Peaks and Pints will tap Dragons & YumYums pale ale brewed with a combination of dragonfruit, yumberry, passionfruit, pear juice and black carrot juice Thursday, April 19. Photo courtesy of Dogfish Head Y’all ready for Record Store Day Saturday, April 21? A full list of goodies will be dropped in independent record stores across the country that day. And it’s a long one. Topping the list of notable releases are Johnny Cash’s At Folsom Prison: 50th Anniversary Elegacy Edition, three new limited-edition David Bowie albums (Welcome To The Blackout (Live London 1978), Let’s Dance (Demo), and
America is awesome. Not because of all the freedom. Not because we were the country that invented the Ferris wheel, Pong, lasers, LED, microwave oven, computers, the Internet and the Global Positioning System. Not even because we rule the world when it comes to the Flask Tie, in which office drones no longer need to bury their hooch deep inside a drawer. No, American is awesome because we invented national food days. Sure, everyone knows about Shrove Tuesday (National Pancake Day), National Snack Food Month (February) and Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day (April 12 — what, you don’t celebrate?). But did
Tournament of Beer: Northwest Porters First Round April 14 Over a three-week period, Peaks and Pints pits 64 of the Pacific Northwest’s best in a malt-to-malt battle of porters. This is a tournament, folks, not a playoff. Each match is do or die — one misstep and you’re out of the dance. Wort didn’t cool fast enough, left sediment in the conical fermenter too long, and you can pack your brewers paddle and go home. Sure, there are plenty of brewers wearing “Porter > Avocado Toast” T-shirts who can brew a mighty fine batch of porter. The Northwest’s finest porter
Our Tournament of Beer: Northwest Porters isn’t complicated: We put you, the public, in charge of voting to determine the best porter in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. We simply count the votes and write a lot of silliness about the results. Since the voting is subjective, and we have only 64 slots, delicious, awesome porters were left out the tournament. Scanning our current inventory we found five porters that, well, should have been voted into the tournament, at least according to us. Today, with another eight porters battling at tournamentofbeer.com, we present the Craft Beer Crosscut 4.13.18: A Flight of
Tournament of Beer: Northwest Porters First Round April 13 Last year, Peaks and Pints challenged 64 Washington state IPAs to enter tournament-style ale combat, IBU versus IBU, with Rainy Daze Brewing’s Goat Boater IPA crowned best IPA. This year, through online voting, beer enthusiasts seeded 64 porters from Washington state, Oregon and Idaho in our quest for porter prestige. We speak, of course, of the Tournament of Beer: Northwest Porters. Sixty-four porters brewed in the Great Pacific Northwest have been battling since Friday, April 6. It’s been a week and we’re still in First Round action. Below is a recap
For the past couple years, when a mention of Bellingham breweries awards comes up, there’s always a discussion that starts with “Kulshan, again?”, but even though the rest of Bellingham’s growing craft beer scene is pretty damn awesome, the stamp that Kulshan Brewing Co. has put on Bellingham can’t be denied. Forget about the beers — we all know there’s a loving spot in our hearts for Bastard Kat IPA, Kitten Mittens Winter Ale and Sunnyland IPA — but it’s the outdoor seating, dog hugging, collaborations, charitable contributions and community interaction that really sets the team at Kulshan apart from
Tournament of Beer: Northwest Porters First Round April 12 Porters are brown beers with a long history in England. Porters and stouts come from the same stock, and at one point would have been indistinguishable from each other. Today, it is usually the use of roasted barley that distinguishes stouts from porters. While stouts evolved, around the middle of the 19th century, demand for porters died off. By the two world wars, the beer style was virtually extinct. Several decades later, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, porters saw a revival. This was especially true in the States, where
