Every September, Tacoma wakes to the clang of school bells, and today it’s official: Washington Elementary and Mason Middle are back in session. Which means you, dear driver, should slow your roll through Proctor — backpacks bulging, sneakers squeaking, crosswalks packed with tiny humans whose energy could power a small city. The morning mayhem gives way to the afternoon flood: once the last bell rings, the Proctor District erupts. Kids swarm the coffee shops, jabbering like parrots on double-espresso, filling the sidewalks with sugar-hyped shrieks and end-of-summer gossip. It’s glorious, chaotic, inevitable.
And what about the adults — the teachers, parents, janitors, firefighters, the whole invisible scaffolding holding day one together? They deserve a reward. They deserve something stronger than a lukewarm latte. So, when the dust settles and the backpacks are finally slumped in the hallway, Peaks & Pints becomes the debriefing room. Gather here, compare first-day war stories, toast the return of routine, and sip the solace of a carefully chosen Back To School Flight: five beers for five archetypes of the school year, each one as loud, bright, messy, or restorative as the day demanded.
Peaks & Pints Back-To-School Flight
Great Notion Samson’s Tropical Vacation
7.5% ABV | Fruited Sour | Portland, OR
Every school has a Samson — the janitor who knows the halls better than the principal, who sweeps up the gum and glitter and half-forgotten homework with stoic grace. But everyone also knows Samson’s mind is elsewhere — forever dreaming of a tropical vacation. Why else the Hawaiian shirts in September? This Great Notion beer is his daydream in a can: pineapple, lime, coconut, and vanilla all crashing together like Samson’s secret beach playlist, equal parts piña colada haze and after-school reverie. Tart and lush, sweet yet sly, it’s the tropical broom-whisk you didn’t know you needed — a reminder that even in a crazy world of back-to-school bells, Samson’s paradise is just one sip away.
E9 Brewing Krazy World
5.4% ABV | Pale Ale | Tacoma, WA
The bells ring, the backpacks bulge, and the chaos of September hallways detonates — Washington Elementary buzzing like a beehive, Mason Middle a parade of lockers, sneakers, and cafeteria politics. It’s the first day back, which means it’s about to be a Krazy World out there. Luckily, Tacoma’s own E9 brewed the antidote: a pale ale hopped into delirium with Enigma, Cashmere, Nelson Sauvin, and Dolcita (HBC 1019). Think tropical fruit riots, peach-ring sparkle, white grape murmur, all riding a clean 5.4% frame that won’t lecture you about bedtime. It drinks like recess bottled, like the sly grin you give when the homework’s already overdue. One sip and suddenly the shriek of bus brakes and the morning bell fade into something more manageable: just another beautifully Krazy World, only this one comes with foam.
Breakside Rainbows & Unicorns
5.1% ABV | Session IPA | Portland, OR
There’s only so much glitter, rainbow construction paper, and unicorn stickers a kindergarten teacher can staple before the soul cries out for salvation — preferably cold, foamy, and brewed by Breakside. Enter Rainbows & Unicorns, a session IPA built on flaked rice and kissed with Comet, El Dorado, and Galaxy hops, pouring out tropical peaches, honeydew, apricot sunshine, and pineapple gleam. It’s light enough to sneak between parent emails, bright enough to erase the sound of 24 sugar-drunk 5-year-olds banging tambourines, and clean enough to reset a brain plastered in glitter glue. Exhaustion never tasted this juicy, this tropical, this gloriously crisp — the perfect antidote to another long day in unicorn-splattered shoes.
Old Schoolhouse Fire 6
6.3% ABV | IPA | Winthrop, WA
Old Schoolhouse Brewery‘s Fire 6 isn’t just another Northwest IPA — it’s a siren in a pint glass, brewed to honor Washington’s volunteer firefighters and their families. Dry-hopped with Motueka and Azacca Cryo, it glows hazy pale gold and hums with citrus zest, tropical starfruit, and melon spark, a juicy sip that ends on a tangy snap. But here in Proctor, it lands with extra weight: Peaks & Pints sits just a firehose length behind Tacoma Fire Department Station 13, the crew who not only protect our district but also teach fire safety to the kids at Washington Elementary and Mason Middle. So, when the school bells clang and the neighborhood tilts into September chaos, raising a glass of Fire 6 feels like raising a toast to those who keep it from tipping into full-blown inferno. A back-to-school pint with a fire drill heartbeat — bright, bold, and quietly heroic.
Crux Fermentation Project Grade A IPA
7% ABV | Northwest IPA | Bend, Oregon
Crux Fermentation Project‘s Grade A isn’t just an IPA, it’s a teacher’s secret grading curve in a pint. Picture it: September evening, a weary soul hunched over a stack of essays on “What I Did This Summer,” red pen poised like a guillotine. For every neatly scrawled A she blesses, she rewards herself with a sip of Grade A — a tropical-citrus thunderclap of Citra, Mosaic, and HBC 586. Lychee sparks, passionfruit hums, grapefruit jolt, and suddenly, grading feels less like drudgery and more like interpretive dance. But what happens when all the kids ace it? When every “How I Learned to Ride My Bike” reads like Hemingway at recess? Well then, the Grade A flows like river water, the IPA grin gets wider, and the teacher starts writing “A+++” just to keep the party rolling. Crisp, juicy, resinous, a little unruly — this is the beer that makes grading papers feel less like penance and more like extra credit.
LINK: Peaks & Pints A+ beer and cider cooler inventory
