Pride is the civil rights movement of our generation. Fifty years ago this summer, New York City bar patrons of many genders, sexualities, and racial identities trapped a group of police officers inside the Stonewall Inn after they shut down the bar in yet another routine raid. Riots continued the following two nights as the LGBTQ community spread word that something unique was happening in Greenwich Village. Every June, Pride month, we celebrate their uprising with Pride parades that have come to resemble corporate advertisements rather than riots. It’s the time when Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, queer and questioning folk
Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 6.13.20 Did you have to ask what day it is? Peaks & Pints did. In six months this year has produced all sorts of hard times. We’ll never get back the past three months. Let’s remain positive and enjoy some delicious beers this weekend. Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 6.13.20 features returning seasonals, next installments in series and brand new beers. Cheers! 7 Seas Brewing EDWARD RESIN HANDS IMPERIAL IPA: Brewed with Cryo Azacca, Simcoe, Idaho Gem, and Experimental HBC-586, this ultra dank and resinous hazy imperial IPA is smooth bodied,
Maybe because it’s a blend, maybe because there’s no point in aging it, or maybe because half-full bottles of it sit wedged into Tacoma refrigerator doors with decorative stoppers jammed in them, but rosé has a dodgy reputation. It’s grocery-store wine. It’s “cougar juice.” It’s simply an embarrassing color. Except, no, it isn’t. Well, get ready for a roséducation. The Greeks and the Romans made rosé. Monks made rosé too. Rosé wines are generally made from red grapes and are very versatile wines. A rosé wine will also be lighter in color than red wine, deeper in color than white
Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 6.11.20 In solidarity with Black Lives Matter Peaks & Pints will close for business Friday, June 12 to recognize the statewide strike and silent marches. We encourage you to join us in this statewide day of action in support of all Black lives. Until then, Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 6.11.20 has new worthy arrivals to our cooler. AleSmith Brewing COSMIC OMNIBUS: Hazy IPA collaboration with Modern Times Beer brewed with Citra, Enigma, and Vic Secret hops for bright pineapple, berries, and citrus on the nose, followed by grapefruit and lemon
New York City’s beer history is a roller coaster ride. Homebrewer George Washington and his fellow revolutionaries tossed back ales at Fraunces Tavern on the corner of what are now Pearl and Broad streets in New York City’s Financial District. Colonial laws supported brewing, recognizing the potential tax revenue of a thriving and controlled brewing industry. In the mid-19th century, European immigrants, many of them skilled lager brewers from Germany unable to find work, began arriving at the Port of New York in large numbers. Many of them settled in Brooklyn, where they became part of the city’s brewing history.
July 12, 2013, Scott Wagner, Gordon Rush, Matt Smith, Thair Jorgenson, and Chris Dewald opened the 15-barrel Narrows Brewing perched on pilings above the Narrows waterway. As guests gazed at the 700 feet of guest docking below and beyond to the Narrows bridge, Joe Walts, former quality control manager at Ale Asylum Brewing in Madison, Wisconsin, brewed in the back. After a couple years, Walts returned to Ale Asylum with former Harmon head brewer Mike Davis taking over the head brewing position. Davis eventually returned to his beloved Hawaiian Islands with Matt Rhodes — formerly with Stone Distributing and King
Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 6.9.20 A tiki beer box, a pilsner for the sporting lifestyle, Reuben’s Brews canned their helles and the Devil is back. Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 6.9.20 has some fun beer to take home. Ayinger URWEISSE: This amber-colored dunkelweizen hits the nose with clove and ripe banana notes plus a touch of alcohol. At the front of the taste, modest caramel malts reminiscent of artisan bread crust tease the tongue before deepening into clove spice and sweet banana tango. 5.8% Double Mountain Brewery IDAHO 7 SINGLE HOP IPA: For Double Mountain
