Rejoice, o cherry pie lovers of the South Sound! Today, February 20, is National Cherry Pie Day! Why February 20? Why not the infinitely more logical March 14? (3.14 = Pi = Pie.) Why the hell not? Especially during this month of cold and gloom. Ok, so it’s not like you had this holiday on your calendar, but maybe you should as Peaks & Pints carries many cherry-flavored beer, cider and meads. See what we did there? Cherries can balance otherwise heavy beers or add extra freshness and flavor to the lighter styles. Cherries have been added to beer for
Sherman Gore, Richard Tiffany and Jason Bos had big eyes when their bosses of Portland-based Laurelwood Public House & Brewery sold their popular Battle Ground location to Eric and Paula Starr, who transformed the space into Northwood Public House & Brewery. The trio convinced the new owners to dust off the cobwebs on 2-barrel brewing system so they could brew beer for the neighborhood. Three years later, Gore, Bos and Tiffany opened Brothers Cascadia Brewing in Hazel Dell on April 10, 2017. The trio opened with a 12-barrel brewery in an auto shop, which allowed for a wall of 40
6-Pack of Things To Do: Thursday February 18 2021 Some people are morning people. They like to get out, buy their beer and get home before traffic gets crazy and maskless customers start yelling “You’re drinking the Kool-Aid!” at bartenders and customers. For everyone else, today’s 6-Pack of Things To Do leans more toward late afternoon and night haps. Cheers! LECTURE: The Tacoma Public Library continues its Black History Month focus with “Black Voices from Tacoma’s Musical Past,” in partnership with the Tacoma Historical Society, and support from Tacoma Creates. In this presentation, Tacoma music historian Kim Davenport will share
The Belgian quadrupel is the strongest in a series of Trappist styles, beginning with the single (better known as an abbey), the dubbel (double) and the tripel (triple). Quads are the strongest of the Belgian beers, often over 10% ABV. The monks seem to have stopped at four. They probably passed out. Quad is a dark beer that ranges from black to deep red or garnet, with a rich bold maltiness that combines with yeasty hints of raisin, dates, figs, grapes and plums. The quad is not hoppy. It’s known for alcoholic warmth and a complex sweetness, with wine and
Collaborations between breweries aren’t exactly new, but their results have become a much more common sight in Peaks and Pints’ cooler lately. Collaborations can give brewers a chance to exchange ideas with others and mix their individual house styles. The best collaborations often result in something unique that neither brewery would normally make on its own. Typically, whoever owns the collaboration brewing system and sells the beer sets the rules. Also, when professional brewers collaborate with other professional brewers, the conversations lean toward technical details. When professional brewers collaborate with civilians, the brewing room chatter tends to be more about
6-Pack of Things To Do: Tuesday February 16 2021 Down for a good time / Who’s with me? / Tired of the inside / So let’s be / Welcome to 6-Pack of Things To Do! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbsu-AWH-C0 BOOK CLUB: Once again, Tacoma Public Library’s Books on Tap club must skip the beer bar gatherings and meet online to discuss this month’s book, The Queen’s Gambit. No, you’re right. Netflix has Walter S. Tevis’ book as a series. If you haven’t read the book, but watched the series, you know the trials and tribulations of chess prodigy Elisabeth “Beth” Harmon, an orphan
We’re gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse. Yes, it’s the best-known line from The Godfather book (1969) and film (1972), both written by Mario Puzo. In fact, it is one of the best-known lines in any film and ranks second only to “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” as the most celebrated quotation from an American film. But, instead of killing you with violence, as Vito Corleone was suggesting, Peaks & Pints is going to kill you with delicious Italian pilsner. OK, no one is going to die, but you will die over this Italian invented
