Amarillo wasn’t so much developed as it was discovered. In 1990 Virgil Gamache Farms found this strain growing next to a field of Liberty hops. It still took 13 years from discovery for it to be publicly released. Amarillo is a citrus bomb with notes of lemon, orange, and grapefruit thanks to its off the charts Myrcene oil content. It’s amazing on its own but works fantastically with other citrus and tropical hops. If it were socially acceptable to drink beer in the morning, one with Amarillo hops would be the perfect way to start the day. Wake up to
It’s not white. And it’s not necessarily Belgian. But Belgian white beer — witbier in Flemish, bire blanche in French — is undeniably flavorful and refreshing. White beer originated in the eastern part of the province of Brabant, about 25 miles southeast of Brussels. The city of Louvain and the nearby village of Hoegaarden (pronounced “who garden”) were famous for their white beers. The more than 400-year-old style nearly went extinct in the mid-20th century, until Pierre Celis single-handedly revived the witbier in 1965 from his barn in Hoegaarden. Just as German wheat beers are sometimes called weissbier, witbiers are
In 2002, Navy veteran Mike Hinkley opened Green Flash Brewing in Vista, San Diego County, California, with investors Cindy and Matin Blair and Pam and Philip Palisoul. They struggled. The brand’s rise followed the 2004 hiring of a veteran brewer, Chuck Silva, with a portfolio of distinctive recipes, including the West Coast IPA. In 2011, the company left its small Vista brewery for a massive Mira Mesa plant, giving it a seven-fold increase in production capacity. In 2014, Hinkley purchase of Alpine Beer adding several legendary beers, including Nelson and Duet, to his portfolio. In 2015, he opened a barrel-aging
In 2002, after eight batches, Manny Chao and Roger Bialous high-fived in their Seattle backyard after nailing their Manny’s recipe — a pale ale that went on the be Seattle’s beer. Chao was the first employee at Mac & Jack’s Brewing where he learned the craft beer business from washing kegs to selling beer. Chao and Bialous relocated their Georgetown Brewing Company from their garage to the historic Seattle Brewing and Malting Plant, where Rainier Beer was once produced. In 2008, the duo relocated the business to a larger Georgetown neighborhood space keep up with Manny’s demand. Today, Peaks and
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 5.28.23 Keep the long weekend going with Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 5.28.23! Aslan Brewing Disco Lemonade: Berliner weisse with hints of lemon, 4.5% Block 15 Brewing Fresh Flow: Summertime IPA with a soft malt base beneath a tidal wave of exotic tropical and juicy citrus hop varietals, 6.5% Block 15 That’s the Badger: English pub style ESB that balances complex malt notes of toasted nuts and caramel with a mellow hop bitterness and a gentle, spicy hop flavor, 5.4% 450 North Brewing Bug Blaster Slushy XL: Fruited sour with red
Middle Memorial Day Weekend weather forecast calls for 71 degrees and partly cloudy, dipping into the lower 50s tonight. Whether you’re pitching a tent at Ohanapecoch, glamping at Guemes North Homestead, or just hanging out in your backyard, the odds are there will be a fire to sit around after dinner. As you sit around your appropriate blaze, you’ll want something to drink. Peaks & Pints suggests five beers ready for a night of flannel, stories, and glowing embers, or just enjoy at our craft beer and cider bar, bottle shop and restaurant. Either way, Peaks and Pints Beer Flight:
The unofficial start of summer is officially here. As the amuse bouche of the summer season, Memorial Day weekend brings with it all the sweet signs of the warm weather to come in the greater Tacoma area. From barbecues and baseball games to road trips and chill nights around a campfire, there are so many excuses to celebrate over the (much needed) long weekend. While you relax over the next few days, make sure to include a few local sips as well. Peaks and Pints has gathered five Tacoma brewery beers for today’s in-house beer flight. Stop by our craft
Craft beer is best fresh. If you drink a fresh hop IPA the day it is bottled or canned, it will be at its peak. Never again will it taste so good. Day by day, by degrees, its lushness will fade. Beer, unlike vinegar and Pop Tarts, is not a fixed food product. So why then do brewers barrel-age beer? Because it’s porous; wood allows for very slow oxidation, which can make darker, malty beers more complex. Wood can also host microflora, bacteria that add the sourness to wild ales and lambics. The barrel’s former resident — the wine or
Astoria’s Fort George Brewery has brewed 3-Way IPA since 2013, featuring two different craft brewery collaborators every year. This year, Anchorage Brewing from Anchorage, Alaska, and Cellarmaker Brewing from San Francisco, California, shared ideas and techniques with Fort George founder Chris Nemlowill, and after many beta test batches, blind tastings, lab tests, aroma analysis, color checks, last Saturday’s Lupulin Ecstasy Festival in Astoria, and long conversations, what pours from Peaks & Pints’ Western red cedar tap log, as well as what sits in our 850+ cooler, is the first of three 2023 3-Way IPAs. This year, Fort George will offer
The owners of Channel Marker Cider — Zack Lough, Nicole Lounsberry, and Chris Irish — named their Seattle Ballard neighborhood cidery for their mutual love of sailing. Channel markers are nautical navigation aids for mariners. “The name is meaningful to us since we met sailing the Pacific Ocean and find inspiration on and near the water,” the trio state on their website. Lough, a sailor, would ride out a hurricane season in New Zealander by making Sauvignon Blanc at a winery, which sat across the street from a New Zealand cidery. He eventually added cidermaking to his life, which he took pro
Hops are a resinous, sticky green flower (and from what Snoop Dogg taught us, so too is that sticky icky icky — weed). The hops used in brewing are the flower of a climbing plant that’s a member of the hemp family. They grow on bines (not vines) that can reach more than 16 feet tall. The hop flowers contain lupulin, a sticky substance that contains essential oils, bitter acids, and resins, and that is released when boiled. Hops are added during the brewing process and play an important part in balancing the flavors and aroma of the beer, as
Kyle and Mirandas Carbaugh founded their downtown Greeley, Colorado brewery Wiley Roots Brewing in 2013. Five years later, they expanded into a new production facility adjacent to their taproom, increasing their production space from 800 square feet to more than 5,000 square feet. Shortly after construction was complete, the brewery expanded its self-distribution efforts along the Denver-Metro and Colorado Springs regions by working with the delivery arm of WeldWerks Brewing Company. Since January 2020, Wiley Roots has slowly grown their distribution network, led by a portfolio of popular mixed-culture sour ales, East Coast IPAs, New England IPAs, imperial stouts, and
In 1917, Harry Burnett Reese worked on a dairy farm owned by the Hershey Company, which morphed into a job in the company’s candy factory. While some folks like to tinker with electronics in their basement, Reese hid beneath his main floor experimenting with different candy formula, with the intention of making extra money to care for his growing family. He created the H. B. Reese Candy Company in 1923, selling a large variety of confections. One day, one of his family members got his or her chocolate stuck in his peanut butter. The rest, as they say, is history.