Hops are a perennial vine with the scientific name Humulus lupulus, which means “small wolf,” a reference to its aggressive climbing nature and tendency to take over other nearby plants. There are more than 120 different hop varieties used today. To be a true fan, the appeal of hops has to be more than just bitterness. Hops offer a range of flavors and aromas that resemble herbs, pine, tropical fruits like grapefruit and tangerine and more. Citra hops, well, the name says it all. A relatively new hop on the scene (released in 2008 by Hop Breeding Company of Yakima),
7 Seas Brewing has released a gose-like style beer, Grapefruit Sour Ale. Local Suds: 7 Seas Grapefruit Sour Ale Gose — a beer style originated in the Middle Ages in Goslar, Germany along the Gose River, but the town of Leipzig farther south made it popular. 7 Seas Brewing Grapefruit Sour Ale (4.7%) is a modern twist on this ancient style; if you took a grapefruit and ran it through a Vitamix, it would look just like 7 Seas’ new addition to their core line-up. Grapefruit Sour Ale is a refreshingly tart sour loaded with pureed
Pour a glass of cider and see a good book tonight. The Grand Cinema continues to run their Virtual Screening Room, which is a way to support The Grand by buying virtual tickets and streaming movies from home that would otherwise be playing on the big screen right now. The Booksellers is one such movie, which takes you inside a small but fascinating world populated by an assortment of obsessives, intellects, eccentrics and dreamers. Bookstores, as you may know, have had a rough couple of decades. In New York City alone, there used to be over 300 bookstores, and now
You fancy Finnriver Blue Hewe and Sojourn. Fancy Pants Sunday: Finnriver Blue Hewe and Sojourn 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 towns Port Townsend, Chimacum, Glen Cove and Fort Worden, just to name a few. Today, Quimper Peninsula is home to some of the best cideries in Washington state, including Finnriver Farm & Cidery in Chimacum. When one of Washington’s earliest cidermakers, Drew Zimmerman,
On this date in history: 2000, Prince Rogers Nelson, better known as Prince, celebrated reclaiming his name of “Prince” after a seven-year battle with Warner Brothers, who refused to let him record under that name. In protest of his sour dealings with the record company, Prince changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol (later trademarked as “Love Symbol #2”) and was referred to as “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince,” which was shortened to “The Artist.” Shortly after signing a new deal with Arista in 1999, Prince became Prince again on this date in history, though the symbol is still
Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 6-6-20 Peaks & Pints is still in take-out and to-go mode. Here are new arrivals for your abode mode. 2 Towns Ciderhouse PRICKLY PEARADISE: It’s a semi-dry and sweetened with organic blue agave. This bright berry-colored cider is bold with intense flavors like watermelon, raspberry and bubblegum. 5.3% Backwoods Brewing HAZY NELSON: Backwoods Brewing’s newest creation is an ode to another captivating presence of braided peace and song; he croons a melody of story like a shotgun into stardust. They call him Nelson. He is always on Backwoods’ mind. Hazy Nelson is brewed
If you go rushing through life you’re going to miss out on a lot of good things. Of course, the smell of roses is the classic example, but if you’re always in a hurry you’re also going to miss letting a piece of maple sugar candy dissolve slowly on your tongue, or the sight of the sun when it melts all the way into the ocean at sunset, or the great out-takes at the end of a Jackie Chan movie. No, Peaks & Pints hasn’t gone all maudlin and reflective like a movie on Lifetime. We just want to point
Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Hop Blending Bunch Here’s the story Of a Yakima Washington Who was bringing up three very lovely hops Chinook, Centennial, Cascade are all famous Like their hop farms The youngest one with pine drops It’s the story Of a man named Tasman Who was busy with three New Zealand hops of its own They were newer hops Growing all together And they were all fruity cones ‘Til the one day when Yakima met Tasman And they knew that it was much more than a hunch That this hop blend of old and new must somehow
