Imperial India Pale Ale is one of the most preferred beer styles these days. The Imperial India Pale Ale (IIPA), also called a double IPA, has deep golden to reddish-amber color and medium- to full-bodied mouthfeel. These big, bold IPAs are known for a strong hop profile with resiny, piney and/or citrus tones, depending upon the type of hops in the recipe. There should be some maltiness that lends balance and flavor complexity. Strength may range from 7.5 percent to 10 percent ABV. Many hop-centric brews seem to be in a race to out-bitter each other. Peaks and Pints is
TACOMA PREFUNK MONDAY, JUNE 26 2017: Wayne’s World and the All Stars PREFUNK: In news that will simultaneously make you feel ancient and also burst out an inevitable “excellent,” Wayne’s World, the acme of SNL skit-to-film adaptations turned 25 this year, and to celebrate, Peaks and Pints while run the soundtrack through our jukebox for this week’s SudsPop music and craft beer happening at 7 p.m. tonight. The 1992 film, of course, starred Mike Myers and Dana Carvey as hesher-meets-slacker best buds Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar, who broadcast a no-budget cable-access show from Wayne’s basement in Aurora. All this
Looking for excuses to crack open a beer during the summer, whether you’re having a cookout, sitting on the stoop watching the traffic jams, or just celebrating another Monday well-done. Consider a wheat craft beer — the mellow, citrusy brews that are many people’s first foray into craft-beer drinking. As an overarching label, “wheat beer” can mean an awful lot, and this is likely something that craft beer drinkers who are just beginning to explore the world of beer wouldn’t fully understand. Ultimately, all the term “wheat beer” really implies is a brew where more than 50 percent of the
Rachel Baiman performs with Adam Levy at Immanuel Presbyterian Church tonight. TACOMA PREFUNK SUNDAY, JUNE 25 2017: Wander Cream Ale and Rachel Baiman, Kareem Kandi and Squeak and Squawk PREFUNK: Consider cream ale. Brewers often call it a true American style because it emerged prior to Prohibition, as U.S. brewers looked for something to compete with the emerging popularity of the European-influenced lager brewing. Cream ale is meant to represent an ale version of an American lager for an easy-drinking, very refreshing, low-alcohol craft beer typically consumed in quantity during warmer weather, like today. Peaks and
According to the Brewer’s Association, pale ales are the second most popular style of craft beer, trailing only IPAs. Pale ales originated in the UK in the late 1700s after reliable methods existed to produce pale barley malt, and that meant pale-colored beer. At first, the new pale malt was expensive, so the pale beers were limited to wealthier drinkers. But as pale malt became more affordable, pale-colored ales displaced dark ales in popularity, slowly overtaking porter and stout. Bass Brewery of Burton-upon-Trent, England made pale ales famous, thanks to their local hard water suited for the production of pale
TACOMA PREFUNK SATURDAY, JUNE 24 2017: Breakside’s Liquid Sunshine before silliness PREFUNK: 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. Peaks and
In 2005, third-generation plants were created and a large-scale field test was conducted at the Emerald Hop Ranch in Sunnyside, Washington. Declared a success, #01046 was re-christened “Bravo” and S.S. Steiner, who operated the hop fields in Washington, filed a patent application. The following year yielded the first commercially available Bravo hops, which are considered a “super alpha” hop due to it’s high alpha acid percentage, making it ideal for bittering applications since a smaller amount can be used to achieve desired levels of bitterness. In addition to excellent bittering Bravo showcases orange, vanilla and sweet floral aroma characteristics too.
