Dark Knight Craft Beer Cave

The place is the City of Destiny. The time, 2018 — once removed.

The pulsing heart of Tacoma, a neon of pre-Halloween happiness on a Monday night: a nurse costume sipping a pilsner, a Cat In The Hat look-alike clinking a pint of pale ale with what seems to be Big Bird clutching a tulip full of dry-hopped apricot sour beer, and a Winnie The Pooh chugging a kolsch … as if heaven blanketed the city like a 4.6 percent winter wonderland. A dangling fat moon shines overhead, ready to burst into a shower of Babybel cheese.

On top of Peaks and Pints in the heart of Tacoma’s Proctor District, wooden gargoyles gaze down from their windswept perches, keeping monstrous watch over the distant streets below, sightless guardians of the Tacoma night.

One of them is moving … with a snifter full of bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout.

As if lifeless, the figure falls from Peaks and Pints’ towering roof taking flight just before smashing a Lime scooter. Caped in black, it glides silently over the streets.

Biff! Bam! Pow! The shadowy figure jettisons low ABV beers out of cheery revelers’ fingers. Chain restaurant after chain restaurant, this Dark Knight, if you will, kicks yellow beer to the curb replacing it with a 5-ounce liquid invite to Peaks and Pints’ Dark Knight Craft Beer Cave night Monday, Oct. 29. The Bumble Bee costume receives Founders Canadian Breakfast Stout, the Cowgirl wrangles an Avery Raspberry Truffale, the Mermaid gives up a Corona for a The Bruery So Happens It’s Tuesday, the Sailor is handed a Port Brewing 2015 Older Viscosity Imperial Stout, Shakespeare now sips a Modern Times Devil’s Teeth Bourbon Barrel-Aged English Old Ale, Supergirl can now toast with a Fortside 2017 Barrel-Fied — one after another receives treats such as Ecliptic Barrel-Aged Oort Imperial Stout, Fremont Bourbon Barrel-Aged Dark Star, Hale’s Akademic Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout, Prairie Artisan Ales imperial stouts, Counterbalance Kushetka Imperial Stout and others.

One by one these dark beer converts creep into Peaks and Pints Monday, Oct. 29 donning more haunting costumes, surrounded by Goth and Darkwave tunes while sipping another round of what the “Dark Knight” presented them earlier in the night.

A young woman with bat wings wanders the crowd asking for donations to EcoHealth Alliance to support bat conservation.

“Sometimes the truth isn’t good enough, sometimes people need more,” announces the shadowy figure perched on top of Peaks and Pints’ cooler. “Cheers everyone!”

DARK KNIGHT CRAFT BEER CAVE WITH BATS BENEFIT, 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 29, Peaks and Pints, 3816 No. 26^th St., Basecamp Proctor, Tacoma, no cover

LINK: Peaks and Pints Second Anniversary Cool Camp Week, Oct. 27-Nov. 1

LINK: Cool Camp Week: Beer Industry Geeks Flight Battle, Oct. 27

LINK: Carnivale de Belgian Beerloo, Oct. 28