Ultimately, cider is a regional product, and not every part of the country has access to the best varieties of apples to make it. Even if a grower planted an orchard today, it would be at least seven years before those trees produced their first fruit. Not only are Washington and Oregon two of the country’s biggest states for beer and wine, but the Pacific Northwest is leading the way with craft ciders, too. It makes sense, especially as Washington leads the nation in apple production (171 million bushels in 2018). Since it’s Monday, and Tacoma Beer Week is canceled,
Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 8.9.20 Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 8.9.20 offers a six-pack of new Cascade Brewing, E9 Brewing and Old Schoolhouse beers for your Sunday. Cascade Brewing & Barrel House NECTARINE DREAM 2019: This limited project is a blend of sour blond and wheat ales aged in oak wine barrels for up to 14 months with fresh nectarines and a late infusion of nectarine and peach noyaux. Expect ripened Pacific Northwest fruit that imparts flavors of fresh nectarines, tropical fruit, gummy candies and stone fruit preserves. 6.8% PATIO PARADISE: This sour wheat ale
Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider: IPA Day, Table Tennis, Ghost Barn From National IPA Day to International Beer Day, new beer releases to rogue train cruising on Hilltop, Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider returns today with a photo essay of our favorite Instagram posts from the past week. Be sure to keep tagging us @peaksandpints for your chance to be featured. And, please, wash your damn hands; wear your damn mask. (Over your mouth and nose. And stay away from people.) Until we meet back here again next week, cheers to you! View this post on Instagram Saturday
Tears fill the Tacoma streets. As if the virus decimating your 401k and canceling your Mexico cruise wasn’t bad enough, now it has canceled your beer week. Tacoma Beer Week should have begun yesterday. It didn’t. The reasons are obvious. The sadness is even more obvious. Tacoma loves it some beer. As far back as when Job Carr stirred wort alongside the banks of Commencement Bay in 1865 to the earliest laborers frequenting after-work saloons in the 1890s to the artisan breweries popping up today, our city has had a love affair with beer. It is only natural that with
6-Pack of Things To Do: Saturday August 8 2020 The goal is to reclaim a little space for yourself. We’re all dealing with a lot. There is work to be done, but don’t underestimate the weight of it all. Find a way to do something fun with our 6-Pack of Things To Do: Saturday August 8 2020, even if it’s just a pass or two through a sprinkler on a hot afternoon. Summer isn’t canceled; it’s just not what we expected. PROCTOR SIDEWALK SALE: These days, what with the trendiness of vintage stores and everything looking like it got fished
Nothing elicits childhood memories of lazy summertime days quite so well as an orange creamsicle from the ice cream truck. Lucky us — craft brewers and cidermakers were kids once too. They use a few different tools to achieve the vanilla-orange combination beers and ciders. Many use citrusy hops, especially Citra, to impart orange aroma and flavor, though breweries could also use orange zest or orange extract. The addition of vanilla bean or lactose (milk sugar) or both in the brewing process creates the ice-cream impression, and your brain’s hippocampus fills in the blanks until you reach our craft beer
6-Pack of Things To Do Today: Friday August 7 2020 This was not the summer we asked for, but it’s what we have. Instead of bitching about missed afternoons in the stands at Cheney Stadium or your canceled trips to three-day music festivals, enjoy our 6-Pack of Things To Do: August 7 2020. Cheers! POP-UP DRIVE-IN MOVIE: Get out your poodle skirts and milkshakes, Tacoma. Channel your inner Grease character. Whether you’re a pink lady or T-bird, a new drive-in theater is coming to Northend Tacoma. Central Co-Op Tacoma will host a pop-up drive-in theater tonight. The store will remain open
It feels like every week there’s another quirky beer holiday to remember, from Beer Can Appreciation Day in January to yesterday National IPA Day. Today is International Beer Day! Even if it sounds like a recently created holiday, we’re happy to use it as an excuse to build a to-go beer flight. Started in 2007 in Santa Cruz, California, International Beer Day is, as explained by its website, “a day for beer lovers everywhere to raise a toast to our brewers and bartenders, and rejoice in the greatness of beer!” Indeed. Celebrating the passing of another work week? International Beer