Girl Trouble headlines the Squeak and Squawk show at The Valley tonight. TACOMA PREFUNK FRIDAY, JUNE 23 2017: Iron Horse Hopping Hand IPA before Squeak and Squawk PREFUNK: Independent craft breweries in the United States often contribute to military causes. Some of the breweries have taken their support one step further with beneficial campaigns, such as Iron Horse Brewery in Ellensburg, Washington. Iron Horse Brewery launched the Hopping Hands Project in May; a four-month, single hop IPA release with proceeds benefitting the Veterans Conservation Corps, a department of the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs. The
And with the third-wave coffee scene operating in growing parallel with the craft beer movement, it makes sense that breweries across the country unite their craft beer with the bitter, almost dirt-like elements of coffee beans and pulled espresso. Light and dark merge. Morning and night lose all distinction. Suddenly, it’s totally cool to crack a tallboy at 9:30 a.m. on a workday. Brewers incorporate coffee in their brew in several ways: mixing beans into the malt build, infusing during barrel aging or straight up cut the beer with cold press. With so many kinds of coffee and beer and so
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
TACOMA PREFUNK WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21 2017: Hoppy Hour Adventure and the Hunchback PREFUNK: Climbers are notoriously friendly. Whether in a climbing gym or below a 5.11 route, climbers are willing to belay you and convey with you. Justin Johnson proves it day in and day out. As an accomplished climber — as well as hiker and craft beer drinker — Johnson hands out climbing advice and hugs almost daily as a guide and specialist at REI in Tacoma. Johnson will host a free REI “Hoppy Hour Adventure” to describe the different types of climbing — from mountaineering to bouldering —
This craft brewing meets punk music collaboration, is a hoppy lager perfect for “when you just need something to wash the noise down.” MORNING FOAM FOR WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21 2017: A seven-taster flight of craft beer and cider news, from the fluffy head all the way to the Freeze. … This weekend looks to test the Portland market for beer festival oversaturation as the old guard beer fest Portland International Beerfest goes up against the newly reimagined Organic fest now called BrewFest in the Park and both fight for an audience with the smaller Kriekfest, Oregon
You’re doing your part. You’re engaged. You’re recycling all your craft beer bottles and buying free-trade coffee and composting your dryer lint and flipping off KFC and always showering with a friend because hey, you actually care about conserving water, mostly. Studies are showing that more Americans really are paying more attention to ingredients and labels, seeking out essential keywords like “organic” and “all natural” and “healthy,” hoping that they actually mean something. Some craft breweries are doing their part, too. We don’t know if they’re showering with friends, but some are organically brewing — in part or as a
Semi-Iconic: The Ballad of Dick Rossetti screens at The Grand Cinema tonight. TACOMA PREFUNK JUNE 20 2017: South Park Singing In Our Dreams and a night at The Grand Cinema PREFUNK: Scot Blair’s sister operation of his Hamilton’s Tavern and Monkey Paw Pub & Brewery in San Diego, South Park Brewing Co. uses the latter’s original brewing system to create house beers that are more on the sessionable side. That said, Peaks and Pints has South Park’s delicious double IPA, Singing In Our Dreams, pouring from our Western red cedar tap log. The small, under-hyped brewery’s
Back in the lazy, hazy days of kiddieville you weren’t anybody unless you had your birthday party at Farrells. For the young and sugar obsessed, the restaurant-cum-ice-cream-parlor, embedded in the Tacoma Mall, was a haven. Decked out like a turn-of-the-century soda fountain, Farrells was big on stripes — booths, walls and shirts — with suspenders and sleeve garters for the waitstaff. And it had a massive candy counter, displaying old-fashioned favorites like salt water taffy and rock candy, that had to be passed going in or out — a parent’s worst nightmare. To us, the big deal was the vanilla
TACOMA PREFUNK MONDAY JUNE 19 2017: Dank IPAs and creative types … PREFUNK: Given the right physical space and strain, cannabis can soothe those creeping feelings of isolation and doubt into solitude and reflection. The anxiety of what made you alone in the first place is replaced with an appreciation for this moment — a bit of time to just reflect on all the crap for a bit. Stoner music works for that feeling too — music where your brain suddenly proffers a slideshow of memories, combined with some revelation about your past and present. Sure, this makes no sense,
We’ve talked IPA before, but here’s a quick history: the style, known full-length as India Pale Ale, developed out of British necessity to provide their boys on the ground in India with beer that didn’t go bad during the long boat voyage from back home. They stuffed the brews full of hops, which both acted as a preservative as lent the drinks a nice bitter kick. While English IPAs tend to be a balance of malt and hops, U.S. versions land decidedly on the hoppy side of the teeter totter. For today’s craft beer flight we’re concentrating on dank IPAs.