Today is the traditional birthday of Gambrinus, sometimes called King Gambrinus, considered to be a patron saint of beer, brewing and/or Belgian beer. Not an “official” saint, at least not in the Catholic Church, but a legendary figure. Around the year 1100, the brewers of Brussels deliberated which strong and courageous man should be their leader. They organized a contest, at which a large beer barrel was placed on the ground. The one who could carry it to a spot two stone’s throws away would become their head brewer. Among many who registered for the contest was a Duke from
Tournament of Beer: Northwest Porters First Round April 11 Porter brewing isn’t rocket science. Take some malt, add hot water, drain water, bring it to boil, add hops, cool it, add yeast, wait, serve and enjoy. But hidden within those folds is a complexity that defines the short steps list. Brewing a porter is fairly easy; making a great porter is another thing entirely. Opening a discussion on which Pacific Northwest breweries brew the best porter serves as our mission for the Tournament of Beer: Northwest Porters — that and trying to score free porters from the competitors. Below is
Simcoe was introduced in 2000 by Yakima Chief Ranches as a proprietary hop varietal with strong bitter and aromatic qualities. Little has been released about its parentage, but it has been compared to Cascade. Simcoe isn’t a one-style pony; this variety can do great things in a number of beer styles, and is often used in conjunction with the Cascade, Centennial, Chinook and Citra hop varieties. Although not used much as a bittering hop, many craft brewers favor Simcoe for its unique aroma profile composed of piney, woody, and grapefruit citrus notes mixed with slightly dank and spicy notes of
Tournament of Beer: Northwest Porters First Round April 10 Favorites or underdogs, English or American, Brown or Baltic — it’s all the same in the Tournament of Beer: Northwest Porters. In the end, brewers from Washington, Oregon and Idaho have one chance to soak malted barley in hot water to release the malt sugars, then boil the malt sugar solution with hops for seasoning, cool the solution, add yeast to begin fermentation to create a porter that can take the prize. Sixty-four Northwest porters were selected and seeded by beer enthusiasts in March for the Tournament of Beer: Northwest Porters,
Tournament of Beer: Northwest Porters First Round April 9 Let’s look at malty moments in history. … 4,300 BC – Oldest-known written recipe — a formula for beer — inscribed in clay cuneiform tablet. The Babylonians are producing beer in large quantities with around 20 varieties, including Suck It Sumerian Stout. 500-1000 AD – The first half of the Middle Ages, brewing begins in European monasteries and convents; hops added to process. Hello Bring Out Your Dead Doppelbock! 1490 – Columbus finds Native Americans making beer from corn and tree sap in the Bahamas. First Caribbean bar fight breaks out
Today is National Beer Day, but it’s also Session Beer Day. The annual pseudo-holiday was launched in 2012 by Lew Bryson, a Pennsylvania-based drinks writer who also started The Session Beer Project five years before his easy-drinking holiday. In celebration of Session Beer Day, we present a five-beer sampler of session beers we call Craft Beer Crosscut 4.7.18: A Flight of National Beer Day. What is a session beer? Well, it depends on whom you ask. The term’s precise origins and coinage are fuzzy. Beer experts can’t seem to agree on a specific year, for instance, but consistently point to
Tournament of Beer: Northwest Porters — First Round results Porter. Everyone drinks it. Everyone has a favorite. No other craft beer can inspire the rabid fandom of a true porter devotee. The Pacific Northwest turned out in force to vote in yesterday’s kickoff of the Tournament of Beer: Northwest Porters competition. Phone trees were instigated. Neighbors were harassed. Computer labs were invaded. Our poor little website had to work overtime as droves voted in Round One action. The public picked 64 Northwest porters for the Tournament of Beer, which, as said, kicked off yesterday with two games in the Seattle/King
Friday, April 6, is the day we all celebrate New Beers Eve. This is a real thing. New Beer’s Eve was the night before the first alcoholic beer became legally available after 13 years of prohibition. From 1920 to 1933, no alcoholic beverages were legal in the United States. Franklin Delano Roosevelt had barely been president for a month when he and a new anti-prohibition majority in Congress known as “The Wets” brought back beer. The Cullen-Harrison Act increased allowable alcohol in beer from 0.5% to 3.2%. Prohibition would be completely reversed later that year with ratification of the 21st