Hitting the scene in the early 2010s, the New England-style IPA came to fame thanks to a Vermont brewery, The Alchemist, with Heady Topper, an unfiltered double IPA that became a cult favorite. The beer was a success, and other New England breweries soon followed suit: namely Hill Farmstead Brewery, also in Vermont, along with Trillium Brewing Company and Tree House Brewing Co., both in Massachusetts. Call them hazy, New England or Northeast style; they’re all the rage. Though loaded with hops, these small-batch brews tone down the bitterness by using milder varieties like Citra and Mosaic, and adding them
Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 6.3.20 Looking for the perfect gift for the beer lover in your life? Trying to find ways to support your favorite local businesses? Look no further! Peaks & Pints gift cards are available for purchase . If you don’t feel comfortable coming inside, feel free to call us and pay for your gift card over the phone. We can bring it out to your car. Pick up a Peaks & Pints t-shirt or hoodie while you’re here, or maybe make your own 6-pack from the new arrivals below. Baerlic Brewing GO TEAM GO
Let’s face it. The thought: “Next week, I’m NOT gonna get drunk during the self-quarantine week and eat an entire bag of sour cream and onion Lays leading to a depression that will lead to ice cream. I’ll save money and lose weight. It’ll be great!” is a bit too ambitious. Why don’t you compromise with reality, and combine food and beer experience. Yes, beer is a beverage, as the majority of its composition is water; however, given that it’s also made with cereal grains, hops and yeast, all of this combined goodness is oftentimes a meal in itself. Ever
This week’s Tree-dimensional Tacoma tree is the bigleaf maple at the corner of North Junett and North 19th between the Three Bridges District and the University of Puget Sound. Photo credit: Kate Swarner Tree-dimensional Tacoma: Bigleaf Maple “The best word to describe the bigleaf maple, Acer macrophyllum, at the corner of North Junett and North 19th is “awesome,” says Sarah Low, executive director of the Tacoma Tree Foundation. “Bigleaf maples are one of the most important native trees in the Pacific Northwest. It was one of the big trees found in old growth forests that once covered much
Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 6.1.20 Peaks & Pints typically follows a positive line of thinking and posting, but it’s hard not to acknowledge the horrific scene of racism and police brutality that continues to flood the headlines. RIP George Floyd. Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 6.1.20 offers five new, highlights five new worthy craft beers to our cooler. Be well and safe everyone! Barlows Brewery DUAL SPORT IPA SERIES: ELSINORE: Vancouver, Washington’s Barlows Brewery clean IPA features a blend of new-school Galaxy hops and classic Chinook hops for notes of lime, tropical, grapefruit, and subtle
Apples were among some of the first crops grown in colonial America. Potted seedlings and bags of apple seeds were brought over on the Mayflower. The Bible-thumping Puritans were not teetotalers. Apple orchards in colonial America usually meant one thing: hard cider. Apples flourished in the fertile soil and friendly climate, and soon apples were a key part of most colonial farms and menus. The popularity of cider in America grew as the nation’s territory expanded. Then, the Temperance movement and popularity of German lager squashed the hard apple cider movement … until 2013. Zealous connoisseurs grow dissatisfied with the
Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 5.30.20 Hey friends! Peaks and Pints is open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. with take-out sandwiches and salads (253.328.5621), growlers fillers and a giant cooler of beer and cider to-go including these new arrivals. … American Solera TERPY GALAXY: Hops and marijuana both contain terpenoids, compounds that give the plants similar characteristics. In fact, both fall into the taxonomic family Cannabaceae, so it follows that you could create a fairly stinky beer with the right treatment of the right hops. Hops don’t get you high, but in smell, taste and appearance, they often
