Worn out already? Does the sound of “Away in a Manger” tinkling out of a plastic cherub at Target make you twitch? Do you fantasize about hiring Barry Scheck to get you out of Hanukkah with your in-laws? Do the words solstice and kwanzaa sound like synonyms for “Please God, not another party”? Does prolonged exposure to tinsel in public spaces make you want to go postal? Stop, take a deep breath, and put down the candy cane you’ve just sharpened into a vampire-slaying stake. You are not alone. There is help. There is craft beer. Peaks & Pints has
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 12.6.21 A wet, cold night and Monday Night Football call for new craft beer from the Peaks & Pints cooler. Cheers! 7 Seas Brewing Key Lime Sour: Gose-style kettle sour brewed with key limes and San Juan Island Sea Salt for a tart and refreshing beer, 4.7% Block 15 Brewing Hoppy Holidays: Double IPA brewed with a sleigh-full of resinous and citrus-forward hops for flavors of pine and orange zest with a generous, warming malt backbone, 9% Block 15 Raspberry Cardinal Coalescence: Flanders style red ale that blends fresh red ale with portions
Just as highway signs are vital to safe driving, channel markers exist to help boaters travel the waterways safely. Channel markers indicate the sides of a navigable channel; you can avoid sand bars and other hazards by keeping within the markers. They also show where junctions with other channels occur, as well as forks or splits in a channel. Channel markers can show the safe side to pass a hazard. And on wide bodies of water, they mark the safe centerline. Today’s boating safety chat is sponsored by Channel Marker Cider, a Seattle Ballard neighborhood cidery founded in 2016 by
Instagram Outsider: Washington Pint Days, When Sauvs Cry, Winter Beer Fest From Washington Pint Days to Elf On The Shelf, from When Sauvs Cry to Winter Beer Fest, Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider returns today with a photo essay of Instagram posts from the past week. Be sure to keep tagging us @peaksandpints and @ciderofdestiny for your chance to be featured on Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider. Until we meet back here again next week, enjoy Instagram Outsider: Washington Pint Days, When Sauvs Cry, Winter Beer Fest. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Peaks and
If you are like most, identifying trees is a challenge and there are only two categories of trees that exist to you: 1) pine, like a Christmas tree; 2) not pine. Pine trees are evergreen, coniferous resinous trees growing 10-260 feet tall, with most species reaching 50-150 feet tall. Pines are long-lived, some shooting their first roots well before Jesus, before Rome, before most forms of civilization whatsoever. And the extra oxygen? Yes, pines filter countless pounds of CO2 though all those sun-dappled branches to make us healthier, And happier. Because of pine trees. We mean, clearly. Sadly, many millions live nowhere
West Pierce Fire and Rescue firefighters Bryan Copeland and Aaron Johnson are the brewers and co-owners behind Wet Coast Brewing, 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 Wet Coast Brewing. In the 1932 presidential election, King, Pierce, and Spokane counties voted “wet,” meaning
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 12.3.21 Peaks & Pints is your holiday hostess gifts craft beer lodge. Stop by and grab Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 12.3.21. Cheers! Barrel Mountain Brewing Winch It Out Stout Barrel Aged: Bittersweet chocolate and roasty imperial stout barrel aged for 12 months, 11% Block 15 Brewing Stick Hands World Tour: The hops tour begins with Nugget from the Willamette Valley, Citra from Yakima Valley, mountain regions of the SW for Talus, the Europe for UK Goldings and German Hallertau Blanc, and a grand finale of New Zealand Rakau before returning
In 2016, MIT graduates and friends Peter Oates and Ricardo Petroni opened Equilibrium Brewery in Middletown, New York. The two professional scientists became obsessed with New England hazy IPAs burning a path to Hill Farmstead Brewery and The Alchemist. Finally purchasing a homebrewing kit, Oats and Petroni strived to create scientifically balanced beer, which they did before brewing their first double IPA, named EQM, in 2015. It didn’t hurt they were trained in water chemistry. Four years later, lines 300 deep stood before their door waiting for their latest release. Since then, they opened a second site in Middletown to