Geoffrey Barker and Andrew Pogue met as members of the North Seattle Home Brew Club. They both love saisons and sours. They traveled to mixed-fermentation guru Jester King in Austin, Texas, where they added to their friendship circle. The duo spent years looking for a place to launch their brewery. Eventually they landed in a former home of an orchid retailer, a boxy, lightly industrial building at 936 Northwest 49th Street, in the thick of Ballard’s brewery district. With the help of Jester King, Barker and Pogue opened Fair Isle Brewing in January 2020 focusing on mixed-culture and wild beers,
The 17th annual American Craft Beer Week is under way and picking up speed. The Brewers Association — a nonprofit group recognized as the central foundation for craft beer in America — designates a week in May to celebrate small and independent craft breweries. This year, May 15-21 serves as an opportunity to get to know your local brewers. Beer was once the unfussy option, the tonic of the masses. On Cheers, Norm simply orders beer — no need for a name, because beer was just beer. In contrast to the perceived snobbery of wine, beer was meant for drinking,
Since 2015, the Zehner family has made delicious, crushable cider, many from a dry-hopped apple base to pull out citrus aromas at their Incline Cider Company. The Auburn-based cidery with a popular Tacoma taproom uses 100 percent fresh pressed apples, no added sugar, no carbonated water, and the result are ciders that are balanced, not too sweet and super flavorful. In 2019, they opened the Incline Cider House in Tacoma’s Historic Brewery District. The traditional-style bar allows a true cider experience by offering 16 tap handles of eight to 10 of Incline’s own ciders, and additional rotating Washington and Northwest
Celebrate mom, grandma, your best friend’s abuela and any mother figure in your life this Mother’s Day. There are so many great ways to say “thanks” to that special person, from epic brunch buffets to bottomless drinks to indulgent dinners. Then, there are those moms who all they really want is a day off to do whatever they want — nap on the couch, take a hike, grab an afternoon beer session with girlfriends. So maybe the best gift you could give Mom is to take the kids out for the day. Then, return to cook her dinner, or do
Lagers have seen a resurgence of late. Almost every brewery makes at least one, from the American light lagers modeled on Bud, Miller, and Coors, to the ever-present pilsner, to more interesting varieties such as dunkels, dopplebocks, maibocks and marzens. This wasn’t the case five years ago, however, for several reasons. For starters, since lagers typically take at least a month to ferment, as opposed to two weeks for ales, most quickly growing breweries focused instead on keeping their taprooms full of the more popular hoppy ales. Lagers can also be finicky if a brewery lacks specialized equipment, and they remind
The 2023 World Beer Cup Competition took place on Wednesday, May 10 in Nashville, Tennessee. Often called the “Olympics of Beer”, the global competition is organized by the Brewers Association, the not-for-profit trade association for America’s small and independent craft brewers. This year’s competition saw 10,213 entries from 2,376 breweries, across 51 countries. Those entries were judged in Nashville by 272 judges hailing from 26 countries. Out of 307 medals awarded, Oregon and Washington breweries brought home 35 World Beer Cup medals, including multiple-medal winners Icicle Brewing, Grains of Wrath, 10 Barrel Brewing, Bend Brewing, and Sunriver Brewing with Fair
It’s Maibock drinking season, at least according to the Germans. Since 1614, the first kegs are tapped at Munich’s Hofbräuhaus during the last week of April as they bid auf wiedersehen to winter and welcome the warming days of spring with a lager strong enough to withstand cooler nights but aromatic enough to match the flowering trees and budding plants outside. Maibocks (mai-, pronounced “my,” is German for May), like other bocks (stout lagers) are malt-forward, full-bodied beers with a stronger alcohol content (6.3 to 8.1 percent). But, unlike their darker brothers the dopplebock, Maibocks highlight floral hop characteristics that
Hill Farmstead Brewery in Greensboro, Vermont, founded by Shaun Hill, is rooted in family history that extends back to the 1780s. In college, Hill started a homebrew club in college and fantasized about coming back to Greenboro and launching a brewery, which he did in 2010. Unlike most Vermont breweries, his jaw-dropping operation rests on a beautiful, secluded farm in the middle of nowhere. The rural ambiance and gorgeous architecture, combined with their fine ales, makes for a true one-of-a-kind experience. To connect with the personal stories and family history, Hill names his beers after the people in his family