Wag Pet Market has held a leash for 18 some years in Tacoma’s Proctor District. That’s still a puppy in dog years. The pet store is open for business during these dog poopy times with a full stock of fun toys and great treats, as you can witness on their Facebook. Wag also gives animal birthday shout-outs on Facebook, too. The store is open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, allowing two mask-wearing customers inside, with the option of curbside service. You can text your orders to 253.756.0924. After shopping at Wag, Peaks & Pints suggests
Tacoma artist Katie Johnson added her talent to the JayRay CHAIRity Silent Auction. Photo courtesy of JayRay Katie Johnson’s CHAIRity palm / photo courtesy of JayRay Tacoma artists grab a CHAIRity During these times of self-quarantine, you might say Mr. La-Z-Boy achieved the utmost in furniture design with your beloved rocker-recliner. But that plush TV chair is not the latest and greatest in furnishings. For what’s happening now, you’ll need to push pause on Netflix’s “Space Force” to log onto the JayRay CHAIRity Silent Auction that benefits our community members who are
Malt is the meat and potatoes of beer. Barley malt, specifically, is the “meat,” that’s been germinated in water and then air-dried to develop the sugars and enzymes, so beer yeast can consume it and produce alcohol and CO2. Malt is the primary source of beer color and contributes significantly to flavor and mouthfeel. Let’s say “potatoes” are lesser-used malted grains such as wheat, rye, and oats, but go through the same process as barley. Since it’s National Biscuit Day, Peaks and Pints focuses on biscuit malt and/or biscuit flavors for today’s to-go bottled and canned beer flight, Peaks and
Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 5.28.20 Chances are, if you’re reading this Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 5.28.20 you are probably planning on putting together a lovely collection of craft beer for the weekend. May we suggest the fine specimens below. … Brothers Cascadia Brewing BOLD AS LOVE IPA: With its large addition of Mosaic, Amarillo, and Simcoe hops in both the boil and in the fermenter, this Brothers Cascadia IPA grabbed a silver medal at the San Diego International Beer Festival 2018 and a bronze at the Washington Brewers Choice Awards. Its balanced body sets
In a not-very-surprising move, summer beer festivals are receiving “See you next year!” stamps months before their scheduled 2020 appearances. Get a cupholder on your bike, you degenerates, because we’re drinking outside for the next four months, biking from one social-distance barbecue to the next. And, your friend Bob mixing Bud Light and Budweiser to make his elixir, Bud Medium, isn’t going to cut it. No, load up your bicycle with sunkissed craft beer and suck down the season’s freshest. Today, Peaks & Pints offers a to-go flight of “sunshine” beers to place at the front of your cooler queue.
Fort George 3-Way IPA 2020 to ship June 9 Astoria’s Fort George Brewery has brewed 3-Way IPA since 2013, featuring two different craft brewery collaborators every year. This year, Structures Brewing in Bellingham and Level Beer in Portland shared ideas and techniques with Chris Nemlowill of Fort George Brewery, and after a couple Beta batches — the final 2020 Fort George 3-Way IPA will land Tuesday, June 9. Fort George dropped a 3-Way media release today, which also includes news on other Fort George beer releases. Pour the Astoria brewery’s flagship Vortex IPA and get to reading. … This time
Sometimes, you just want a damn beer. You know the kind Peaks & Pints speaks. Beer that tastes like beer. Beer that you’d reach for while mowing the lawn or complaining to the cable company. Beer for sitting on the patio or watching a baseball game. Good old, regular, plain, normal, lager. Sorry, but brewers are messing with your damn beer. They’re making lagers hoppy. They’re switching out Galena hops for low-cohumulone hops —Simcoe, Magnum, Horizon — or going all in with American C-hops, adding citrus and tropical fruit flavors. These brewers know bitterness is often going to be more
Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 5.26.20 Memorial Day weekend signaled the official start to summer, but for beer fans, the calendar flip heralded a more important kickoff date: the official beginning of all-day-drinking season. The summer months are an excellent excuse to sip beer from noon till nightfall — or last call, if you possess serious staying power. Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 2.26.20 offers seven new beers for all-day-drinking season. Badische Staatsbrauerei Rothaus PILS TANNENZAPFLE: The Rothaus Brewery is Germany’s highest brewery by elevation, at 1,000 meters above sea level. Situated in Germany’s beautiful Black