450 North Brewing smoothie beers — part of your complete breakfast! Cucko for 450 North breakfast smoothie beers During your childhood, you had a Saturday morning routine. You’d tiptoed in footie pajamas past your parents’ bedroom toward the cereal cabinet for greatness in a box, the all-sugar-little-added-value, strangely colored food group known as breakfast food. Oh, joy! You poured Froot Loops into a Slurpee cup as to not alert of your early feeding. Ok, maybe that was just Peaks and Pints. Oh, but the Trix and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. … We’re not sure of the Simmons
The metal movement has an outsider ethos and no-holds-barred authenticity that appeals to many brewers, including Grains of Wrath Brewery co-owner and Brewmaster Mike Hunsaker. Metal- and punk-loving Hunsaker cut his teeth as a homebrewer and by working for breweries in Chicago and Cleveland, before relocating to Portland in 2014 to become the head brewer at Fat Head’s Brewery, where he became known for original West Coast IPA recipes. Fat Head’s closed, which lead to Hunsaker opening his new punk and metal inspired 10-barrel brewery Grains of Wrath in Camas, Washington, with backers Brendan Greenen, Shawn Parker, and Brendan Ford. The
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.30.21 How about a little Tuesday afternoon cooler check? Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.30.21 has some delicious new cans and bottles. … E9 Brewing Riffage: IPA rockin’ Southern Hemisphere hops for a pineapple and grapefruit nose, followed by a dank grapefruit flavor with a rock star finish, 6.7% Matchless Brewing Matchless Made: With a nod to childhood orange soda, this hazy IPA is brewed with Comet, Chinook, and Citra hops for notes of tangerine, orange, and tropical citrus, 6.4% Matchless Old World Lager: Refreshing Bohemian Pilsner featuring Czech Saaz hops,
Giving Tuesday, or #GivingTuesday, was created in 2012 with a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good. It always takes place the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, which is today. It is a global day of charitable giving unleashing the power of people, organizations, and craft breweries to transform their communities and the world. Peaks & Pints likes to think of some craft breweries as liquid philanthropists as they donate a piece of their pie to charity. They believe true fulfillment never comes from financial or material success. Happiness and deep sense of connection is their goal. The five
Peaks & Pints staff joined the Double Mountain Brewery & Cidery staff to pick apples for our house cider, Tossed Apples Dry Cider, at Double Mountain Orchards. Peaks and Pints Double Mountain Tossed Apples Dry Cider Sweat dripped off our foreheads as we sipped Double Mountain Westerly Pilsners. The pilsner bottles casted a long shadow as we lurched over picnic tables outside Double Mountain’s cider facility. We spent the early October day beneath a cloudless sky picking apples for our first Peaks & Pints house cider. The brewery staff tossed jokes as we waited for the
Normandy, located east of Brittany and north of the Loire Valley, is a picturesque and pastoral region of France, dotted with small towns and hamlets, each clustered around a magnificent church, whose spires sharply jut above the verdant waves of hill and field. Farms and orchards abound. The production of poiré (pear) in the region reflects the region’s abundance of pear trees, some of which are centuries old. The apple tree, as described by Emmanuel Camut of the renowned Adrien Camut Calvados Pays d’Auge estate, ages much like a man, whereas the pear tree, although it may bear fruit by its 16th
Without sounding too hyperbolic, COVID-19 was the largest disruption to the brewing industry since Prohibition: government-mandated stay-at-home orders, no on-premise consumption, no crowding of any kind and certainly not under a roof. The lion’s share of South Sound breweries rely on taproom and over-the-counter sales, but for a solid 14 months, they had to pivot their entire business plan to packaging, to-go orders and distribution, a channel already clogged by big beer, regional breweries and limited shelf space. Since 2010, the Saturday after Thanksgiving has been dedicated to shopping local to show support for small businesses during the holiday season.