Peaks and Pints New Craft In Stock 8.6.20 We have stocked several new beers and a cider in the Peaks & Pints cooler. You might not have noticed but two of the new cans are from Nightmare Brewing. Their typical torture can art has been replaced with stick figures, which are also going through torture (natch). Nightmare severed ties with their former artist, Defame, after the artist posted a piece on his Instagram account depicting Hillary Clinton lifting Joe Biden to pin a BLM sign on a swastika. Anyway, enjoy Peaks and Pints New Craft In Stock 8.6.20. American Solera
6-Pack of Things To Do: Thursday August 6 2020 A lot has changed in Pierce County over the last few months, but we think there’s still a lot worth celebrating — from local favorites to new endeavors. Enjoy 6-Pack of Things To Do: Thursday August 6 2020! NATIONAL IPA DAY: As if we needed an official day to pay homage to the smooth, delightfully bitter taste of IPA … and yet, here we are. Today is National IPA Day, a day when we celebrate the little cone flowers we call hops and the beer style that showcases them: the India
There is something you should know about beer: There is a holiday for virtually everything about beer that is celebrated somewhere, somehow, including today’s IPA Day, which gives glory to hops, bittering units and IPAs. Founded in 2011, IPA Day is a global celebration of craft beer. It is a universal movement that was created to unite the voices of craft beer enthusiasts, bloggers and brewers worldwide. IPA Day was originally developed as a social media-based holiday, but has since expanded into a worldwide party — OK, maybe not so much this year — but Peaks & Pints celebrates with
Peaks and Pints New Craft In Stock 8.5.20 Welcome to Peaks and Pints New Craft In Stock 8.5.20 mid-week new craft beer party featuring 7 Seas, Bear Republic, Fremont, Heathen, Silver Moon, Single Hill, and Varietal. 7 Seas Brewing >>> BLACK IPA: Also known as a Cascadian Dark Ale, this hoppy dark IPA is generously layered with piney hops, and a hint of roasted malts for a lingering, flavorful finish. 7% >>> RED RASPBERRY SOUR: Brewed with loads of red raspberry puree and a touch of San Juan Island sea salt, this gose starts full of thick, ripe raspberry puree,
6-Pack of Things To Do: Wednesday August 5 2020 From the virtual Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire to the virtual Old Town Summer Concert Series, from Peaks & Pints daily flight to the Steilacoom Farmers Market, 6-Pack of Things To Do: Wednesday August 5 2020 covers all the bases for a hot and masked summer Wednesday. FAIRE: Jump on Facebook Live tonight to see Mr. Punch, a rascally hand puppet whose primary vocation is whacking his saucy, nagging wife, Judy, and various members of the constabulary with a stick. The Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire can’t set up the tents this year
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. Enjoy the most wonderful time of the year for fruit lovers with Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Raspberry Sour On the Fly. With the weather on high, “crushability” becomes an important factor when scanning Peaks and Pints’ cooler for the perfect summertime brew. Consider raspberry to-go. Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Raspberry Sour On
6-Pack of Things To Do: Tuesday August 4 2020 Let’s face it. We are living through extraordinary times full of doubt and uncertainty. The coronavirus pandemic has turned our lives upside down, and we are all trying to navigate our “new normal.” Peaks & Pints hopes our 6-Pack of Things To Do helps. Be safe! HISTORY: Eddie Bauer was a real guy. And, he loved the outdoors. Born on Orcas Island in 1899, he developed a passion for hunting and fishing around Puget Sound as a young boy. The company was built on its founder’s love of fishing, hunting, and
Peaks & Pints opened Nov. 1 2016 with Perfect Proctor Porter on draft. It was a recreation of Bert Grant’s Perfect Porter we brewed at Wingman Brewers in Tacoma. Thinking back, it was a fun brewing day thanks to co-owner Ken Thoburn and his assistant brewer, Mike Dempster. A year later, Dempster launched his Mirage Beer brewery in Seattle’s South Park neighborhood, releasing beers without a taproom. Dempster, who has brewed at Greenpoint Beer Works in Brooklyn and Buoy Beer Co. in Astoria, opened as a farmhouse-focused brewery, with some of his sours and saisons spontaneously fermented. It wasn’t long
