Sunday settles into Tacoma like a low, velvet chord, and over at Kilworth Memorial Chapel the long-running Blues Vespers returns — that quietly sacred collision of music, poetry, and just enough soul-searching to make you sit up straighter in your own life. Tonight at 5 p.m., The Jay Mabin Band takes the stage with special guest Paul Green, dialing in a set that leans smoky, soulful, and just a little bit electric, the kind of blues that hums through the pews and lingers in the rafters, stitched together with reflection and a poem or two under the steady hand of Pastor Dave Brown — the longtime steward of this monthly ritual, and a man known to love his blues honest and his IPAs unapologetically hoppy. Which brings us here, to Peaks & Pints, where the amps hum a little differently but the intention holds: a flight of IPAs that riff, wail, and linger — perfect to sip before you wander into the music or to unpack afterward, letting each pour echo the night’s notes, each glass a small, hoppy amen to whatever the blues stirred loose in your bones.
Peaks & Pints Blues Vesper IPA Flight
Pizza Port Swami’s IPA
6.8% ABV | West Coast IPA | Carlsbad, California
Pizza Port Brewing sends this one in like a sun-faded blues riff. Born in 1992 from salt air and surf wax devotion, a liquid postcard to the Swami’s break where surfers watch waves and time loosens its collar, this one still hums like a blues guitar left leaning against a sunburned amp — bright grapefruit peel, pine resin, and a clean, snapping bitterness riding low over a lean malt frame — as the brewery keeps it crisp, coastal, and unpretentious, the finish dry and breezy like a long paddle back out, equal parts rhythm, memory, and West Coast insistence that hops should sing, not whisper.
Russian River Pliny the Elder
8% ABV | IPA – Imperial / Double | Santa Rosa, California
It hits like a clean, ringing chord—pine resin and grapefruit peel snapping sharp before a cascade of citrus oil and faint stone fruit rolls through, the bitterness firm but never reckless, all structure and swing, like a rhythm section that knows exactly when to lean in and when to pull back, Russian River keeping it tight, balanced, and endlessly replayable, a West Coast standard that still sounds just as good late into the night.
Lagunitas Hop Stoopid
8% ABV | IPA – Imperial / Double | Petaluma, California
Here’s a full-tilt riff from Lagunitas that kicks the door open—grapefruit pith, sticky pine, and a sharp citrus bite riding high over a firm malt groove, the bitterness unapologetic, almost swaggering, like a late-night solo that refuses to fade out, the brewery keeping it loud, raw, and gloriously unpolished, a throwback West Coast blast that still knows how to shake the room.
Avery The Maharaja Imperial IPA
10% ABV | Imperial IPA | Boulder, Colorado
It rolls in like a slow-burning blues riff at last call, all resinous citrus and sticky pine bending the air while a deep caramel backbone hums low and steady beneath it, the kind of malt weight that feels like worn leather and late-night stories, as Avery Brewing lets bitterness swagger across the tongue with a confident, unhurried strut, finishing long, warm, and just a little dangerous, like you might text someone you absolutely shouldn’t.
Dogfish Head Craft Brewery 120 Minute IPA
15.5% ABV | IPA – Imperial / Triple | Milton, Delaware
It doesn’t walk in so much as arrive, slow and smoldering, a blown-amp solo of sticky pine, candied orange peel, and boozy warmth curling through the room like late-night saxophone, the bitterness humming deep beneath a thick, resinous body while waves of caramel and citrus keep trading licks — Dogfish Head Craft Brewery pushes this one past reason and into something closer to ritual, a heady, slow-burning pour that lingers like the last song nobody asked to end.
LINK: Peaks & Pints beer and icder cooler inventory