Peaks and Pints Tap List includes Wayfinder Russian Circles Black Pilsner. Peaks and Pints Tap List: Wayfinder Russian Circles Peaks and Pints houses a mind-boggling array of suds: 800-plus bottled and canned in our cooler, with another 28 on tap for Campfire Crowler fills (until pints return). While craft beer remains our foundation, you don’t have to be embarrassed for ordering artisan craft cider, wine, cold brewed coffee and kombucha as those delights are on tap too at Peaks and Pints. To follow our tap list live from your phone, click here for iPhone and here
Two Beer Brewing founder Joel VandenBrink launched the Seattle Cider Company in August 2013 — the city’s first cidery since Prohibition — with the help from his Two Beers sales rep and a former farm hand, Eric Willard. Diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, which makes beer difficult to digest, VandenBrink launched the cider company with only two products: Semi Sweet and Dry. Most of Seattle Cider’s products has based on the two founding ciders, adding fruit and herbs. Over the next six years, Seattle Cider became Washington’s largest cidery, as well as the country’s fifth-largest craft cidery. Vandenbrink later sold the
You fancy de Garde Ivy! Fancy Pants Sunday: de Garde Ivy When Trevor Rogers of Pelican Brewing met Linsey Hamacher of Tillamook Cheese Factory they knew it would be a coolship marriage. Trevor traveled up and down the Oregon Coast searching for the best location for spontaneous fermentation; Tillamook won. Tillamook, Oregon, is a sleepy, remote and often damp coastal town 74 miles west of Portland. It smells of sea air and dairy farms. The couple launched de Garde Brewing in their garage using wild yeasts and coolships to create singular sour flavor with an earthy
Instagram Outsider: RIP Sonics Guy, Power Sleds, Flakes and Hearts From the sad loss of Kris Brannon to power sleds, from snowflakes to hearts, 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 for your chance to be featured on Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider. And, please, wash your damn hands; wear your damn mask. Until we meet back here again next week, enjoy Instagram Outsider: RIP Sonics Guy, Power Sleds, Flakes and Hearts. View this post on Instagram A post shared
Happy Valentine’s Day! As this saccharine-sweet holiday (or Singles Appreciation Day, if you prefer) rears its head, couples are clamoring for romantic plans while singles and casual daters are simply trying to let the day pass without a hitch. Why stress? It’s just a day. So to give you a little peace of mind on this hectic day of love, Peaks and Pints presents a Valentine-theme to-go beer flight that we call Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Valentine On The Fly. Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Valentine On The Fly Lindemans Framboise 2.5% ABV, 12 IBU Romance might be hard
Peaks and Pints New Beers in Stock 2.13.21 Happy Snow Day Proctor neighborhood! If you’re walking to Peaks & Pints, consider Peaks and Pints New Beers in Stock 2.13.21 for tonight and Valentine’s Day tomorrow. Cheers! Abomination Brewing Dreamsphere: Brewed with Skygazer Brewing, this sour ale has flavors of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, frosting, lactose and vanilla beans, 7% 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 Pancake House: Russian imperial stout brewed with loads of coffee in the
Yesterday, Peaks & Pints proclaimed stouts as the perfect snow beer. We’re not wrong. But if you don’t have barleywines next on the list of “I just slipped on the snow carrying the groceries inside, I’m freezing and I need a big ass beer stat,” you’re missing out. There’s a tremendous variance in flavor profiles — from toffee-like sweetness to hoopy — yet they typically share a smooth drinkability despite their high alcohol by volume tags. Barleywines are the liquid embodiment of curling up on a bearskin rug in front of a fire. Besides, barleywine is life. Today seems like
Peaks and Pints Tap List includes Trap Door Brewing Lupuluminati Enlightened IPA. Peaks and Pints Tap List: Trap Door Lupuluminati Peaks and Pints houses a mind-boggling array of suds: 800-plus bottled and canned in our cooler, with another 28 on tap for Campfire Crowler fills (until pints return). While craft beer remains our foundation, you don’t have to be embarrassed for ordering artisan craft cider, wine, cold brewed coffee and kombucha as those delights are on tap too at Peaks and Pints. To follow our tap list live from your phone, click here for iPhone and