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.26.21 You did it! After 2020’s safely distanced Thanksgiving Day gatherings, yesterday you hosted a large gathering of family and friends. You got through the hugs, toasts, stuffing, and political discussions around the table. You’ve earned Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.26.21. Cheers! Anchor Brewing Merry Christmas & Happy New Year (Our Special Ale) 2021: Silky-smooth as ever with notes of rich, bittersweet chocolate, and hints of raspberry, plus light mulling spices, 7% Backwoods Brewing The Stumbler: Russian Imperial Stout aged in Westward American Single Malt Whiskey barrels for deep notes
Goose Island Brewing Company first brewed the bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout in 1992 to commemorate the 1,000th batch of beer made at the company’s Clybourn brewpub. Since that time Bourbon County Stout has grown into a highly anticipated annual release, occurring on Black Friday. When Goose Island concocted its first Bourbon County Brand Stout, the practice of barrel aging beer took an intoxicating turn. After three months inside used bourbon distillery barrels, the brew had a complex oak character from the wood and rich flavors from lingering whiskey — characteristics that made the Bourbon County Brand Stout an instant hit.
In 2012, Mercy McDonald, Jeannine Parisi and Trevor Ross opened Claim 52 Brewing in West Eugene. Named after a donation land claim number and refers to the original tract of land in Eugene settled by pioneer William Luckey in the late 1800s. South Eugene is where some of Claim 52 founding head brewer Trevor Ross’ first beer recipes got their start on a homebrew system, tying into the company’s deep Oregon roots. Today, under the guidance of head brewer Bryce Fisher, they specialize in European-style, super-small batch beers made in the Northwest tradition, as well as exceptional hazy IPAs, and
Peaks and Pints Thanksgiving Beer Report 11.23.21 Take advantage of any free time you have this week to get out of the house and enjoy some of the holiday events and activities that kick off in the days ahead. And if you’re stuck in the kitchen preparing that Thanksgiving meal, Peaks and Pints Thanksgiving Beer report 11.23.21 is here. Cheers! Alaskan Brewing 35th Anniversary: Russian imperial stout brewed with birch syrup and wildflower honey, 9% Gigantic Brewing Opposites Attract: Collaboration with Sunriver Brewing, this IPA is brewed with Sultana, Mosaic, Citra, and Simcoe hops balancing a strong malt bill, 7.2%
Seattle native Josh Pfriem began homebrewing while at Western Washington University in his early 20s then moved to Utah for the ski bum experience. He worked at Utah Brewers Cooperative for a few years before moving back to his old college town of Bellingham to brew at Chuckanut Brewery, where he helped win the Great American Beer Festival Small Brewpub of the Year in 2009. He moved to Hood River, Oregon, to work at Full Sail but left in December 2011 to open pFriem Family Brewers — across the highway from Full Sail along the banks of the Columbia River
Peaks and Pints Thanksgiving Beer Report 11.22.21 With all sorts of relatives and homeys from back in the day returning to T-town for the holiday, Peaks and Pints Thanksgiving Beer Report 11.22.21 might be your new best friend. Cheers! 3 Fonteinen Hommage (Season 18/19) Blend No. 71: Made with hand-picked whole sour cherries and raspberries on young lambic for at least four months, this fruit lambic is then blended again with more lambic to obtain a minimum intensity of 35 percent fruit, 5.8% 3 Fonteinen Intens Rood (Season 18/19) Blend No. 118: Made with hand-picked whole sour cherries on lambic
Kim Hamblin is the artistic side and formally known as “artistic director” and “head apple picker.” Dan Rinke is the science and oversees the magical fermentation processes and the growing of the orchards. In 2011, they launched Art+Science, a natural cider, perry, and wine company using foraged, organic, or biodynamic fruit and fermenting with indigenous yeast in rural Yamhill County, Oregon. After pouring wine while working as a bartender, Rinke now makes farmy, pinkish sparkling and glorious, cloudy, complex dry ciders. Based in Sheridan, Oregon, Art+Science ciders are now available at Peaks and Pints craft beer bar, bottle shop and