This week’s Tree-dimensional Tacoma tree is deodar cedar next to the playground at Titlow Park. Photo credit: Kate Swarner Tree-dimensional Tacoma: Deodar Cedar “Once you find the bright green, drooping tips of a deodar cedar, you will start seeing them everywhere,” says Sarah Low, executive director of the Tacoma Tree Foundation. “Deodar cedars — not to be confused with western red cedar (Thuja plicata) or eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) — are sometimes described as ‘elegant’ and they consistently live up to that description. In Tacoma, there is a particular nice deodar cedar at Titlow Park near the playground
6-Pack of Things To Do: Monday August 3 2020 There are six things you can do in the South Sound today, a couple without even leaving your couch. Welcome to 6-Pack of Things To Do: Monday August 3 2020! MOVIE: Four young orphans — Hikari, Ikuko, Ishi, and Takemura — meet cute at the crematorium. They just watched their parents turned to dust. With no family, no future, no dreams, and no way to move forward, the young teens decide that the first level of this new existence involves salvaging a gaming console, an old electric bass, and a charred
Major League Baseball is finally back. Though the season has been condensed to a slim 60 games, teams will be staying within their regions for both home and away games, and there aren’t sentient fans in the stands (those cardboard cutouts are trippy though, aren’t they?), we’re just glad to have pro ball back at all this year. The Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics close out their four-game series at T-Mobile Park in a head-to-head showdown tonight. Right-handed pitcher Frankie Montas is expected to get the start for the A’s in a dual against Mariners lefty Justus Sheffield. Since Peaks
Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider: Alien Cake, Porch Drops, Beer Hug From Batsquatch paddlers to large men with li’l dinghies, mustard beer to dogs with beer, Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider returns today with a photo essay of our favorite Instagram posts from the past week. Be sure to keep tagging us @peaksandpints for your chance to be featured. And, please, wash your damn hands; wear your damn mask. (Over your mouth and nose. And stay away from people.) Until we meet back here again next week, cheers to you! View this post on Instagram Congratulations to our
All over the world, beer lovers agree that if it’s made in Bavaria, it’s the real deal. It is, after all, home to the first brewery on record, way back in 800 A.D., as well as the ultimate of beer festivals — Oktoberfest. About 25 kilometers from the Oktoberfest grounds in Munich, lays a little town called Aying, home to the beloved Ayinger Brewery (Brauerei Aying). This 135-year-old brewery has a deep family history, and remained almost completely unchanged until a new, updated brewery was built in 1999 in order to keep up with the growing market. Again and again
Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 8.1.20 Welcome to August! The Pierce County COVID cases are still too high. Therefore, Peaks & Pints will remain a take-out restaurant and to-go craft beer bar and bottle shop operation. Here a six new arrivals to the Peaks & Pints cooler. Cheers! Ayinger OKTOBER FEST- MARZEN: Bavarians have been celebrating the harvest with beer festivals since before the 1400s. Märzen is brewed in March to be ready for the Oktoberfest beer festival in late summer/early fall. Ayinger Oktober Fest-Märzen is the top rated Oktober Fest bier. 5.8% Dirty Couch Brewing INFLECTION: Dirty
In 1994, Tomas and April Sluiter left their bakery jobs in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and hit the road. They traveled extensively. Then, in the summer of 2000, they discovered Portland, Oregon. Thomas took an assistant brewer job at the Old Market Pub in Southwest Portland. Within two weeks of his hire, the head brewer quit and Tomas was thrown into that role. He dismantled the old, tired brewing system and refurbished a 15-barrel system. In January 2017, seven years after Tomas left Old Market and almost two years after attempting to open his brewery in Portland’s Goose Hollow neighborhood, he
