Malt is the soul of beer. The base note. The backbone. The meat and the potatoes, if you will—though let’s be honest, it’s also the gravy, the warmth, the toasted whisper in your glass. Barley malt? That’s your meat. Soaked, sprouted, gently kilned until its sugars are primed for yeast to work their boozy magic. Wheat, rye, oats? Call them the potatoes—less flashy, but quietly essential, bringing softness, spice, and body to the brew like culinary backup singers in a harmony of grain.
But today, on this most noble of obscure holidays—National Biscuit Day—we’re here for one particular malt moment: the biscuity ones. The toasty, crackery, slightly nutty notes that make your beer taste like it’s been baked in a wood-fired oven and kissed by breakfast nostalgia. Whether it comes from literal biscuit malt or just artful grain wizardry, we’re chasing that warm, golden, fresh-from-the-oven vibe.
So, stop by Peaks & Pints and snag today’s to-go flight: Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Biscuit Beer On the Fly. Because beer can be breakfast. Beer can be comfort. Beer can be biscuits. And yes, we absolutely support drinking your carbs.
Peaks and Pints Pilot Program: Biscuit Beer On the Fly
Crux Pilz
5.2% ABV, 35 IBU
The return of hot weather tends to bring with it a desire for light, crisp, session beers — ones that quench your thirst without being too heavy or intoxicating: pilsners. The pilsner style has been seeing something of a revival among craft brewers in recent years. One of the best comes from Bend, Oregon. Modeled after the German style, Crux Fermentation Project’s Pilz is crisp and clean, with complex biscuit maltiness and spicy, earthy hops. A somewhat unique pilsner with its flowery bouquet, but it hits all the right style points.
Breakside Pilsner
5.2% ABV, 35 IBU
First brewed in 2012, Breakside Brewery’s Pilsner hits the nose with bready, grainy pale malt, white soup crackers, subtle apple and pear fruit notes, slightly edgy yeast, and peppy leafy, herbal, and rather floral hop bitters. Yet, it glides in with grainy malt flavors that build a solid, biscuit foundation, on which is perfectly balanced a classically floral German hop profile. It’s not a loud mouth. It’s not trying to steal your girlfriend. It’s just a very well balanced German-style pilsner — a clean, thirst-quenching lager.
Buoy Czech Pilsner
6.2% ABV, 35 IBU
Arborist Luke Colvin coaxed client, longtime homebrewer and lager specialist Dan Hamilton to open Buoy Beer Co. with his brother-in-law David Kroening, business advisor Jerry Kasinger and businessman Andrew Bornstein, who had a 90-year-old cannery building in Astoria, Oregon, on the wasterfront. The rest, as they say, is history. Buoy Beer makes some of the finest light lagers in the state, including a clean and biscuity Czech Pilsner that’s become a staple all over Oregon, and Peaks and Pints. It hits the nose with grainy biscuit malt and grassy hops — not complicated, but on style. Flavor is biscuit malt, grassy and slightly citrus hops, lemon, hints of honey, and mixed grain spiciness.
Ferment India Pale Ale
5.8% ABV, 65 IBU
Carefully crafted to fully express its curated hops and yeasts, Ferment Brewing‘s India Pale Ale brings the hops without being buried by bitterness. The biscuity, lightly sweet malts and fruity, dry yeast notes impart an herbaceous aroma to give the ale a complex nose of peach, tangerine, and red cedar.
Icicle Bootjack IPA
6.5% ABV, 64 IBU
Icicle Brewing Co. sits in the Bavarian theme park known as Leavenworth, which seems perhaps the most appropriate place for a brewery. The brewery draws their water from nearby Icicle Creek, a run-off from surrounded by numerous mountain ranges including the Stuart Range and Wenatchee Mountains. Owner Oliver Brulotte has deep family roots in Washington’s hop farming history. Their Bootjack IPA is refreshing. It’s hop forward with some biscuit malt notes and a resinous linger. This isn’t a pine bomb; instead you get smooth citrus and lots of fruit.