This week’s Tree-dimensional Tacoma tree is the scarlet oak at the corner of North 31st and Proctor Street across from Puget Creek Park in the Proctor District. Photo credit: Kate Swarner Tree-dimensional Tacoma: Scarlet Oak “This week I wanted to point out a tree that caught my eye just recently, although I have passed by it many times,” says Sarah Low, executive director of the Tacoma Tree Foundation. “Just across from Puget Creek Park at the corner of North 31st and Proctor Street, stands a beautifully cared for centerpiece of a tree. I believe this tree
Cheesecake — be it New York-style, Chicago-style, vegan or savory — is a pretty wonderful invention and Peaks & Pints wishes we could kiss the Greek who came up with the first recipe. Because, seriously, cheese on its own is one of the best things in the world and praise the Lord someone managed to make it even more decadent by adding blueberries. Today is National Blueberry Cheesecake Day! Peaks Pints celebrates with a flight of blueberry beers — some creamy, some that pair very well with cheesecake — that we call Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Blueberry Cheesecake On
You fancy Dirty Couch Highland Blasphemy Fancy Pants Sunday: Dirty Couch Highland Blasphemy Dirty Couch is cool. No, not what you sunk into playing Xbox in college, but rather the barrel-aged, mixed fermentation sour beer brewery in Seattle. When Dirty Couch Brewing head brewer Sean Lindorfer enters Peaks & Pints, people gather around him for his charisma and his excellent beer. Dirty Couch owners Frank Swiderski, Rob Nelson and Jon Cargille did well when they nabbed the former denizen of Urban Family Brewing, Cellar Homebrew and Über Tavern to lead their brewery. Fancy Pants Sunday: Dirty
Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 5.24.20 For those who are social distancing together, you can still put together a fun, albeit small, Memorial Day event. Peaks and Pints New Beers In Stock 5.24.20 offers barbecue pairing treats from Aslan Brewing, Block 15 Brewing, Boundary Bay Brewery, Chuckanut Brewery, de Garde Brewing, Fremont Brewing, Georgetown Brewing, Matchless Brewing and others. Cheers! Aslan Brewing ROCKET FUEL: This mocha horchata brown ale incorporates cacao nibs from Theo, Roaster’s Choice coffee beans from Lighthouse and an industrial-sized batch of horchata. Expect strong coffee and chocolate flavors upfront balance the slightly sweet and
Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø, the founder and man behind Evil Twin Brewing, was a physics and English teacher in his native Denmark before starting Copenhagen’s Ølbutikken, a highly regarded beer store. He’s also an evil twin himself. His brother, Mikkel Borg Bergsø, brews under the Mikkeller label. Jarnit-Bjergsø, however, has done his best to outshine the good twin. He founded Evil Twin in 2010 as a nomadic brewery. Like his brother Mikkel, Jarnit-Bjergsø would concocts a recipe for his beer and hand it to another brewery with some extra capacity. This contracted brewing partner brewed, bottled, priced and sold the beer, then
A coolship (termed a koelschip in Flemish), for the uninitiated, is an open vessel fit for spontaneous fermentation; its large surface area allows unfermented beer, or wort, to cool more efficiently. Once the steaming wort is added to the coolship, it sits there, mingling with indigenous bacteria and wild yeast in the air that give wild beers distinct characteristics like funk and sense of place. Yes, it can be a scary situation for modern breweries. Brewers do everything possible to clean and sterilize their facilities to prevent “infections” of their equipment. However, in making beer that relies on wild fermentation,
Forty years ago today, Toru Iwatani helped himself to a slice of pizza and looked down at the rest of the pie. What he saw inspired one of the world’s most recognized video games: Pac-Man, first released in by Namco in Japan on May 22, 1980. Today, Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde are back, this time as inspiration for Peaks and Pints to-go beer flight, Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Pac-Man Beer On the Fly. As Duke Nukem long ago dictated, video games and beer go together like video games and not getting laid — such as those Pac-Man fanatics