Peaks and Pints New Beer In Stock 7.31.20 Here is a six-pack of new arrivals to the Peaks & Pints cooler. Peaks and Pints New Beer In Stock 7.31.20 includes tasty craft from Airways, Bale Breaker, Breakside, Reuben’s, and Wayfinder. Cheers! Airways Brewing OTTO PILOT: Otto Pilot is a hazy IPA brewed with loads of flaked grains, and generously hopped with Citra, Sultana, and Cascade. Airways Brewing intended to brew it with Morgan Herzog, founder of West Seattle’s Beer Junction, but sadly he passed earlier this year. Morgan’s wife, Allison, gave her blessing to brew it anyway, and since it’s
6-Pack of Things To Do: Friday, July 31 2020 Happy Friday! Some traditions can’t be stopped by a pandemic … but they can certainly be transformed. Today, organizations young and old will be on the scene both physically and virtually. You can party along with them at home … or out on the streets, even while wearing a Santa hat. Enjoy today’s 6-Pack of Things To Do! ANIMALS: The capture, killing, dismemberment, smuggling and sale of wild animals have major negative impacts on life on Earth — impacts that extend far beyond cruelty to individual animals or the extinction of
Ruse Brewing looked like a mirage yesterday. The blue-ish building shimmered in the 91-degree heat. Once we saw the long to-go beer line we knew, indeed, it was Ruse. Shaun Kalis and Devin Benware has a more crystal clear vision of their Ruse. In fact, the duo began brewing their Ruse beers on a big system before Ruse was a thing. When not brewing for Tomas Sluiter at Culmination Brewing, whom they originally worked under at the Old Market Pub & Brewery in Multnomah Village, they used Tom’s tanks to make their Ruse beer. (That’s six Ruse references so far
6-Pack of Things To Do: Thursday July 30 This year, the best kind of summer experience is an unstructured one, whether it’s blocking out a day for a hike at Mt. Rainier, shaking your head on a giant rock along the Ruston Way waterfront or sitting down with a good book. Peaks and Pints has managed to discover six other things to do today in our 6-Pack of Things To Do: Thursday July 30. MUSIC: Forest Beutel and Kevin Shintaku have been entertaining the South Sound, frankly the whole world, since the pandemic hit. The longtime bandmates — Beutel plays
As comedian Steven Wright once said, “24 hours in a day … 24 beers in a case … coincidence?” Peaks & Pints thinks not. There are also seven days in a week and seven summer weather craft beer styles. Coincidence? Peaks & Pints thinks not. Our current hot weather streaks calls for a craft beer with impactful flavor and a light, refreshing finish. While there’s a plethora of brew styles out there, some are a little more enjoyable when the sun is beating down relentlessly. Today’s to-go beer flight, Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Hot Weather Beer On the Fly,
Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 7.29.20 The Peaks and Pints cooler received new beers from Baerlic Brewing, E9 Brewing, Fort George Brewery, Little Beast Brewing, Payette Brewing, Revision Brewing, and Worthy Brewing. … Baerlic Brewing CHILL HELLES LAGER: With a delicate balance of rich malt flavor and spicy and floral hops, this helles lager is fermented slow and low and conditioned for 5 weeks for maximum crispness. 4.5% E9 Brewing DIE UNTIL DEATH: E9 Brewing hosted Holy Mountain and Freigeist Bierkultur from Stolberg, Germany to brew this Belgian malts and wheat based, barrel-aged spice saison. It was fermented
6-Pack of Things To Do: Wednesday July 29 2020 With endless days and long, masked nights, a 2020 South Sound summer has a limited number of activities. Peaks & Pints chosen some of the ones we think you really ought to try in our 6-Pack of Things To Do. Cheers! MUSIC: Rod Cook performs at the Old Town Summer Concert Series virtually tonight. He’s a well-respected guitarist known for his stylistic versatility and soulful, melodic playing. A mainstay with folk/funk, Americana artist Laura Love in the 1990s, Cook began the guitar at the age of 9. Cook has backed up
While the New England-style, or hazy, IPA is the most sought after beer style, it’s cousin, the juicy IPA, is gaining momentum as a close second choice. Why? Well, it’s all about the fruit. The term “juicy” refers to the aroma and taste of the beer — meaning it’s reminiscent of fruit juice, typically citrus or stone fruit. These flavors and aromas are primarily driven from fruit-forward hops such as Citra, Mosaic, Galaxy, Amarillo, and El Dorado. These hops are added later in the boil and at whirlpool to maintain the aroma, as well as dry hopped in copious amounts.
