Peaks & Pints hosts 2026 Fort George Dark Arts Road Show
Every February, while most of the Pacific Northwest leans into gray skies and hibernation, Astoria, Oregon, chooses a different ritual: Fort George Brewery’s Stout Month — a 28-day rebellion against winter built from roasted barley, music, art, and a relentless parade of dark beer. The annual Festival of Dark Arts sits at the center of that storm, transforming the Fort George campus into a shadow-lit carnival where more than 90 unique stouts pour across multiple tap locations while three stages pulse with live music and roaming performers.
The 2026 festival landed Feb. 14 in Astoria, closing down the entire Fort George block for a sold-out gathering that felt equal parts beer pilgrimage and surreal street theater. Ice sculptors carved glowing shapes into the coastal air while tarot readers, tattoo artists, magicians, fire dancers, and wandering visual artists blurred the line between brewery and art installation. Headlining musicians shared space with dozens of regional acts, and the tap list stretched from longtime Fort George classics like chili-spiced Mexican chocolate stouts to wildly experimental small-batch creations — salted licorice chocolate, Nutty Buddy wafer riffs, and barrel-aged collaborations that existed for only a single day.
Dark Arts is the culmination of Stout Month, Fort George’s annual tradition that fills February with rotating dark releases, collaborations, and pop-up experiences throughout the Lovell Building — free arcade games humming in the background, live music drifting through taproom corners, and new stout variants landing week after week. For many attendees, the festival isn’t just a tasting event; it’s a seasonal marker, a reminder that winter in the Northwest has its own flavor if you’re willing to lean into it.
The day after the festival, Astoria shifted into what Fort George calls “The Aftermath,” releasing the 2026 Matryoshka variants — a layered barrel-aged imperial stout aged in Basil Hayden, Westland, Westward, and Freeland whiskey barrels among others — alongside special barrel-aged collaborations with Ruse Brewing and Holy Mountain. Those beers, steeped in months or even years of aging, become part of the mythology that follows Dark Arts long after the stages go quiet.
And that’s where Tacoma enters the story.
At 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 26, Peaks & Pints hosts the 2026 Dark Arts Road Show — Fort George’s traveling echo of the festival, bringing select rare pours north for those who couldn’t make the Astoria pilgrimage or simply want to revisit the darkness in a quieter setting. The Road Show doesn’t try to recreate the full spectacle; instead, it distills the feeling — fewer crowds, deeper conversations, and beers meant for slow appreciation rather than rapid-fire sampling.
For Peaks & Pints, the event feels less like a tap takeover and more like welcoming a traveling chapter of Pacific Northwest beer culture. Over the years, the Proctor District lodge has built a reputation as a basecamp for creative collaboration — where art, outdoor storytelling, and craft brewing overlap — making it a natural stop for Fort George’s stout caravan. Expect Road Show taps featuring festival survivors, barrel-aged curiosities, and the kind of dark beers that encourage lingering rather than rushing.
On Feb. 26, Peaks & Pints becomes that temporary outpost — a small but glowing annex of Fort George’s Festival of Dark Arts, where Tacoma drinkers gather beneath the hum of conversation and the steady pour of 15 or so black-as-midnight stouts. No fire dancers required. Just good beer, good people, and the long echo of a festival that refuses to stay in one place.
Peaks & Pints 2026 Fort George Dark Arts Road Show
Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026 · 5 p.m.
Peaks & Pints, 3816 N. 26th St.
Proctor District, Tacoma
LINK: Peaks & Pints beer and cider cooler inventory
