Grit & Grain Podcast does 2025 Brew Five Three
Tacoma’s summer-sun street sermon to beer, music, and civic joy—Tacoma Arts Live’s Brew Five Three, the 253’s annual “Beer & Music Festival”—spills from the historic Tacoma Armory onto a Yakima Avenue closed just for you and a few thousand of your closest pint-sipping friends. From 1–7 p.m., the block transforms into a sudsy carnival of regional breweries, cideries, and meaderies, pouring in the street and inside, flanked by food trucks, raffles, games, and live music.
Grit & Grain & News & Laughs
At 3:30 p.m., on the cavernous Tacoma Armory stage, the Grit & Grain crew—beer evangelists Matt McLaren, Ron Swarner, and Bethany Carlsen—reclaim their throne over the hop-crazed masses, recording live amid the clink of tasting glasses and electric festival chatter. Just like in August 2024 (Episode 107) and August 2023 (Episode 59), they’ll spin spontaneous sagas from crowd characters and local brews, pulling strangers into witty, poetic, riff-happy conversations.
Expect Tacoma Chatter
At Brew Five Three, Grit & Grain could riff on 7 Seas’ freshly unshackled Super Charged Mexican Lager and swaggering Hold Fast Double IPA like summer’s twin patron saints—one a crisp, lime-kissed hammock nap, the other a hop-snarled sea monster daring you to cannonball into Tacoma’s beer-soaked soul.
They could wax rhapsodic on E9 Brewing’s resurrected Sawtooth to Hell IPA and the floral-sunbeam grace of Bayanihan orange blossom ale, like dueling Tacoma spirits—one all bitter-fang swagger, the other a soft-spoken sorcerer of citrus and bloom—both conspiring to keep the city deliciously unbalanced.
They might dive into Narrows Brewing’s shiny new Proctor taproom and its hop-flirt twins, Easterly and Westerly, Tacoma’s own yin-yang sea breeze—one hazy and lush as a July afternoon nap, the other crisp and briny as a dockside dawn—both proving “Damn Drinkable” is less slogan, more sacred truth.
They could revel in Odd Otter’s Odd Otis strawberry-kiwi seltzer shimmying like summer in a can, while stalwarts like Ottermelon Hefeweizen and Comrade Otter’s stout strut past—proof Tacoma’s most mischievous brewery still wears its weird like a crown.
And they could toast Sig Brewing’s new South Tacoma taproom while unpacking the citrus-zapped tang of their Key-lime tart ale and the shadow-play swagger of Dark Side of the Stein, like two intergalactic pen pals swapping love letters in hops and moonlight.
Whatever local beer news they discuss Saturday, it will be less a podcast, more a live-forged performance of grain, grit, and unfiltered Tacoma soul—modern mythmaking in a limited-edition tasting glass.
Brew Five Three proceeds fuel Tacoma Arts Live’s work in performance and youth arts education. It’s 21+ (ID required), leashed-dog-friendly, bike- and transit-easy. Each ticket nets you a tasting glass and eight tokens—regular $63, day-of $68, or $15.50 for DDs just here for the tunes and tacos. Beer & Music Festival, 1–7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 9, Tacoma Armory & Yakima Avenue, tickets at tacomaartslive.org.
LINK: Brew Five Three is part of this week’s 6-Pack of Things To Do in Tacoma: Aug. 4-10
LINK: Peaks & Pints beer and cider cooler inventory