6-Pack of Things To Do: Tuesday July 28 2020 To make the most of the summer season during a pandemic, Peaks & Pints offers a 6-Pack of Things To Do Monday-Saturday. We’re going to have fun! STADIUM DISTRICT: First, buy a book online at kingsbookstore.com. Next, order a Cheesy Brit at doylespublichouse.com. Then, head to Second and St. Helens in Tacoma’s Stadium District to pick both orders up. Walk over to Wright Park, spread a blanket, wolf down the smoked brisket, smoked turkey, smoked ham, Swiss, cheddar, pickles, lettuce, tomato, and mustard mayo on a hoagie roll while reading your new
In October 2008, Brian Ewing launched 12 Percent Imports selling imported beer to New York out of his Toyota Prius. The first beer he imported was Gaverhopke Extra, a 12 percent Belgian ale, thus the name of his distributing company. Ewing began distributing an unusually heavy roster of gypsy brewers and contract brewed beer such as American Solera from Tulsa and Fat Orange Cat Brew Co. from East Hampton, Connecticut. He eventually partnered with Alex Blank to form 12 Percent Beer Project, a contract brewing facility on State Street in North Haven, Connecticut. Many of Ewing and Blank artisan brewery
6-Pack of Things To Do: Monday July 27 2020 Ignoring the construction-related traffic snarls, mosquitoes, and constant reminders a pandemic is messing with our good life: Summer in the South Sound is objectively the greatest. And your pals at Peaks & Pints are here to help maximize it! CHUTES AND LADDERS: It has sold millions of copies, is perhaps the greatest novel in the science-fiction canon, and Star Wars wouldn’t have existed without it. Tacoma-born Frank Herbert’s politically relevant fantasy novel Dune is the inspiration behind Metro Parks’ Dune Peninsula — an 11-acre park between Ruston way and Point Defiance
On the northeast corner of the Olympic Peninsula is an extension of land called the Quimper Peninsula, named after Manuel Quimper, a Spanish Peruvian explorer, cartographer, naval officer, and colonial official. The narrow peninsula became the home of Port Townsend, Chimacum, Glen Cove and Fort Worden, just to name a few highlights. Today, Quimper Peninsula is home to some of the best cideries in Washington state, including Finnriver Farm & Cidery. In addition to growing a certified-organic heirloom-variety orchard on their historic 50-acre farm, Finnriver co-owners Keith and Crystie Kisler, co-owner Eric Jorgensen, head cidermaker Andrew Byers and crew run
You fancy Alpenfire Smoke Barrel Aged Reserve. Fancy Pants Sunday: Alpenfire Smoke Barrel Aged Reserve At age 19, Nancy and Steve “Bear” Bishop would go on dates to Canada. They fell in love with cider. After making cider as hobbyists for many years, in 2001 they took a trip to the cider making regions of Spain, France, and England to observe commercial operations. When they returned home, Steve and Nancy took a class at WSU from an English cider master, and ordered 900 French and English cider trees, which started their journey into commercial cider making
Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider: Neowise, Nut Farm, Chippo From mountaintops to lakesides, from sunrise to dusk, Peaks and Pints Instagram Outsider returns today with a photo essay of our favorite Instagram posts from the past week. If you’ve seen our Instgram Outsider, you won’t be surprised to see beer and cider shots in the mix. And for those who love seeing fruit added to beer, we have plenty of those posts too. Grab a craft beer or cider, turn on your fan, kick up your feet and start scrolling through our gallery below. Be sure to keep tagging us