6-Pack of Things To Do: Friday February 12 2021 Due to the weather, Peaks & Pints should have listed only events that could be streamed from the comfort of your home, but there are Monkeyshines to find and coconut stouts to gather. 6-Pack of Things To Do: Friday February 12 2021 is on! MONKEYSHINES: Monkeyshines has unleashed marauding gangs of craftspeople, artisans, and their multitudinous admirers on the genteel people of Tacoma. The Tacoma art project known as Monkeyshines hid hand-blown glass balls and other forms of art throughout the streets and neighborhoods of Tacoma. Monkeyshines first became a news
The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Warning for the greater Tacoma area. The forecast calls for 4-5 inches tonight, and another 2-4 inches tomorrow. A great snow beer can only be understood in apocalyptic conditions, when roads disappear, and weather analysts show real fear. A great snow beer will fuel you through hours of shoveling. A great snow beer is fuel — deep, dark, rich, warming. A great snow beer will remind you of warmer times and incite tropical travel plans. A great snow beer is a coconut stout. Peaks & Pints has them. Coconut is an
6-Pack of Things To Do: Thursday February 11 2021 Rise and shine and don’t forget your booties cause it’s coooold out there today! Here’s today’s 6-Pack of Things To Do. Cheers! BEER CONTEST: In April 2021, Peaks and Pints will host the Tournament of Beer: NW Double IPAs — our fifth beer tournament. Through online voting, Washington and Oregon double IPA drinkers will pick daily winners until the best double IPA in the Northwest is crowned. It’s just like March Madness, only with way more fermentable sugars. First, we need you to help select the 64 Washington and Oregon DIPAs
Here are a few things we know about hoppy beers: 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 hoppy and sour by subduing those major traits, but playing up the fruity qualities each share to create something unique. They can make hoppy beer brighter, complex, and tantalizingly unique and refreshing. These brewers know bitterness is often going to be more prominently “on display” due to the clean playing field, but they’re OK
Peaks and Pints Stout Month: February 10 2021 Drop Peaks and Pints Stout Month: February 10 2021 Drop includes the following new arrivals. … Best of Hands Brewing Talking To The Night (Campfire Crowler fill): Milk stout brewed with Olympia Coffee’s Organic Morning Sun coffee beans for flavors of chocolate and roasted hazelnut, hint of toffee with a vanilla and cinnamon bittersweet, creamy finish, 6.5% Hoof Hearted Brewing World’s Baldest Conga Line: Imperial stout brewed with banana, strawberry, pineapple, cacao, coffee, vanilla, and peanut butter, 13.5% Postdoc Brewing Barrel Aged Demon Star: Bourbon barrel-aged Russian imperial stout with dark chocolate,
The New England IPA is juicy, with assertive tropical notes of grapefruit, peach, melon and/or tangerine. They are also made with wheat or oats and served unfiltered, which leaves them hazy. To achieve haze, brewers mess with malt, hops, and yeast. Malted grains provide the sugars that yeast snack on and transform into alcohol, but they also add proteins to the mix. Usually, brewers use a base of mostly malted barley, but other grains such as oats and wheat have higher protein contents, which make for a cloudier beer appearance, a “soft” body, and a little haze in IPAs. Brewers
Tournament of Beer: NW Double IPAs nominations open In April 2021, Peaks and Pints will host the Tournament of Beer: NW Double IPAs. Chosen through the nomination process below, the top 64 vote getters — DIPA slam dunkers — will compete Monday-Friday on our website April 2-24. Through online voting, Washington and Oregon double IPA drinkers will pick daily winners until the best double IPA in the Northwest is crowned. It’s just like March Madness, only with way more fermentable sugars. The IBU-to-IBU battle of the DIPAs’ grand champion will be announced at the Tournament of Beers Party April 24