Tournament of Beer: Northwest Porters – Let the games begin! Poor Porter. What was once the most popular style of ale in 18th century London, Ireland and the American colonies – beloved by George Washington and a possible business adventure for Thomas Jefferson – the Porter fell on hard times. Roughians Pale Ales, Mild Brown Ales and Stouts shoved beer foam in Porters’ face, eventually taking over Northern European taste buds. In mid-19th century America, German immigrants opened their long mohair coats with larger beers dangled inside, winning the hearts of Blue and Gray, as well as the Gold out
If you are new to the Portland, Oregon area or have been a long time resident it is always fun to explore the beautiful city. The city is divided into four quadrants, Northwest, Southwest, Northeast and Southeast. There is also what is known as the fifth quadrant, North Portland. Peaks and Pints knows it doesn’t make sense to have five quadrants. It’s probably, part of the keep Portland weird movement. The division of the quadrants is easy to distinguish. Burnside is the street that divides North and South and the beautiful Willamette River divides East and West. North Portland is
Since 1997, the Grand Rapids, Michigan brewery, Founders Brewing Company, helped to put the Midwest on the map as a craft beer mecca. With cult favorites such as All Day IPA, Kentucky Breakfast Stout and other sought-after beers, it’s almost incredible that their initial offerings, according to legend, were “well-balanced but unremarkable,” and the brewery was on the verge of bankruptcy. That’s when the Founders team decided to change course, focusing on brewing the beers that got them excited about brewing in the first place: complex, crazy, drop-your-pants kinds of brew. Today, Founders’ philosophy states: “We don’t brew beer for the
Calling all wine freaks! Peaks and Pints Freakshow Flight is on. We have selected Michael David Winery as our wine flight for April, pouring three, 3-ounce glasses of rick, ripe and oaky 2015 Freakshow Cabernet, full-bodied and plush 2015 Petite Petit and dark, dense and thickly tannic Freakshow Red Blend. Do delicious. For five generations, the Phillips has farmed in Lodi, California-self-proclaimed “Zinfandel Capital of the World” — producing wine from century-old vineyards. They’ve long grown wine grapes, among other crops, but founded their winery only in 1984, adding a tasting room to the roadside produce stand they’d built in
Today, we’re hopping on a plane and heading to New Zealand — home of insane landscapes, Lord of the Rings, dedicated rugby fans and, of course, Motueka hops. Named after the town of Motueka on the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island, nestled at the shores of the Tasman Bay, Motueka is a relatively new variety — the offspring of an unnamed New Zealand variety and one of our favorite Noble hops, Saaz. Part of the “Hops with a Difference” initiative from New Zealand Hops Limited, Motueka is beloved by brewers for its versatility and distinct characteristics, from both
Peaks and Pints has unveiled the official bracket for its Tournament of Beer: Northwest Porters, a voter-based public tournament seeking to crown the best porter from the Pacific Northwest. Patterned after the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, the Tournament of Beer features 64 porters from Washington, Oregon and Idaho, all seeded by public vote March 1-15, and separated into four geographical regions: Seattle/King County, Washington state, Oregon and Idaho with no more than the top two porters per brewery. A couple breweries had two of their porters voted into this year’s Tournament of Beer. These top 64 vote getters
TACOMA PREFUNK MONDAY, APRIL 2 2018: Stone Buzzer Beater and Duane Mark Band PREFUNK: Stone Brewing co-founder Greg Koch is a platoon captain. He can lead brewers to war. Brewers would gladly die for him. They would run over barbed wire. They would charge into a battery of machine guns. They would limp toward a field of death on his word. In his Buzzer Beater Double IPA, the brewers, once again, went to battle for him. The brewers pressed for him with Mandarina Bavaria and Mosaic providing the juicy orange flavors. They picked and rolled for him using the one-two-three