Today, July 26, is National Coffee Milkshake Day! Yes, you read that right. We’re not making this up. We couldn’t have asked for a more OG-friendly national food day — nor a better excuse to enjoy a tall, icy glass of creamy, coffee-flavored goodness. Yes, unless you’re living in one of the northernmost areas of the world or in the Southern Hemisphere, you’re probably cursing the summer heat at this point. The first thing you might think to do is crack open a classic lawnmower beer and sip away, but Peaks and Pints suggests something a bit more filling —
6-Pack of Things To Do: Saturday July 25 2020 Love hiking the trails in Pierce County? Join the club. Today is Pierce County Trails Day, and the major focus of our 6-Pack on this Saturday. Don a mask and celebrate the beauty. OUTDOORS: Pierce County Trails Day is an annual day for trail users to connect and celebrate community trails and parks in cities and communities across Pierce County. More than 20 in-person and do-it-yourself events and activities are happening across the county for all ages and abilities, including walking, biking, and running to the booths and activities along the
South Sounders tend to get creative in the helter swelter. Besides crafting explicit fantasies about sitting on a block of ice or getting clocked by an exploding fire hydrant, the stuff soft-drink commercials are made of, our survival in the summer heat includes many cooling down alternatives. A quick survey of the supermarket beverage section reveals how many hybrids have evolved. Want water? You can pick flavored, sparkling, calorie-free, vitamin-packed — you name it. And then there are hard seltzers, hard iced coffees, hard kombucha, and the immortal Slurpee, hangover cure to the gods. But for today’s Peaks and Pints
6-Pack of Things To Do Today: Friday July 24 2020 Summers in the South Sound typically seem to end as soon as they begin. This year, summer was over before it even commenced. Yesterday, Gov. Jay Inslee extended the ban on large gatherings through the summer in an effort to curb the COVID cases spike in the state. Street fairs and carnivals, canceled. Beer festivals, gone. Outdoor concerts, no more. But we have news for you: There are at least six things you can still do in the South Sound every day during these sunny dark times. Peaks & Pints
Citra, Mosaic, and Simcoe hops belong together — if for no other reason than they were bred by the same person, Jason Perrault. A fourth-generation hop grower, Perrault started his education at Washington State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Economics, followed by a Master of Science in Plant Breeding and Genetics. In the early 2000s, he birthed Citra, Mosaic and Simcoe as the general manager of Perrault Farms, where he is the CEO today. Perrault went on to be the CEO of Yakima Chief Ranches where he continues to develop new hop varieties. Back
6-Pack of Things To Do: Thursday July 23 2020 Given that we’re living through a pandemic worthy of the scariest sci-fi film, you probably want to continue staying indoors. Today’s 6-Pack of Things To Do leans heavy on virtual fun. But maybe you’re feeling trapped inside, or bemoaning the loss of summer vacation, or losing your mind because your kids won’t stop whining about wanting to do something. If so, the Broadway Farmers’ Market is a thing. Cheers! PODCAST: At food banks and distribution programs across Pierce County there has been a significant increase of people in need, as unemployment
There are many metrics by which we can measure the brewing explosion that has taken place in the Eastern Washington over the past half-decade. We can talk about the number of new breweries, or the emergence of growler stations and beer bars. If we want to get really technical, we can tally the amount of barrels brewed and even track how many of those are traveling to other markets, serving as liquid evangelists for a craft beer scene that’s turning heads in the Northwest. But perhaps an easier, more visible metric would be to taste the delicious new IPAs coming