6-Pack of Things To Do: Tuesday February 9 2021 Old or new, it’s important that we passionately support our present to ensure a future. Today’s 6-Pack of Things To Do offers suggestions. Cheers! FILM FESTIVAL: From Feb. 26 to March 7, Destiny City Film Festival will showcase 39 independent films from around the world. Now in its eighth year, the 10-day virtual experience is much more than just video on demand — “this is your chance to escape, to dream, and to experience another life that you’d always wanted or been curious about,” states DCFF hype. “With 18-plus hours of
The five Shapira brothers didn’t know anything about bourbon whiskey, and certainly didn’t have any, when they founded Heaven Hill in 1934. Through a leap of faith, they wrote a check as a war was looming and opened shortly after Prohibition ended in Bardstown, Kentucky. Nevertheless, Heaven Hill made it through trying times and has remained in the hands of the family that started it since. Today, it’s America’s largest family-owned and operated distilled spirits producer and marketer. Their brands have grown beyond the company’s traditional roots as a bourbon distiller to become the country’s sixth largest overall distilled spirits
Barrel aging cider is a thing. Before industrialization, cidermakers in New England and Québec fermented, aged and transported cider inside wooden barrels. 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. Cider is a little trickier. Because cider is delicate, barrel-aged ciders are often either too light on cider flavor, or too light on added flavor. It’s been said barrel-aged ciders can taste like a tulip glass of water-down booze or a glass of expensive cider. But, oak aging can be a
Instagram Outsider: So Many Dogs, Goat Spikes, McLaren Matt McLaren From doggie hangovers to goats spiking footballs, from frogs on frogs to outdoor drinking, 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 for your chance to be featured on Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider. And, please, wash your damn hands; wear your damn mask. Until we meet back here again next week, enjoy Instagram Outsider: So Many Dogs, Goat Spikes, McLaren Matt McLaren. View this post on Instagram A post shared
At 3:30 p.m. today, Tom Brady will play in his 10th Super Bowl when his Tampa Bay Buccaneers face the Kansas City Chiefs at Raymond James Stadium in Super Bowl LV. That last sentence sounds like a bad joke you read in the Weekly Volcano in 2006 but, incredibly, it is a thing that is true in the year 2021. The game will include the Best of Hands. We’re not talking about Brady’s incredible recovery from his 2017 AFC Championship Game when he jammed his thumb, to the point where it bent back so far and so violently that the
6-Pack of Things To Do: Saturday February 6 2021 There’s a vast amount of positive energy swirling about that’s been held back, and this energy has now found a conduit, a lightning rod — 6-Pack of Things To Do. Cheers! STOUT MONTH: Just when Peaks & Pints thought we’d have to cancel our annual February Stout Month celebration, Gov. Jay “Stout Is Life” Inslee allowed us to re-open for in-house drinking and dining Feb. 1! February 2021 Stout In and Out is on! The Tacoma Proctor District craft beer lodge has tapped five stouts on our Western cedar tap log
Scottish style beers can be a malt lover’s dream beer, with its smooth sweetness and body. The epitome of malty, scotch ales is boiled twice as long as ordinary beer, caramelizing the sugars to build these deep flavors of maple and molasses. Recipes may include peat-smoked malt, which can lend smoky, earthy tones to the aroma and flavor. Scottish ales commonly fall into four general types: Light, Heavy, Export and the Scotch Ale. Historically these distinctions carried labels of the shilling currency, which reflected the price charged per barrel of beer in the 19th century. For example, 60 shilling was
Peaks and Pints Tap List includes Fort George Skies of Wonder (Gett Out). Peaks and Pints Tap List: Fort George Skies of Wonder Peaks and Pints houses a mind-boggling array of suds: 800-plus bottled and canned in our cooler, with another 28 on tap for Campfire Crowler fills (until pints return). While craft beer remains our foundation, you don’t have to be embarrassed for ordering artisan craft cider, wine, cold brewed coffee and kombucha as those delights are on tap too at Peaks and Pints. To follow our tap list live from your phone, click here