Peaks and Pints Thanksgiving New Beer Report 11.21.21 Ah, Thanksgiving. Time to shovel Aunt Edna’s “world-famous” stuffing into your face, but hey, there’s always room for craft beer. Peaks and Pints Thanksgiving New Beer Report 11.21.21 is here to help for the holiday. Cheers! Baerlic Brewing Bright Thoughts IPA: Brewed with a 50/50 blend of wheat and pilsner malts, Citra, Mosaic, Strata, and Chinook hops for classic citrusy, piney, and tropical IPA, 6.9% Baerlic Good Vibes Only: Hazy IPA with a double dose of Centennial and Cashmere hops for notes of grapefruit, tropical fruit, melon, and peach with whispers of
Instagram Outsider: Apple Juggling, Beer Mittens, Yeti White and Bill From Anchor archives to Double Mountain apple juggling, from Bad Santa to Fremont’s B-Bomb, Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider returns today with a photo essay of Instagram posts from the past week. Be sure to keep tagging us @peaksandpints and @ciderofdestiny for your chance to be featured on Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider. Until we meet back here again next week, enjoy Instagram Outsider: Apple Juggling, Beer Mittens, Yeti White and Bill. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Peaks and Pints (@peaksandpints) View this
Nothing makes Santa happier than enjoying a frosty adult beverage after his exhausting work delivering presents. And hey, shouldn’t you be rewarded for your gift giving too? Sierra Nevada Brewing, Pierce County Toys For Tots, and Peaks & Pints have teamed up for a raffle ticket for toys program through today. Stop by Peaks, donate a toy for a raffle ticket, enjoy delicious Sierra Nevada pints of Celebration Fresh Hop IPA and Dankful IPA, then join us at 3 p.m. today for the grand prize raffle party to win a Sierra Nevada longboard, backpack, and other prizes. In celebration, Peaks
Between the 14th and 17th centuries, the Northern German city of Einbeck was a brewing center and popular exporter of beer, but the Thirty Years War and a series of unfortunate brewery fires effectively ended the city’s dominance. The Einbeck style of beer was later recreated by the monks of Munich’s St. Francis of Paula church in the 17th century where Bavarian speakers corrupted the name “Einbeck,” leading to the modern “bock.” The monks fasted during the Lenten season, finding their nourishment from a stronger, heartier bock they referred to as “liquid bread.” The monks called this brew Salvator, Latin
In April 2021, Block 15 Brewing’s Sticky Hands double IPA received enough public votes to be crowned the Peaks & Pints Tournament of Beer: NW Double IPAs Champion. As part of their national notoriety from the win, the Corvallis brewery received a permanent handle through the summer at our craft beer bar, bottle shop and lounge in Tacoma’s Proctor District. For those who visited us this summer know Block 15 often had two or three kegs tapped on our Western red cedar tap log. Nick and Kristen Arzner’s Block 15 beer warrants such action. As you know, the summer is
Here are a few things you might not know about Parkway Tavern manager Sean Jackson: He eats Belgian waffles every morning with a side of barleywine syrup; a statue of Manneken Pis of Brussels, the Belgian national symbol depicting a peeing boy, waters Jackson’s home backyard hop plants; he eats his fries with mayo; Jackson loves flower carpets; he named his first homebrewed “Much to my Chimay.” It’s not shocking to learn Jackson chose a Belgian blonde for his second collaboration with E9 Brewing, titled SJ² Project. It’s also not shocking E9 invited Jackson to their brew deck. He was
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.17.21 How about a lil’ Peaks and Pints midweek cooler check to get you over the hump? Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.17.21 offers some fresh and exciting new beers today. … AleSmith Brewing Tower of Flower: Collaboration with Beachwood Brewing, this West Coast style IPA is double dry-hopped with Galaxy, Cashmere, and Nelson hops for intense notes of passionfruit, citrus, peach, and melon, 6.8% Breakside Brewery Noble Pilsner: Bohemian-style pilsner with a clear golden body, freshly baked bread, floral and mild herbal bite, classic noble hop presence layered within a