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 a car full of sleeping kids so he can get home in time watch the Mariners/Rangers game with his favorite beer, which can be had at Peaks and Pints today. We crafted a craft beer flight for dear ol’ dad
Tacoma’s E9 Brewery won back to back Mid-sized Brewery of the Year and best Washington Agricultural Product use again this year at the Washington Beer Awards. Photo courtesy of Facebook Before the gates opened for day two of the Washington Brewers Festival at Marymoor Park in Redmond today, Specialty Competitions LLC and the Washington Beer Commission announce the winners of the fifth annual Washington Beer Awards. South Sound breweries grabbed 32 medals at 2017 Washington Beer Awards. This year’s competition included 1,207 entries from 165 different brewing companies in 64 categories, which were evaluated in a
Arrrrrrrrrrr! TACOMA PREFUNK SATURDAY, JUNE 17 2017: pirate beer and pirate life PREFUNK: Ahoy, buckos and lasses! Batten down t’ hatches fer Festival of Sail 2017 pirates be pillaged Peaks and Pints’ Prefunk AND taps, swapin’ seven taps wid water bird grog. Peaks and Pints captains be tied up in t’ Cap’n’s quarters and livin’ on only crusty bread, bilge and sea water, possibly be forcin’ them t’ walk t’ plank (reclaimed wood plank, naturally). Ye can be eyin’ Goose Island Juliet wild ale, Goose Island Sofie barrel-aged farmhouse, Pelican Brewing Five Fin pilsner, Pelican Cherry
Barrel aging is totally a thing. Well, it has been for centuries. Before industrialization, Europeans fermented beer in wood, stored and shipped in wood, and poured directly from wood. Beer spoiled often. Life was hard. By the mid-20th century, most breweries had happily traded their temperamental wooden barrels for the reliability and convenience of metal tanks. Beer spoiled less. Life was decent. However, brewers have long known that wood-aging can add flavor and depth to beer, especially if said barrel previously contained Kentucky bourbon, Jamaican rum or Washington state wine. The result is a beer more complex than most, as
TACOMA PREFUNK THURSDAY, JUNE 15 2017: Pelican Lodge Meeting and Kevin Bacon PREFUNK: When Ryan Rosen isn’t selling Dirty Bird IPA or Udder Tugger Milk Stout for Pelican Brewing Company based in Pacific City, Oregon, he spends the rest of his time trying to figure out the physical and mental limits of what he semi-jokingly calls extreme backpacking. He’s hiked all the big, long trails — including completing the Wonderland Trail around Mount Rainier in less than three days. He also knows how to pack the perfect backpack — whether it’s a day hike on the Thunder Creek Trail in
MORNING FOAM FOR THURSDAY, JUNE 15 2016: A seven-taster flight of craft beer and cider news, from the fluffy head all the way to the best way to mail beer across the country. … The Washington Brewers Festival begins its run at Marymoor Park in Redmond tomorrow night. This year 131 breweries will pour in excess of 600 beers during the three-day festival. The sixth annual Oregon Cider Week, celebrating all things cider, begins and continues through June 25. The week kicks off with the awards announcement from the Northwest Cider Association’s Portland International Cider Cup. The competition winner will be
In 1996, Jeff Schons and Mary Jones founded English-focused Pelican Brewing Company in Pacific City — Oregon’s only oceanfront brewpub. Celebrating its 21st year, the brewing company has created tasty treats such as Kiwanda Cream Ale, India Pelican Ale, MacPelican’s Scottish Ale, Tsunami Stout and Doryman’s Dark. Founding brewmaster Darron Welch and Pelican have won more than 300 awards including the 2014 World Beer Cup Champion Small Brewing Company and Brewmaster of the Year, and last month snapped up 10 medals at the 2017 Australian International Beer Awards. Tonight, Pelican Brewing will be the special guest at Peaks and Pints’
Jazz guitarist Claude Bourbon performs at the Tacoma Public Library Main Branch tonight. Courtesy photo TACOMA PREFUNK WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14 2017: Ales for Albatross and music fusions PREFUNK: Peaks and Pints bottle shop, taproom and restaurant hosts animal AND people, er people Suzanne Akerman and Whitney Weibel and their Drinking for Conservation organization’s “Ales for Albatross” night. Peaks and Pints will donate a portion of the night’s ales sales to Oceanic Society, an organization dedicated to the conservation of albatross, especially the bird’s fight against the oceans’ plastic pollution problem. Akerman will also be roaming the
Here are a few things we know about IPAs: 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 bitter and sour by subduing those major traits, but playing up the fruity qualities each share to create something unique. They can make the beer brighter, complex, and tantalizingly unique and refreshing. Our beer flight today explores five sour IPAs under the title Craft Beer Crosscut 6.14.17: A Flight of Sour IPAs. Stone Enjoy After 10.31.16
Beer is in a constant state of evolution, and hops, as an ingredient, trend according to shifting tastes and novel varieties. New strains of hops come out so often and quickly that they sometimes don’t even have a name yet, just a number. Old classic hop varieties such as Hallertauer, Fuggles, Galena and Saaz now compete with new hops with names such as Idaho 7, Denali, Apollo, Azacca, Cashmere, Jester, Lemondrop and Experimental #09326 (described as having aromas of grapefruit, tropical fruit, citrus). Today, Peaks and Pints takes a look at two of the new generation of hops — and