In late 2010, Corvallis homebrewers Aaron Sarnoff-Wood and Lee Larsen filled a gap in the college town’s drinking scene — cider. The duo opened 2 Towns Ciderhouse crafting unique ciders brewed with the traditional English and French-style’s tannic apples, Oregon grown, of course. Named after the cities of Corvallis and Eugene (Larsen’s a Beaver; Sarnoff-Wood a Duck), 2 Towns believes “… that the long history of cidermaking demands respect and deserves to be done right,” states the cidery’s motto. Since it’s Monday, and Peaks & Pints offers a to-go cider flight on this day every week, enjoy Peaks and Pints
Peaks & Pints knows we’ve featured hazy IPAs in our to-be beer flight column before, but as a refresher, we’ll run through the difference between a regular, clear IPA and a hazy. To be honest, IPAs nowadays have a broad interpretation, so it’s not quite an apples-to-apples comparison. But, in layman’s terms the hazy tends to go lighter on the bitterness and fruitier and juicier (without adding juice). It’s that flavor that tends to make non-IPA fans, fans of the hazy — and with an influx of new hazy IPAs to the Peaks & Pints cooler, we thought we’d take
Peaks and Pints New Beers in Stock 5.6.23 It’s Saturday and time to stock up on new craft beer for the Seattle Mariners and NBA playoffs plus tomorrow’s Seattle Kraken Stanley Cup Playoffs game and the Seattle Sounders. 7 Seas Brewing Blackberry Sour: Gose ale brewed with blackberry puree for a tart, fruity, and refreshing sour ale, 4.8% Block 15 Brewing The Past – 15th Anniversary Amber Ale: Corvallis Brewing Supply and Joel Rea were instrumental in Block 15’s beginning and development as a community brewpub. From supplying their first home brew kit to providing knowledge and encouragement as we
“Cinco de Mayo,” Spanish for “the sink is full of mayonnaise.” OK, not really. We made that up, which is only fitting, because the idea that May 5 is a big holiday celebrated throughout Mexico is also made up. This yarn was spun by some PR hack for Corona beer back in the ’80s when the company was looking for a way to get Americans to drink more beer. Since this is not an especially hard task, they didn’t work especially hard on the idea, not even hard enough to note that Mexico’s real Day of Independence is Sept. 16.
Today is May 4 — which may not mean a lot to a lot of people, but it’s a special date for serious Star Wars fans. May the 4th (as in “May the Force be with you”) is the day on which we celebrate all things Star Wars-related. And what better way to celebrate the date than by drinking space-themed craft beer while watching Star Wars from your couch. Where in the universe can you find such beer, padawan? Embrace your inner Jabba (or related Hutt) and stop by our little craft beer lodge for our space-themed, to-go beer flight
Bret Gordon left the University of Colorado with a degree in Economics and a passion for craft beer. He continued into the finance world, probably sipping an Avery Brewing beer here and there. It didn’t take long for him to realize that being at a desk was not for him and he wanted to become a professional brewer. That passion led him and his family to California where he went back to school to earn a Professional Brewing Certificate at the University of San Diego. He swore he would never go back to school, but beer will make you do
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 5.1.23 Kick off May right with Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 5.1.23 Baerlic Brewing Stay Fresh: Brewed with 100 percent Pilsner malt for a crisp and dry IPA with notes of candied orange, spring flowers, and dank grapefruit with a sturdy California-style bitterness, 6.7% Ecliptic Brewing Juicy Lager: Collaboration with Ravenna Brewing, this lager is brewed with a juicy mix of modern hops, including Enigma and Cashmere, for notes of white grape, red currant, and lime-orange citrus, 5.5% Fast Fashion Brewing Trippy Lifting: Extra pale ale brewed with New Zealand Cascade
E9 Brewing Sales Executive Sean Larson raises the Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales Champion, E9 Don of Time. Peaks and Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales Champion It’s a simple equation: Water plus grain, hops, and yeast. But hidden within this simple formula is a universe of variety. American or English? Clear or hazy? Tropical or dank? Washington and Oregon brewers who brew the classic pale ale have choices to make. And in those choices lie the path to greatness. In March 2023, Peaks & Pints asked beer drinkers to nominate their favorite pale