Fort George Brewery co-owner Jack Harris gets mic’d up before his screen test. Photo courtesy of Fort George Brewery The Goonies is one of the most loved kids’ movies of all time, a tale of young Chunk and Data and Mikey “Rudy” Walsh hunting for One-Eyed Willie’s pirate treasure while being chased by the nefarious Fratelli gang. Peaks and Pints is thrilled to hear The Goonies 2 is headed for the big screen. Check out the press release from Fort George Brewery, where most of the sequel was filmed. [Astoria, Oregon] You’ve heard the buzz for
Fancy Pants Sunday: Perennial Sump Coffee Stout You’re probably thinking to yourselves, “Does the world really need Peaks and Pints’ Fancy Pants Sunday?” Our research tells us that the average American consumer is ready — nay, yearning — for the next level in fancy craft beer. And here is the thing: When you’re out there on the porch, on a Sunday afternoon, watching rain-soaked children hunt for soggy eggs, eating your bread and basil and feeling the effects of that snifter full of fancy craft beers, it does not matter how much you paid for the beer; it does not
Not every combination of two good things leads to another good thing. Pickles and Mad Dog? Salami and Zima? Skittles and Hot Dog Water? These are a few examples that would make horrible combinations (but great buddy cop team names). Sometimes, though, magic happens — and at the Peaks and Pints Cheesy Flannel Fest, Maître Fromager Kris Blondin has found the sweet spot where beer and cheese put away their differences and come together. If you think wine is the only appropriate pairing for cheese, then let Maître Fromager Kris Blondin, the founder of former downtown Tacoma wine bar Vin
Cloud Person rocks The Valley tonight. TACOMA PREFUNK FRIDAY, MARCH 30 2018: Founders KBS and Cloud Person PREFUNK: In 2002, Founders Brewing Co. wanted to age their Breakfast Stout in bourbon barrels. A call to Jack Daniels with a request to use their barrels was accepted as long as they picked them up. The first run was a success. Something magical happened in the barrel. The recipe needed refinement since the bourbon notes were overwhelming in the beer. The solution was to create an imperial (higher alcohol content) version of Breakfast Stout. The result is Kentucky
Every year at this time, Peaks and Pints’ friend Simon sends out an anxious little email asking his most craft-crazed friends — brewers, homebrewers, us, anyone for whom craft beer is less a casual dalliance and more like lifeblood — to send around their personal lists of favorite craft beer, so we can all discover something new and/or gently mock each others’ weird tastes in lumberjack doom Kölsch beers, South American sour IPAs or Russian imperial funk. And every year, we dive into this venture with an all-consuming fervor while blithely ignoring the obvious fact that any list of this
MORNING FOAM FOR WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28 2018: A seven-taster flight of craft beer news, from the fluffy head all the way to beer foam art. … Bale Breaker Brewing is releasing Fresh off the Farm IPA in cans and kegs throughout Washington April 13 to celebrate its fifth anniversary. Fresh off the Farm IPA debuted at the 2017 Seattle Beer Week. Bale Breaker’s 5th Anniversary Celebration will take place April 13-15 at the brewery’s recently expanded Taproom in Yakima. Flowers of the hop plant provide both bitterness and “hoppy” flavor to beer. Hops are, however, both a water and energy intensive
The South Sound brewing world is being rocked by the news that 26-year-old Western Washington beer distributor Marine View Beverage has been sold to one of the biggest distributors in the country, Portland-based Columbia Distributing, which itself was acquired by private equity firm the Meritage Group in 2013. For Peaks and Pints the news is heartbreaking. Marine View Beverage isn’t just a partner; six of the sales staff are friends. Director of Craft and Imports Pete Giste, Craft Brand Manager Kent Wetzler, Key Account Specialist and Events Coordinator Terry Richardson, On-Premise District Manager Erik Dahlin, Key Account Manager/Craft Brand Manager