TACOMA PREFUNK MONDAY, JUNE 12 2017: Stoup Please and Thank You IPA and Squeak and Squawk PREFUNK: Stoup Brewing has good manners. The folks at the Seattle brewery always say “please” and “thank you.” “May we please have a small business administration loan to open Stoup Brewing in Ballard in October 2013?” Good manners … and a solid business plan works. Signing the paperwork, founders and husband-and-wife duo Brad Benson and Lara Zahaba said, “thank you.” A stream of thank yous followed after their Robust Porter grabbed a silver medal at the 2014 World Beer Cup. Sitting in Stoup’s taproom,
Happy Sunday! Whether you’ve been on Instagram since its beginnings in 2010 or you’re an Instagram neophyte, you know keeping up on important photos can be overwhelming. If you follow everything and everyone you find interesting, you can end up with hundreds and hundreds of Instagram posts showing up in your feed on a daily basis. Don’t despair. Peaks and Pints shares important and pointless IG posts from craft breweries’ IG accounts every Sunday so you may catch up on dogs drinking craft beers and the latest action along the production line. Be sure to keep posting those craft beer
Eric Willard, always working You’ve seen him at the Proctor Arts Festival with his young family. You’ve seen him at Brew Five Three Beer & Blues Festival hanging out with his extended family. But, most likely you’ve seen him on his computer crunching numbers and mumbling about hop costs and maintenance schedules. He’s Eric Willard, director of operations at Two Beers Brewing Co. and Seattle Cider Company, and a Tacoman who drives six days a week to the sister companies’ South Seattle location to work long hours. He can also crush your bones with a hug,
The Dan Duval Good Vibes Quartet Performs at the Marine View Church in Northwest Tacoma tonight. Courtesy photo TACOMA PREFUNK SUNDAY, JUNE 11 2017: Duchesse de Bourgogne, Dan Duval and debates PREFUNK: Brewed by Belgian Brouwerij Verhaeghe, Duchesse de Bourgogne is a Flemish red ale, a blend of 8-month-old and 18-month-old ales, in this case. As with all red ales, the drink gets its characteristic sour and tart quality from lactic acid, while aging in oak barrels imparts a deeper body. The drink is named for Duchess Mary of Burgundy, a filthy-rich medieval heiress who suffered
The Resident Kings will rock Rhythm & Rye in Olympia tonight. Photo courtesy of Facebook SOUTH SOUND PREFUNK SATURDAY, JUNE 10 2017: Loowit’s Space Panther IPA and awesome events PREFUNK: There’s a good chance you’ll find the 1988 Space Panther pinball machine at the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show at the Tacoma Convention Center this weekend. There’s even a better chance you’ll find Loowit Brewing Co.’s Space Panther IPA on tap at peaks and Pints today. And, for you, that’s good news. This is an outstanding IPA for few reasons: It’s inexpensive; it’s available and it’s
National Herbs and Spices Day is here! It’s unclear how National Herbs and Spices Day originated. What Peaks and Pints does know is it’s an opportune time to stretch your wings and try craft beer loaded with herbs and spices. Herbs and spices are often used interchangeably, but they’re really very different. Herbs are generally the leaves from herbaceous plants like thyme, rosemary and sage. Spices, on the other hand, are culled from the roots, seeds and bark of plants and are usually dried and ground up. Then there’s cilantro; it’s both an herb and a spice. The leaves are
TACOMA PREFUNK FRIDAY, JUNE 9 2017: Founders Sumatra Mountain Brown and Mr. Hyde PREFUNK: Founders Brewing’s magnificent, coffee-forward Sumatra Mountain imperial brown ale is smooth, rich and roasty with nutty and caramel flavors. This full-bodied ale receives its depth from a team of malts including caramel malt for sweetness, flaked barley for dense foam, a bit of chocolate malt for its deep color and aromatic and Munich malts to add even more depth. Sumatra coffee, along with German and Perle hops, are also among the ingredients that make this a slam-dunk brew for a Friday. Drop by Peaks and Pints and
One of the best parts of South Sound summer is when locally picked raspberries start arriving at the farmers’ markets. Pick up a pound and you’ll ask yourself how the hell you spend 10 months of the year eating strangely flavorless raspberries trucked up from California. There are more than 20 varieties of red raspberries, including several that originate here in the Northwest. They also come in black, purple and even golden varieties. One cup of raspberries will supply more than half your daily requirement of vitamin C, along with a heart-helping, fat-busting, cancer-fighting abundance of antioxidants. Get yourself primed
Enjoy an Avery Twenty Four Imperial IPA at Peaks and Pints then enjoy bounty from the sea tonight. SOUTH SOUND PREFUNK THURSDAY, JUNE 8 2017: Avery Twenty Four IPA and surrounded by sea life PREFUNK: In 1993, Adam Avery’s brewed his first professional beers in a garage off an alley in Boulder, Colorado. In 1996, Avery was among the first breweries in Colorado to offer an IPA. Twenty-two years after launching Avery Brewing Co., Avery and his dad, Larry, built a $30 million production facility with the goal to brew upward of 70,000 barrels a year.