6-Pack of Things To Do: Friday, February 5 2021 The jam is live in effect, and I don’t waste time on the mic with a dope rhyme. On to 6-Pack of Things To Do! CLASSICAL: Led by the University of Puget Sound’s School of Music in partnership with African American Studies, Tacoma Public Schools, Tacoma Youth Symphony Association, and the Tacoma Youth Chorus; the Jacobsen Series: Sphinx Virtuosi will be performed virtually via Schneebeck LIVE. Sphinx Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra is one of the nation’s most dynamic professional chamber orchestras, comprised of 18 top Black and Latinx classical soloists. This broadcast
Bryan Shull’s grandfather and father worked at and retired from Great Western Malting Company located at the Port of Vancouver USA, which makes Trap Door Brewing a fourth-generation Vancouver beer family-owned business. Shull, who left a 25-year career in renewable energy engineering to start a brewery with his two sons, Zakary and Zane Singleton, opened the 15-barrel facility in the Uptown neighborhood of Vancouver October 2015 because he loves beer and the community of people that make up the brewing industry. Dave Forster, a silent owner, and Michael Parsons, taproom general manager, joined the venture. In October 2020, Kyle Larsen
Peaks and Pints New Beers in Stock: 2.4.21 Peaks and Pints New Beers in Stock: 2.4.21 is loaded with fun. … Black Raven Brewing Element #1 — Malt: Amber lager brewed in collaboration with Skagit Valley Malting’s Pilsner, Super Vienna, Triticale and Triticale Caramel 75 malts, 5.6% Breakside Brewery Turquoise Tuxedo: Brewed with Ninkasi Brewing, this hazy IPA is a haze bomb with Mosaic and Eldorado for notes of pineapple, berries, and tropical fruit with a little Talus, Sabro, Galaxy, and Nelson Sauvin for some coconut, aged Riesling, lime, mint, lemongrass, and nectarine, 7.5% Breakside The Great Awakening: Collaboration with
6-Pack of Things To Do: Thursday February 4 2021 A centaur blares a horn on top of a mountain. The sun cuts through gloomy clouds. The beat kicks in. Cherubic unicorns and pegasi awaken from a long slumber, and a rainbow-trailing fairy flies overhead. Welcome to Peaks & Pints’ 6-Pack of Things To Do: Thursday February 4 2021. BEER FESTIVAL: Today marks the last day you can order your Brew Five Three To Go virtual tasting kits. Tacoma Arts Live hosts three different Zoom-style virtual tasting events (Feb. 13-14), one for each of the three themed kits, highlighting what you’re drinking,
Just when Peaks & Pints thought we’d have to cancel our annual February Stout Month celebration, Gov. Jay “Stout Is Life” Inslee allowed us to re-open for in-house drinking and dining this past Monday. February 2021 Stout In and Out is on! The Tacoma Proctor District craft beer lodge will tap five stouts on our Western cedar tap log through February for in-house enjoyment and Campfire Crowlers to go. Enjoy stouts, milk stouts, imperial stouts, pastry stouts, nitro stouts and other variations from your barstool or from your couch. Today, we add a to-go flight of stouts — a flight
Mead, which is made of honey and water fermented with yeast, is perhaps the oldest alcoholic beverage in the world. Mead-making likely started when a sack of honey would catch some rain, which leads to fermentation. Consuming what’s in the bag would create a state of inebriation, which of course led people to experiment with making more. A process evolved. Often associated with the Viking Age, enjoyed by the ancient Greeks and mentioned in Chaucer’s 14th-century The Canterbury Tales, mead is having resurgence thanks to the craft brewing trend and Game of Thrones. But far from the sticky-sweet beverage sold
Instagram Outsider: Brew Five Three To Go, Beerselfie, SMaSH Ella From Brew Five Three tasting kits to beerselfies with The Butcher, from SMaSH Ella to all the snowsports, 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 for your chance to be featured on Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider. And, please, wash your damn hands; wear your damn mask. Until we meet back here again next week, enjoy Instagram Outsider: Brew Five Three To Go, Beerselfie, SMaSH Ella. View this post on Instagram