TACOMA PREFUNK TUESDAY, MARCH 27 2018: Stone Enjoy By 4.20.18 and NESC Open Mic PREFUNK: In late summer 2012, Stone Brewing blew minds with a new imperial IPA. OK, the Escondido, California brewery brews a lot of imperial IPAs, but this one was light in body, had late-addition hops to the gills, scaled back finishing bitterness and designed to perish within a short window of time. Stone releases its Enjoy By series quarterly, including Enjoy By 4.20.18, which is on tap at Peaks and Pints. It’s one of the better batches with 10 types of hops and some other tricks
Like Bridget Jones’s Baby actress Renee Zellweger and The Hangover hottie Bradley Cooper (dated for a whole TWO years before splitting in 2011), grapefruit and beer may seem an odd pair at first glance. But, it works. Well. Grapefruit has a diverse flavor profile — sweet, tart and bitter all rolled into one. Methods for brewing with grapefruit depend on the brewery, and each has its own take on this tart fruit. Some prefer to put the fruit flavor in the boil, allowing the sugars and sweetness to ferment out to leave a subtle citrus flavor. Others layer by adding
The MVB’s Flying Barleywines are such rascals they left off Jeff Lee from the event poster. Graphic design by Michelle Lemon We all have our own Mount Rushmore of comedy: the TV shows, movies, stand-ups and humor writers that rule Funny Land in our minds like Odin rules Asgard, only without Loki. For Peaks and Pints, that pantheon will always include Marine View Beverage: a prominent beverage distributor serving seven Western Washington counties. Since 2002, owners Fred Bevegni, Mike “BJ” Bjerke and Lance Kahn (who passed Feb. 1, 2017), have grown Marine View Beverage to include
Mandarina Bavaria is often cited as a next generation German varietal being bred to compete with the novel hop varieties being grown in the Pacific Northwest. Mandarina Bavaria is one of three “special flavor hops” that were developed by the Hop Research Institute at Hüll, in Germany’s Bavaria region. In addition to the sweet lady Mandarina, the other two hops are Hallertau Blanc and Huell Melon. Daughter of Cascade and an undisclosed male from the Institute’s breeding program, Mandarina was released to the brewing masses in 2012. It’s extremely limited and in high demand for all kind of beer styles.
TACOMA PREFUNK SATURDAY, MARCH 24 2018: Orval Day and The Disaster Artist PREFUNK: Today is Orval Day — created by Seattle specialty beer importer Merchant du Vin in honor of the famed 1000-plus-year-old Orval Trappist Ale brewed within the walls of Notre Dame d’Orval Monastery. Merchant du Vin aims to donate $1,000,000 of direct benefit to nonprofit MAP International, which provides humanitarian assistance and relief aid to those in need during disasters, and every bottle of Orval sold in March will go toward that goal. Additionally, Peaks and Pints offers a taste of Orval 2016 and 2017 for you to
In a time where American craft beer is more obsessed with hazy IPAs, pastry stouts and sour ales, it’s refreshing to revisit Belgian-style Abbey and Trappist Ales, which Peaks and Pints will aiming our daily beer flight toward Craft Beer Crosscut 3.24.18: A Flight of Trappist Ales. Of the many thousands of beers produced around the world, only 11 can use the name “Trappist.” Six of them are made in Belgium, one in the United States, two in Holland, one in Italy and one in Austria. These beers are all brewed with three criteria in order to earn the name
The Russian Imperial Stout originated in England as an export to the Baltic states and Russia, takes its name from its popularity with the Romanov Imperial Court and inspired Peaks and Pints’ beer flight Craft Beer Crosscut 3.23.18: A Flight of Collusion No Collusion? Russian Imperial Stout. There are tales of Peter the Great, the Russian Tsar who traveled to England in 1689 and said to have fallen in love with strong British porter, which is weird since the style didn’t truly exist for another 30-plus years. Whatever. Peter the Great likely did have some influence on the origination of
Not long ago Tacoma was tough and dirty — a hard-living town former mayor Harold Moss likened to war-torn Beirut. True, we still hold onto parts of our past edginess, and our working class mentality. But, in reality, Tacoma has grown into a town with a budding arts community, vibrant restaurant scene and modern businesses. Throughout the change and growth a common thread has stayed true for Tacoma’s history — how T-town relates to its beer. As far back as when Job Carr stirred wort alongside the banks of Commencement Bay in 1865 to the earliest laborers frequenting after-work saloons
