Despite blistering heat, Everett Craft Beer Festival delights

The Everett Craft Beer Festival—held roughly three inches from the surface of the actual sun—was less a casual Saturday sip-fest and more a sweat-slicked fever dream of hops, heatstroke, and heroic decision-making. Downtown Everett became a kiln of fermented ambition as more than 30 breweries unleashed 100+ beers upon a crowd that was half delirious, half glistening, and entirely unbothered by the blazing hell-orb overhead. Naturally, I began with an 11% bourbon barrel-aged winter ale because, clearly, I wanted to test the limits of human hydration and dignity. Spoiler: I survived. Barely. But oh, the beer.

Diamond Knot’s Nitro Brown Ale with Hazelnut and Praline was a luscious sin against seasonality—hot day be damned. It was like sucking down a molten truffle in a velvet lounge of regret. I had two. Around me, power fans spun in covert rotation, whipping hair into high-velocity chaos and cooling exactly nothing. Crucible Brewing, Everett’s proud native child, dueled Fremont for longest beer line honors, and rightfully so—their Pineapple IPA and Pink Drink Raspberry Kettle Sour were liquid equilibrium in a world teetering on heatstroke.

WaBL (that’s Washington Beer Lovers for you non-initiates) slung hats and secrets from their shady booth, including a member-only pour of Crucible’s Putin’ Out Stout (9%), a brooding, roasted monument to geopolitical innuendo. Elsewhere, I staggered through IPAs, Pales, Saisons, and Sours like a sunburned monk on a spiritual quest. Did I mention it was warm? I did? Good.

Fremont won the Instagram Olympics with their Strawberry Daiquiri Summer Ale—infused with strawberry, lime, and rum-soaked wood, topped with a paper umbrella so sexy it should’ve been illegal. Scuttlebutt’s Matt Stromberg poured me his desert island beer, Mateo Loco Imperial Red, a resinous, balanced beauty that whispered of shipwrecks and infinite sunsets. Aslan Brewing celebrated National Lemonade Day with Disco Lemonade Berliner Weisse, a tart, radiant little miracle. Tyson Schiffner at Sumerian went rogue and poured Eruption Double IPA instead of the scheduled Narcissism IPA, and thank the gods—Eruption is a citrus-laced uppercut of Citra, Mosaic, Cascade, and Centennial glory.

And Farmstrong? Their Mostapfel Gose tasted like salted apple air-kisses from a German orchard. By midafternoon, Leif Cole of Sugarbush howled under the sun like a rock god melting into his own amp, the barbecue smoke curled skyward in tribute, and somewhere in the distance, a pretzel necklace surrendered to gravity.

The 2016 Everett Craft Beer Festival: blisteringly hot, beautifully run, and positively soaked in style, sweat, and saison.