Funnier than saying “Hoof Hearted” Brewing are the Ohio brewery’s can art. The cans’ artist, Thom Lessner, met Hoof’s head brewer Trevor Williams in the second grade. Lessner met another Hoof co-owner, Jarrod Bichon in the fourth grade, and eventually met the last owner, Ryan Bichon. They’re all on the same zany page. Lessner doesn’t brew the delicious craft beer, but he take’s their beer name — influenced by hops, hair metal, and video games — and runs with it — recently toward John Cusack’s Better Off Dead movie. Williams and Jarrod Bichon, a wine salesman and welder, respectively, met
6-Pack of Things To Do: Saturday January 30 2021 Today’s grab bag of new shows uncovers the variety of Tacoma’s art scene. Give thanks for our city’s artsy melting pot by participating in the 6-Pack of Things To Do. Cheers! COOKING: “Little Mary Ester, Sat upon a tester, Eating of curds and whey. …” Dutch cheese is a less common name for one way of serving curds and whey. The whey is drained off, the curds are mixed with butter and salt and formed into balls, and then they are topped with cream, sugar, and nutmeg. For Victorians, curds and
Located in the Seattle neighborhood of Interbay, near the Magnolia Bridge, and started by friends Colin Lenfesty and Mike Murphy who worked in the local beer business, Holy Mountain might sit at sea level but its name gives nod to Mount Rainier, the ominous holy mountain that looms over Seattle, as well as a song and album by doom/stoner band, Sleep. Holy Mountain’s heart is its foudres and innumerable barrels, which churn out saisons and wild ales that tend to have mild sourness and stunning depth thanks to complex malt bills and a mix of Brettanomyces and local microflora. While
6-Pack of Things To Do: Friday January 29 2021 There is still time to join the Tacoma Arts Live Brew Five Three To Go beer and music festival held in February. In the meantime, here is today’s 6-Pack of Things To Do. Cheers! BEER FESTIVAL: Remember sitting next to the salmon fountain with your branded taster glass, pretzel necklace and the faint whiff of sunscreen in the air. It was 2019; the 2020 Brew Five Three Beer and Music Festival was canceled last year. It’s back this year — but nearly six months earlier and you’ll most likely be sitting
Triple IPA: It’s a palate-smashing beast of an ale designed for those times when a hazy IPA simply won’t cut it. yet, the style still isn’t recognized — and debate rages among the pimpliest of beer nerds over whether it’s a style at all. Peaks & Pints believes the triple IPA is a massively hoppy beer of 10 percent ABV with outrageous amounts of dry hops, hop flavor, malt flavor, alcohol and bitterness. The triple IPA may be similar to a double IPA in hop character, but is differentiated from the style by a thick, syrupy body accented by intense
On this date in history, 1973: Louis Pasteur patented process of brewing beer and ale. Up until Pasteur’s invention, the sugar-containing liquid (the “wort”) was always boiled and then exposed to air for cooling, before the yeast was introduced to initiate alcoholic fermentation. According to the patent application Pasteur’s invention “consists in expelling air from the boiled wort while confined in a closed vessel or closed vessels, and then cooling it by the application of sprays of water to the exterior of such vessel or vessels.” This new method eliminated the exposure of wort, the boiled extract of malt, to
Peaks and Pints New Beers in Stock 1.27.21 Peaks and Pints New Beers in Stock 1.27.21 features new craft beer we received today, including the return of crazy-long named Evil Twin IPAs. Cheers! Decadent Ales Coconut Swirl: Triple milkshake IPA with coconut and vanilla, 10.2% Decadent Ales Orange Gusher: Double IPA with orange purée, 8.5% Evil Twin Brewing E.T. Left Home v.1: Sour IPA with blueberries and raspberries, 7% Evil Twin IPA is not a Problem to be Solved, but a Reality to be Experienced: Triple IPA brewed with Waimea, Citra, and Wakatu hops for tropical and earthy flavors, 10%