Consider the saison. History did. During the 19th century, Belgian farmers brewed saisons, or “farmhouse ales,” using the leftover grains from the fall harvest. In fact, not only did farmers decrease leftover grains (and keep busy during the non-growing months) but also livestock ate the spent grain feed, and seasonal workers drank during the hot summer months to stay hydrated. That’s what you call a win-win. And back then, saisons only clocked in at about 3.5% ABV, making it a sessionable, hydrating beer during warm weather. The reason for so much of the funky yeast commonly found in saisons? Farmers
“Invention, my dear friends, is 93 percent perspiration, 6 percent electricity, 4 percent evaporation, and 2 percent butterscotch ripple.” Those are the words of Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory. Brewing beer could be said to be much the same, especially these days, when creative beer makers are using all kinds of sweet treats in their recipes, from candy and cookies to cereal and cinnamon rolls. While the notion of a sweet beer may be sickening to those who prefer their hops, malt, and water to be unadorned by ingredients more commonly seen in the sticky hands
The annual winter onslaught of Facebook photos from friends’ vacations to Hawaii, Mexico, or some decadent tropical destination never really irks Peaks & Pints. You’re sitting poolside in 72-degree weather — the temperature is always noted — drinking a Mai Tai and reeking of suntan lotion? Good for you, we guess. We’ll be hanging in Tacoma, where the winters are appropriately cold and gray, and the summers are superior to any other cities in the country. We think we’ll make it — especially with our Monday cider flight taking on a tropical theme. In a market dominated by high sugar
Be Dankful and Celebrate Toys For Tots Peaks & Pints announces the start of Be Dankful and Celebrate Toys For Tots — a week-long partnership with Sierra Nevada Brewing and Pierce County Toys For Tots, designed to celebrate the season of giving and enjoy delicious IPAs. Peaks & Pints will pour discounted pints of the Chico, California brewery’s Celebration Fresh Hop IPA and Dankful IPA and host a Marine Toys For Tots raffle drive Nov. 15-21 with a grand prize raffle party on the last day. Stop by Peaks & Pints Monday, Nov. 15 through Sunday, Nov. 21, donate a
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.14.21 Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.14.21. Go Hawks! Black Raven Brewing Splinters: Splinters starts life as Black Raven’s Second Sight Strong Scotch Ale before spending six months in Westland single-malt whiskey barrels for malty caramel, stone fruit flavors and woody character, 10.8% Icicle Brewing Peak Seeker IPA Series – Wonderland: The 2021 Gold Medal Winner at the Washington Beer Awards for American Strong Pale Ale, this fourth release in the West Coast IPA series features Cashmere, Mosaic, Citra, Azacca, El Dorado and Simcoe hops for notes and aromas of juicy
Instagram Outsider: Washington Beer Awards, Veterans Day, Brew Battle From medal winners to veteran salutes, from Georgetown vs. Georgetown to new beer releases, Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider returns today with a photo essay of Instagram posts from the past week. Be sure to keep tagging us @peaksandpints and @ciderofdestiny for your chance to be featured on Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider. Until we meet back here again next week, enjoy Instagram Outsider: Washington Beer Awards, Veterans Day, Brew Battle. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Incline Cider House Tacoma (@inclineciderhouse) View this post
The porter style originated in England as the popular preference of the porters who worked in the shipyards. The style, an ale, is commonly dated to the mid-to-early 1700s. Porter is often confused with stout, which is also an ale, because of its similarly dark appearance. But porters can range from brown to deep black, a result of the chocolate or smoked brown malts that are used in brewing. For a chocolate porter, many brewers use chocolate malt to simulate some aspects of chocolate flavor, but the addition of real cacao will provide the sought-after character: chocolate aroma and flavor
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.12.21 Welcome to the weekend! It has been a good week at Peaks & Pints full of new product and some great restocks. The dark beer is starting to roll in with the cooler weather. Get at Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.12.21. … Barlow’s Brewery Cocoa-Loco Mocha Porter: Brewed with Kafiex Roasters’ single-origin Brazilian cold brew coffee with added lactose and Ecuadorian cacao nibs, 5.5% Boulevard Brewing Nutcracker Ale: Winter ale with hints of molasses balanced by the spiciness of Chinook hops, 7.8% Evil Twin Brewing Christmas Eve at a