Peaks & Pints bartenders Phaedra Miller and Brandon Crespin call today’s Tournament of Beer Northwest Pale Ales Championship Game. Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales Championship Vote and Party BRANDON CRESPIN: Oh, the carnage! Oh, the humanity! Oh, the late kettle additions! PHAEDRA MILLER: The prodigious pale ale throwdown finale is on! Voting for Peaks and Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales Championship Game is live. Hello Tournament tribe! I’m Peaks bartender Phaedra Miller. After three weeks of voting, you have picked the most popular pale ales in the Pacific Northwest. What began as 64
New arrivals to the Peaks & Pints cooler. Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 4.28.23 Grab Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 4.28.23 for a refreshing weekend in the sun. OK, there are also a couple of big, delicious stouts. Cheers! Bizarre Brewing Floating In Light: Rotating pale ale brewed with pale English and German malts and flaked rice, plus this version has Comet, Nelson Sauvin, and Luminosa hops, 5.1% Block 15 Brewing Revolve 2023: Golden ale brewed with Northwest-grown grains then cellared two years with Brettanomyces in peach brandy barrels and bottled, riddled,
The Twang Junkies play The Valley Saturday night. 6-Pack of Things To Do: April 28-30 2023 The weekend is full of pale ale battles, romantic comedies, tomato plants and twang, among other distractions. Welcome to Peaks & Pints’ 6-Pack of Things To Do: April 28-30 2023. FINAL FOUR: The Pacific Northwest loves pale ales — at least according to the thousands that have voted in our Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pales Ales. Today marks the Final Four. We started with 64 of the Pacific Northwest’s best pale ales. Now, four premier pales face off for the
Peaks & Pints bartenders Max Tomhave and Brandon Crespin call today’s Tournament of Beer Northwest Pale Ales Final Four action. Peaks and Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales Final Four April 28 BRANDON CRESPIN: And then there were four. … MAX TOMHAVE: Welcome to the Peaks and Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales Final Four everyone! I’m Peaks & Pints bartender Max Tomhave and believe it or not there have been days during this pale ale tournament when, by noon or so, it was already obvious which pale would be moving on and which
Peaks & Pints bartenders Max Tomhave and Brandon Crespin call today’s Tournament of Beer Northwest Pale Ales Great Eight games. Peaks and Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales Great Eight April 27 MAX TOMHAVE: The Great Eight is fully fleshed out: Georgetown Johnny Utah, Holy Mountain Kiln & Cone, E9 Brewing Don of Time, Bale Breaker Field 41, Fort George City of Dreams, pFriem Mosaic Pale, Boneyard Bone-A-Fide and Pelican Paddleback. Eight pale ales that — according to public online voting — are the best pale ales brewed in Washington and Oregon. Hello everyone. I’m
Peaks & Pints bartenders Amber Hamilton and Brandon Crespin call the Tournament of Beer Northwest Pale Ales Sweet 16’s last day. Peaks and Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales Sweet 16 April 26 AMBER HAMILTON: It’s been 20 days since Peaks & Pints launched the Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales, and everything else pales in comparison. People are singing Tears For Fears’ “Pale Shelter”. Clint Eastwood’s film Pale Rider has received a bump in Northwest viewership. Everyone has switched to eating pasta, bread, and rice. I’m Peaks bartender Amber Hamilton and I’m really pale
Peaks and Pints bartenders Amber Hamilton and Brandon Crespin call today’s Tournament of Beer Northwest Pale Ales Sweet 16 action. Peaks and Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales Sweet 16 April 25 AMBER HAMILTON: For the last two weeks Peaks & Pints presented you with a compelling question: What is the best pale ale brewed in Washington and Oregon? And you have responded in droves. Sick days have been used. Friendships have fallen apart. Distributor Sales Executives and Line Cleaners have hooked up — mass hysteria! BRANDSON CRESPIN: The competition has been whittled down to