Super hopped. What does that sound more like to you, a really bitter craft beer or a beer loaded with 10 or so hop varieties? Historic 1800s India Pale Ales were generally single hop beers; usually SMaSH (Single Malt and Single Hop) beers, with East Kent Goldings, aka EKG, defining the style for many decades. Was EKG superior to the other varieties available at the time, or the 1800 peeps didn’t have hundreds of hop varieties that exist today? Modern day brewers brew craft beer with every strategy imaginable, including loading the recipe with eight or more hop varietals. Do
Drinking for Conservation will host an Ales for Albatross event at Peaks and Pints Wednesday, June 14. It’s too late. Albatross have consumed your soul, your psyche, your wardrobe. And, no one can hear you scream, because you are, in fact, dreaming, and in your dream you are wearing a huge ungainly albatross suit, and it’s hot and smelly. And there are about a million albatross in your house and most of them look deranged and insane and are silently screaming for help and squawking at the windows and praying for quick albatross death. No, no,
Grab advance tickets to the Broadway Center’s Brew Five Three craft beer and blues festival at Peaks and Pints tonight. SOUTH SOUND PREFUNK WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7 2017: Brew Five Three and craft beer PREFUNK: The Broadway Center for the Performing Arts’ Brew Five Three: Tacoma’s Beer & Blues Festival continues to be the one-stop check-in for craft beer in the South Sound. Saturday, Aug. 5, you can walk up and down Broadway street with a taster glass and introduce yourself to the new craft breweries as well as 30 or so other breweries from around the
Every few years, health-conscious foodies go giddy over a new grain-or rather, an old one. Farro, teff, kamut, amaranth and that hippie potluck favorite, quinoa, have all had their day in the sun. The current candidate for stardom, at least in our eyes, is an ancient Middle Eastern grain known as spelt. Its scientific name is Triticum spelta, and its often-used German name is Dinkel. Mankind’s first known brewers, the Sumerians, almost certainly made beer from spelt. Spelt is the result of a cross between Emmer (Triticum dicoccum) and wild grasses in Mesopotamia some 10,000 years ago. Spelt doesn’t sound
TACOMA PREFUNK TUESDAY, JUNE 6 2017: Chuckanut Brewery and swing dance culture film PREFUNK: In the early 1980s, chemical engineer and homebrewer Will Kemper paid a visit to the brewmaster of the now-defunct Rainier Brewery in Seattle where he was told he couldn’t open a brewery because he wasn’t born into it. Good one. In 1984, Kemper, his wife, Mari, and Andy Thomas opened Thomas Kemper Brewery in Poulsbo, Washington. In 1992, Thomas Kemper merged with Hart Brewing, which went on to be Pyramid Breweries. The Kempers saw the ugly side of the business and became consultants with East Coast
Like Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden, 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 grapefruit juice to the boil, followed by the rinds in the secondary, followed by hops, hops and
Brian Cox’s Churchill will never come to you hat in hand. TACOMA PREFUNK MONDAY, JUNE 5 2017: Jason Locking benefit and summer memories PREFUNK: With heavy hearts, we at Peaks and Pints send our deepest condolences to Jason Locking’s “family.” Jason, 44, died peacefully in his sleep following a 15-month battle with pancreatic cancer. The beloved Tacoma chef and musician played in several bands over the years, including Gold Teeth, Pioneers West, NMVGPTS and, most recently, Old Foals. Shortly before his cancer diagnosis, he was promoted to sous chef at Boka at Hotel 1000 in downtown
Founders reDANKulous Imperial Red IPA is a no frills, bold 9.5% ABV India Pale Ale. MORNING FOAM FOR MONDAY, JUNE 5 2017: A seven-taster flight of craft beer news, from the fluffy head all the way to old beer ads. … Portland’s Lardo on Hawthorne is welcoming Melvin for a week long of Wu-Tang antics — 17 beer tap takeover, Wu-Tang, Kung Fu, and the “World’s Greatest Ping Pong” show. The dankness runs June 8-15. Modern Times has released Centaur Gardens, a hazy IPA crammed with Amarillo, Simcoe, Citra, J17 and Mosaic hops and fermented with