When Utah’s strict liquor and beer laws changed in 2008, entrepreneurs David Cole and Peter Erickson were able to pursue their longtime dream of opening Epic Brewing — a strong beer microbrewery in Salt Lake City, Utah, like those found in their home state of California. Having started an international aquaculture company in Utah in 1992, Cole and Erickson were no strangers to food and drink (and the art of making them well), so when they teamed up with acclaimed brewmaster and fellow beer geek Kevin Crompton, the trio immediately set to work brewing a carefully curated collection of strong
Classic signs that Christmas is right around the corner: Carols play on the radio, a deluge of holiday romance plots hit the screen, and Peaks & Pints suggests a to-go flight of Christmas-themed beers on Veterans Day. You see, ours is a country divided between head-in-the-clouds idealists and stick-in-the-mud realists. Of course, we are referring to people who love to celebrate Christmas early and others who only want to hear a bell jingle, jangle, or rock, two days beginning Dec. 24. Peaks & Pints falls into the early holiday crowd. Good news! Santa’s reindeers delivered Christmas beers to Peaks this
Sgt. (Ret.) Jared Wharton lifts a bin of ingredients to Col. (Ret.) Colin Miller as they brew Until Valhalla IPA 2021 at Forward Operating Base Brewing in Dupont. Photo courtesy of Facebook Army veterans release Until Valhalla IPA on Veterans Day Army Sgt. (Ret.) Jared Wharton loves beer. So does Col. (Ret.) Colin Miller, who served with the 2nd Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne). Today, Veterans Day, the Army veterans release Until Valhalla IPA 2021, which is also on tap at Peaks & Pints craft beer bar, bottle shop, and restaurant in Tacoma’s Proctor
Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.10.21 Ooooooowheeeee do we ever have the goods for you on this dreary Wednesday. Days like this were made for beer drinking, and Peaks and Pints New Beer in Stock 11.10.21 has you covered, fam! Check these out … 7 Seas Brewing Gimme Gimme: Collaboration with Big Gin, this Belgian-style golden strong ale is aged in peated gin barrels, then conditioned on citrus peel and ginger root for delicate notes of peat, spice, and citrus zest — a beer version of a gimlet, 8.7% Abomination Brewing Everyday Fog: Soft and creamy double dry
Today, Nov. 10, has been designated Vanilla Cupcake Day by someone. Nobody knows exactly who, and who cares? The real question is why it’s not a national holiday. According to NationalDayCalendar.com, cupcakes can be traced back to 1796, when there was a recipe for “a cake to be baked in small cups” in American Cookery by Amelia, Simmons, a great woman. They were originally baked in heavy pottery cups — sounds like a messy cleanup. The paper cups are less fussy. Vanilla beans, like coffee and chocolate, only proliferate naturally in tropical latitudes, and, like wine grapes, the various strains reflect the
Sig Brewing releases Oak + Age: The Mighty Baryshnikov Baltic Porter It’s a beautiful beer. Boozy aroma leads to notes of chocolate milk, oak, maple, dark fruit, and molasses. Aged in Copperworks Whiskey barrels, it’s not Jeff Stokes first barrel aged beer, but Oak + Age: The Mighty Baryshnikov Baltic Porter takes the stage as Sig Brewing Company’s first barrel-aged bottle release. Stokes released many barrel-aged bottles during his time as head brewer at Three Magnets Brewing in downtown Olympia. When he helped open Sig in Tacoma’s Historic Brewery District last spring, he took time away from handing out mason
The state of Idaho has two distinct hop growing areas — the sunny reaches of the high desert in the south and the somewhat damper climes of the panhandle — making the Gem State ideal for growing the pungent beer ingredient and preservative. According to USA Hops, Idaho ranks second in hop production nationwide with 17.19 million pounds. In southern Idaho’s Treasure Valley, the long summer days and warm weather allow for hops high in alpha acids. The higher the alpha acid percentage or rating, the more bitter the beer. In Treasure Valley sits the city of Caldwell, home of