Despite its name, the barleywine is indeed a beer but at wine strength — ranging as low as 7-percent alcohol by volume in British versions and upwards of 15 percent in American interpretations. Despite its name, barleywines aren’t made with tons of specialty grains, as one might assume. Historically, barleywines are brewed with pale malt, the same malts used for pale ales. Brewers achieve that rich caramel flavor that’s expected in barleywines by extending the length of the boil, which caramelizes the flavors and imparts that deep color. Yeast and hops vary between English-style and American-style barleywines, but either way,
In ancient Europe, brewing was almost exclusively a woman’s role. The medieval times, however, brought about the frequency of brewing in monasteries to accommodate travelers, and as time passed, the number of female brewers dwindled, brewing in the home became rare, and commercial taverns became a predominantly male domain. Today, while women have since shed the label of “alewives,” they are continuing to infiltrate what has since become an XY-dominated scene by owning and running breweries. This year marks the 11th anniversary of the Pink Boots Society, a nonprofit with the mission to encourage the professional advancement of women within
South Sound women in beer brewed Ladies Of The South Sound Pink Boots Collab 2018 at Pacific Brewing Company session IPA March 2, 2018. Photo credit: Pappi Swarner Craft beer is an equal opportunity industry. Because much of it has its roots in the home brew scene, it is not a world dominated by the pasty white European males that long ruled the fermenters. Most likely a woman invented beer. The oldest beer recipe is in The Hymn to Ninkasi, referring to the Sumerian goddess of brewing. Other cultures also attribute beer to a goddess. Brewing
Europeans have been putting beer in wooden vessels for hundreds of years. Before industrialization, beer was fermented in wood, stored and shipped in wood, and poured directly from wood. Beer spoiled often. Life sucked. By the mid-20th century, most breweries had happily traded their temperamental wooden barrels for the reliability and convenience of metal tanks. Then, breweries realized how kind wood can be to beer that’s treated properly. Sure, it’s expensive, and predicting when a batch will be ready is tricky. But, results are rarely disappointing — such as aging beer in wine barrels. Wine barrels induce fruit flavors and
More than 33.3 million U.S. citizens identify their heritage as Irish. That’s not only about 44 percent of the world’s 75 million-strong Irish diaspora, but it’s also more than five times the 6.5 million population of Ireland itself. Also, with apologies to Arthur Guinness, his namesake beer has an audience here in the U.S., but not a large one. There are two main beer styles that we typically think of in connection with the Emerald Isle: dry stout and red ale. When it comes to Irish dry stouts, your natural inclination is likely to order a Guinness. That’s fine. It’s
TACOMA PREFUNK WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14 2018: Block 15 A Nugg Hugg and The Last Jedi PREFUNK: Block 15 Brewing sits heart of downtown Corvallis, only a few blocks from Oregon State University. The brewery’s name hails from Corvallis’ previous incarnation as Marysville and the old plat map location from the old town. In late 2011, homebrewers Nick and Kristen Arzner opened the brewery and restaurant serving beers true-to-style with ingredients imported from different parts of the world, along with all the Willamette Valley produced grains, hops, fruits, herbs and yeast. Block 15 Brewing’s A Nugg Hugg (7%) arrives via the
Craft beer is a movement of equal parts tradition and innovation. Though the many major style categories establish framework in which many beers exist, the beer world includes other distinct styles, flavors and aromas that often depart from traditional brews and carve out their own niche — and they’re just as fun to explore. For example, some brewers use unusual ingredients like fermentable sugars and starches, while others include vegetables as flavor adjuncts. Hybrid beers are produced from a mixture of ingredients and fermentation temperatures to come up with unique flavors and aromas. Hybrid and specialty beers can include everything from