Peaks & Pints bartenders Phaedra Miller and Brandon Crespin call the Tournament of Beer Northwest Pale Ales Second Round final day. Peaks and Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales April 24 PHAEDRA MILLER: Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the 2023 Peaks and Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales from the historic Proctor District in beautiful Tacoma, Washington. I’m Peaks & Pints bartender Phaedra Miller and welcome to Day 12 of the Tournament of Beer. The last eight pale ales in the Second Round are rested from the weekend off and are ready to
Peaks & Pints bartenders Phaedra Miller and Brandon Crespin recap yesterday’s Tournament of Beer Northwest Pale Ales games. Peaks and Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales April 22 PHAEDRA MILLER: Happy Saturday everyone! I’m Peaks & Pints bartender Phaedra Miller. For more than two weeks, Peaks & Pints challenged 64 of the Pacific Northwest’s best pale ales to go toasted maltiness-to-toasted maltiness in craft beer combat. Some fell easily by the wayside, either due to a rogue taproom employee or simply because they faced a superior opponent. Pint by pint, you drank your way through
Matthew Usher and Brittney Crowder call today’s Peaks & Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales Second Round action. Peaks and Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales April 21 MATTHEW USHER: Hello beer enthusiasts. I’m Peaks & Pints bartender Matthew Usher. Sixty-four sudsy competitors (for the most part) were selected and seeded by the public in early March for the Peaks and Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales, which is now 11 days into the competition. These Oregon and Washington brewed pale ales are working their way through the tediously constructed bracket and toward
There’s no shortage of things you can do to celebrate 4/20, like, say, visiting numerous dispensaries and buying copious amounts of deeply discounted cannabis and cannabis products, and then, you know, consuming them, perhaps in a Mrs. Butterworth’s bong or Cheech & Chong joint. Then, you’ll get the munchies because cannabis consumption activates certain receptors in our brains, directing hunger-fighting neurons to switch sides and stimulate our appetites. The most generic strains of weed can lube up an appetite, especially for anyone who doesn’t toke very often, but there is a rare class of cannabis out there digging endless pits
Peaks & Pints bartenders Matthew Usher and Brittney Crowder call today’s Tournament of Beer Northwest Pale Ales Second Round action. Peaks and Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales April 20 MATTHEW USHER: Maybe if we all took a page from the friendly spirit of the craft beer movement, the world just might be a better place. It’s unlikely there is another fiercely competitive business that delights so much in hanging out together. If the market share is so small for each brewery, why cooperate with your competition? Maybe it stems from the David vs. Goliath
Peaks & Pints bartenders Phaedra Miller and Brandon Crespin call today’s Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales Second Round action. Peaks and Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales April 19 PHAEDRA MILLER: Now it’s getting exciting. The hops are really starting to fly, and the water is so soft that you’ll have to beat the Charmin bear off with a bat. OK, so that’s a horrible analogy. Point is: This is serious. Hello, everyone! I’m Peaks & Pints bartender Phaedra Miller. Today, the Tournament of Beer officially kicks off its Second Round, meaning 32 Northwest
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 4.18.23 To those of you not rushing out the door to H&R Block or logging onto TurboTax, congratulations. You can kick back and reward yourself with Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 4.18.23 while your brethren fight to get their taxes filed. Cheers! Away Days Brewing Dope Days: Strong, sweet London brown ale brewed with Deadstock Coffee beans for notes of brown sugar, syrupy dark fruits, caramel, bread, fudge, spice, and smooth roast, 5.9% Bombastic Brewing Pandemonium: Imperial stout brewed with peanut butter, marshmallow, and vanilla to bring back the classic fluffernutter,
Peaks & Pints bartenders Amy Kirk, left, and Nicole Allen call today’s Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales final First Round games. Peaks and Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales April 18 AMY KIRK: Hello Peaks & Pints Pals! I’m Peaks bartender Amy Kirk. Low and behold, today marks the closing of the Peaks & Pints Tournament of Beer: Northwest Pale Ales First Round action. After today’s battles the bracket will officially be down to 32 Washington and Oregon brewed pale ales, and brewers will start hiring cheerleaders. Honestly, if it gets any more exciting,
