm — Ben Edmunds opened Breakside Brewery in the quiet Woodlawn neighborhood of Northeast Portland as a restaurant and nano-sized brewery. Breakside expanded to a 3.5-bbl brewhouse while winning their first medal at the Great American Beer Festival in 2011 where they have earned medals each year since. In late 2013 the brewery expanded operations to Milwaukie, Oregon with a 30-bbl production brewery. In 2014 Breakside was awarded with the highly coveted Gold Medal for American-style IPA at the Great
The beer scene in Portland, Oregon, or Beervana to craft beer enthusiasts, began in 1984 when BridgePort Brewing first started making beer and Widmer Brothers quickly followed suit. Portland’s first brewpub came in 1985, when the McMenamins brothers decided to try making beer at one of their bars, the Hillsdale Brewery and Public House. In the years that followed, Portland became a national craft-beer haven. Peaks and Pints has acquired new craft beer from several Portland breweries. Today, we’ll highlight five of those beer in a beer flight we call Craft Beer Crosscut 5.28.19: A Flight of Portland Oregon. Craft Beer Crosscut 5.28.19: A Flight of
Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock May 27 2019 21st Amendment Brewery SPARKALE: A sparkling rosé ale with apples, peach, cranberry, and cherry, for a light, fruity, tart flavor and a huge “sparkle factor.” Yes, Sparkale is a bit of a departure from 21st Amendment’s staple of bold, West Coast-style IPAs. It is also lower in calories than 21A’s regular beers and gluten-reduced for a flavor that’s as much like a cider (without actually being one) as you can find. 5.5% Ex Novo Brewing CADILLAC DREAMS: Hazy IPA brewed with Pilsner malt, Wheat and Oats, plus 100 percent New Zealand hops
Wishin’ I was Knee deep in the water somewhere. Got the blue sky, breeze and it don’t seem fair. The only worry in the world Is the tide gonna reach my chair. Sunrise, there’s a fire in the sky. Never been so happy. Never felt so high. And I think I might have found me my own kind of paradise: Peaks and Pints Monday Cider Flight 5.27.19: Tropical Ciders. Let’s get to drinkin’ ciders. … Peaks and Pints Monday Cider Flight 5.27.19: Tropical Ciders One Tree Staycation 5.6% ABV Grant Barnes and Neal Hennessy started making cider as a
Fancy Pants Sunday: Structures Lemon Isolation James Alexander and Ryan Miller took time away from their East Coast brewery jobs to hang in a remote cabin nestled in the Green Mountain National Forest. When they emerged Structures Brewing idea was a thing. They slowly made their way toward Bellingham through various brewery jobs across the country. Bellingham fit their easy-going lifestyle and need for community. In late 2015, Structures had structure and several beers on tap. Structures puts puncheons to good use too, including their barrel-aged saisons. Welcome to Peaks and Pints’ Fancy Pants Sunday, a weekly column focusing on
Hitting the scene in the early 2010s, the New England style India pale ale came to fame thanks to a Vermont brewery, The Alchemist, with their Heady Topper, an unfiltered double IPA that became a cult favorite. The beer was a success, and other New England breweries followed suit: namely Hill Farmstead Brewery, also in Vermont, along with Trillium Brewing Company and Tree House Brewing Co., both in Massachusetts. Call them hazy, New England or Northeast style; they’re all the rage. Even the Brewers Association recognizes the New England IPA category for its competitions. Though loaded with hops, these small-batch
The James Bond movie franchise has been turning out movies since 1963, when Sean Connery first embodied the role in Dr. No. Peaks and Pints assumes “Bond Theme” composer Monty Norman and arranger John Barry were drinking Scottish ales when they composed the progression from a root note to a half-step up, to another half-step up and then walking back down those steps. In this case it means a bassline of B-C-C#-C that then returns to B to restart the cycle. After all, Scottish ale originated in Scotland, which gave us Sean Connery. Scottish-style beers tend to emphasize malt. The
As a brewery famous for its experimental ales, the company’s history is just as wild. Founded in 2008 by Patrick Rue, The Bruery began when Rue, a recent law school graduate and homebrewer, figured out that he loved the hobby so much, he’d start a brewery instead of studying for the Bar. Later, in 2015, Rue launched Bruery Terreux — loosely translated as “Earthy Brewery” — as a dedicated space to provide the freedom (and bacteria) to get weird with wild and sour ales. Indeed, in just a handful of years, the brewery created one of the largest barrel-aging programs
An avid homebrewer and former employee at Stone Brewing Co. in Southern California, where he worked in the communications department, Jacob Mckean founded Modern Times Beer in the Point Loma neighborhood of San Diego in 2013. For the first year Modern Times didn’t brew an IPA — and when they finally did, it wasn’t a West Coast hop bomb that helped put the San Diego beer scene on the map. Today, the brewery has a stable of year-round offerings, monthly special releases and rotating seasonal beers, as well as tons of special release and one-off batches — from hazy IPAs,
Donate at beerforcleanair.com and help Peaks and Pints co-owner Ron Swarner raise money for the American Lung Association while summiting Mt. Rainier. Peaks and Pints co-owner Climbs For Clean Air The glare of the rising sun illuminates the jagged white and blue ice peaks. In the middle distance, the tallest catches the first pink light of dawn. In the foreground we see a climber encased in his burnt orange REI down jacket. He is walking very, very slowly, inching up a steep knife-edge ridge. As the scene shifts to slow motion, we can see that he
Moonraker Brewing Co. opened in 2016 in the same Auburn, California industrial park as Knee Deep Brewing, and was later honored as the ninth-best new brewery in the world by RateBeer, a resource for craft beer enthusiasts. Along with additional honors from RateBeer, Moonraker has received recognition in other competitions, including the California State Fair and their Extremis toppled Russian River’s stalwart Pliny the Younger to win the 2017 Bistro Double IPA Festival’s triple IPA category. Brewmaster Zack Frasher’s buckwild brew-style and creative openness has been the key to success and standing out in the crowd, although he recently left
