Lumberbeard Brewing: From Diesel Shop to Cut-Off Flannel IPA

Peaks & Pints co-owner Pappi Swarner wears cut-off flannels every day like a taproom uniform — sleeves gone, elbows free — because Peaks & Pints looks and feels like a giant lodge inside: warm wood, cedar tap log, mountain light catching the foam just so. It’s the right costume for our little craft-beer sanctuary, and it matches the long gray beard he’s somehow grown into, equal parts bark and barley. So he pointed the Jeep east, past pines and basalt, and drove to Spokane to brew the thing his closet has been predicting for years: Cut-Off Flannel IPA. At Lumberbeard Brewing, the steam rose, the scissors flashed, and the recipe started to sound like a sermon — Northwest pine snap stitched to citrus swagger — a house beer born of sleeveless pragmatism and taproom myth.

There’s a certain poetry in Spokane’s East Third Avenue — an old diesel repair shop reborn as a cathedral of stainless and steam, where co-owner/head brewer Bret Gordon traded spreadsheets for spent grain and the steady hum of a 20-barrel brewhouse. Lumberbeard began as Bret’s wild detour from a career in finance, sparked by a 21-year-old’s epiphany that life was too short not to chase the perfect pint. After earning his Professional Brewing

Certificate at UC San Diego and cutting his teeth at SoCal outfits like The Bruery and Santa Monica Brew Works, Bret and his wife, Hannah, headed north in 2018, chasing family, space, and a fledgling beer scene with room to grow. By January 2020, Lumberbeard was pouring its first IPAs just as the world shut down — but Spokane showed up. Curbside crowlers, community grit, and a beard big enough to name a brewery after carried them through.

Four years later, the Gordons’ creation stands tall among Washington’s best: a family-run operation grounded in authenticity and obsessed with craft. Their partnership with local maltsters LINC Malt anchors every batch in the Inland Northwest’s soil, while their taproom buzzes with collaboration — fresh-hopped hazies, world-class barleywines, Czech-style lagers, and a kitchen that smells like comfort. The name may have started as Bret’s teenage Instagram handle, but Lumberbeard now means something bigger: a community, a comeback, a clean-poured testament to stubborn joy.

Now that same joy has wandered west. This fall, Lumberbeard joins forces with Peaks & Pints for Cut-Off Flannel IPA — the 2025–26 house beer for our sleeveless ninth anniversary. Born from Spokane steel and Tacoma mischief, this IPA carries the snap of Northwest pine, the warmth of shared tables, and the satisfying defiance of anyone who’s ever looked at a flannel and thought, “Yeah, let’s cut it.” Join us Saturday, Nov. 1, as we raise a pint to the next chapter — where the beard meets the Peaks, and the hops never stop singing.

Brew Day

It was one of those golden Spokane Fridays — October sun cutting through the brewhouse windows, steam already curling like an invocation — when they fired up the Cut-Off Flannel brew day at 8 a.m. Bret led the charge, steady and smiling, with Sean on the valves and Tanner — freshly returned to the fold after a few years away — moving like he’d never left. They mashed in with Buzz Pale and Baronesse Munich malts from LINC Malt, Spokane-grown grain practically humming with local gravity. By 11:16, the boil was rolling, a 90-minute symphony of hops and heat. Simcoe at 30 minutes, more Simcoe and Chinook closing it out, the air turning citrus and pine and promise. A dose of Yeastex 82 fed the yeast’s future, while a swirl of Whirlfloc cleared the path toward brilliance. Between hop additions, Hannah slipped into the brewhouse — part co-owner, part creative engine — tossing out taproom ideas and marketing magic while Bret nodded as he stirred destiny. By 12:48 p.m., as the final hops swirled down, Lumberbeard’s Fresh Hop Festival was already stirring in the taproom, and they raised pints of their own harvest IPA — Spokane sunlight in the glass, Tacoma mischief waiting in the fermenter.

The Journey West

By the time the fermenters hissed and the first Spokane dusk settled, the spirit of Cut-Off Flannel IPA was already tugging westward, bound for Tacoma. The beer would rest and rise over the coming weeks, its bright pine and citrus threads knitting together like the flannel it honors. Back at Peaks & Pints, the cedar walls seemed to hum in anticipation, as if the lodge itself knew something new was on its way — a beer born of Spokane steel, fermented in friendship, and destined for the cold pint glasses of Proctor’s faithful.

Ninth Anniversary Party

Join Peaks & Pints on Saturday, Nov. 1, as it flings open the lodge doors and raises a raucous toast to nine deliriously delicious years of beer, cider, and community — the stuff that keeps Tacoma weird, wonderful, and properly hydrated. They’ll debut two new liquid spirit animals at 6 p.m.: Finnriver Farm & Cidery’s Buckthorn Cider, named after Buckhorn Mountain, which lies between Tacoma and Finnriver’s home in Chimacum and is potentially visible from both locations, bridging the space between them and connecting us; and Lumberbeard Brewing’s Cut-Off Flannel IPA, our sleeveless, pine-and-citrus ode to dorky Pappi Swarner’s daily uniform and lifelong devotion to lupulin glory.

The party ignites at 6 p.m. with live music from our honorary house band, The Barleywine Revue, because no Peaks anniversary is complete without a little bluegrass thunder and bar-top harmony. Lumberbeard and Finnriver will pour extra magic from the taps, the firelight will hum against the cedar walls, and the night will smell faintly of hops, apples, and celebration. There’s no cover charge, no secret handshake — just bring your thirst, your flannel (sleeves optional), and come get fermentally fabulous with Peaks & Pints.

LINK: Peaks & Pints beer and cider cooler inventory