“It is a dark time for the Rebellion.” Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back hit the big screen May 21, 1980. Indeed, 40 years ago today Luke Skywalker interrupted his Jedi Knight training to rescue his motley crew of friends from Dark Vader in the second installment of Lucas’ Star Wars trilogy. Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford returned as the most likable gauche trio since Buster Crabbe, Jean Rogers, and Frank Shannon blasted off in Flash Gordon. The aerial battle against the AT-AT walkers on Hoth, the betrayal in Cloud City, and the penultimate confrontation between Luke Skywalker
Peaks and Pints New Beer In Stock 5.20.20 Welcome to Quarantine day #? It’s been an interesting few months to say the least, but Peaks & Pints knows you’ll still need craft beer for your Zoom sessions. Today, Peaks and Pints New Beer In Stock 5.20.20 includes goods from Alesong Brewing & Blending, Cascade Brewing & Barrel House, E9 Brewing, Ecliptic Brewing, Ferment Brewing, Level Beer Co., Scuttlebutt Brewing, StormBreaker Brewing, Trap Door Brewing and others. Cheers! Abomination Brewing APELSINER NEKTARINER VANILJ OCH SPOKEN IPA: Abomination brewed this vegan hazy IPA with Swedish brewery Dugges at the 12 percent Beer
Rob Lutz’ beer career began as a keg washer at Amnesia Brewing, the North Portland brewery that opened in May of 2003 on Mississippi Avenue. Amnesia moved to Washougal, Washington, then folded. Lutz went in the opposite direction. In late 2014, he and Dan Malech opened StormBreaker Brewing in Amnesia’s former spot. Their creative beer lineup earned awards. The duo opened a second spot in Portland’s St. John neighborhood, as well as expanded their Mississippi location, adding an axe-throwing platform. Today, Peaks & Pints presents a to-go flight of StormBreaker beer that we call Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: StormBreaker
It’s National Devil’s Food Cake Day! Devil’s food cake is a wholly original American creation and a truly classic confection; the earliest known recipe appeared in The Janesville Gazette in 1905. Devil’s food cake is richer, darker and fluffier than any regular chocolate cake can ever be — it has been called the chocolate version of an angel food cake. And it’s all thanks to the use of cocoa powder and the extra dose of baking soda it calls for. Recipes use hot or boiling water as the primary liquid. While chocolate cake usually calls for melted chocolate, devil’s food cake
Peaks and Pints is open for take-out food, growler fills and beer to-go from our 13-door cooler. Tacoma Quarantine Kit of Takeout Food, Craft Beer and Cider Dear Guests, Peaks & Pints thanks you for supporting us in this unprecedented and confusing time. You’re family to us, and we’re thankful every day you’re a part of our lives. Our best wishes go out to those who have been impacted by COVID-19. We are open with a Tacoma Quarantine Kit of Takeout Food, Craft Beer and Cider. Peaks & Pints has remained opened during the entire self-quarantine
You fancy Oud Beersel Green Walnut! Fancy Pants Sunday: Oud Beersel Green Walnut Brouwerij Oud Beersel dates back to 1882 in the town of Beersel in Flemish Brabant, a province of Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium. As the story goes, in 1880, Henri Vandervelden managed the fruit harvest for lambic brewery Brouwerij De Kroon in Uccle, Belgium. His experience at De Kroon gave him the necessary skills to continue on with his own brewery. Vandervelden opened his lambic brewery next door to a village shop with a café next owner by farmer Jeromius
Forty years ago tomorrow, the world changed forever when Mount St. Helens erupted. Tomorrow, the world changes again as Peaks & Pints closes every Monday. Also, tomorrow (where’s Annie when we need her?) is the final day of American Craft Beer Week 2020. That’s all fine and dandy, but today is Sunday, we need a to-go flight (it’s what we do). Let’s combine all these things into a prefunk for the Eruptiversary/final American craft beer focus/day we hang with family (in our underwear on the couch). Welcome to Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Mount St. Sour On The Fly, a
