Chris Staudinger has finally cracked open Tacoma’s vault with Secret Tacoma, his mischievous love letter to the city’s hidden histories. It’s a book stitched together from years of storytelling on his Pretty Gritty Tours, where alleys, archives, and whispered rumors turned into chapters of wonder. You’ll find stories that dodge the tourist gloss, instead unearthing the oddities, fires, secrets, and near-forgotten folklore that make Tacoma hum. And this week, the author himself is popping up to spill even more: Friday, Aug. 29 at Crescent Moon Gifts and Saturday, Aug. 30 at Pacific Northwest Shop in the Proctor District, Staudinger will be signing copies and sharing stories that didn’t even make the final cut — the delicious secrets too wild, too Tacoma, to leave buried.

One of those secrets sits right in the book: Engine House No. 9, Tacoma’s last horse-drawn fire station, where Nip, Dick, and Joe clattered into history and, rumor has it, were buried behind the house before asphalt sealed the memory. Out of that storied brick shell came E9 Brewing, a brewery that carried the city’s firehouse grit into modern craft. And in honor of Secret Tacoma’s release, we’re pouring a special five-beer flight from E9 — each with its own secret stitched into the story. From Tacoma Brew Kölsch with its ghostly horses, to Running Free with a wink about hidden Proctor recipes, to Starbreaker, Spaceships, and Omega Man each carrying a whispered Tacoma twist, this is a flight designed to drink like the book reads: equal parts fact and fable, smoke and sparkle, history and myth — all best sipped in confidence, as if you’ve just been let in on something you shouldn’t quite know.

Peaks & Pints Secret Tacoma E9 Flight

E9 Brewing Tacoma Brew Kölsch

4.8% ABV | Kölsch

E9’s Tacoma Brew Kölsch isn’t just a recipe; it’s a timeline compressed into a glass. Engine House No. 9 was built in 1907 to shelter horse-drawn fire rigs, back when Tacoma was still puffing coal smoke and dreaming about being the next San Francisco. After the fire engines rolled out for good, the brick landmark lived half a dozen lives — dorm, storage barn, junkpile — until it was rescued and reborn as a bar and restaurant in the 1970s. By 1995, it was brewing beer in the back, becoming Tacoma’s first official craft brewery, right when “microbrew” still sounded exotic. The production side grew up, moved into a full brewing facility on Fawcett Avenue, but never lost its roots.

The firehouse still stands — part pub, part Tacoma time capsule — while E9 Brewing itself has stretched into one of Washington’s most respected wild, mixed-fermentation, and lager houses. They’re still fiercely Tacoma: independent, stubborn, a little punk, never chasing trends but often landing ahead of them.

The secret? According to Secret Tacoma, the firehouse horse’s names were Nip, Dick, and Joe, the last equine firefighters in Tacoma lore, and as legend has it, they were buried behind the station, which was eventually paved over. Out of that mix of grit and ghost story comes Tacoma Brew Kölsch — a beer that drinks like a sepia-toned postcard: pale malt and Cascade hops balanced so cleanly they feel inevitable, lightly floral, faintly fruity, crisp as a Foss Waterway breeze. Brewed by Tacoma’s oldest craft brewery, it’s not just refreshment, it’s continuity — a glass that carries both the city’s stubborn heartbeat and the faint echo of hooves on cobblestone.

E9 Spaceships IPA

6.2% ABV | Hazy IPA

Every Tacoma kid has heard the whisper: somewhere under the soot-stained rafters of old Engine House No. 9 there’s a hidden hatch, and if you knew which rusted bolt to turn, you’d find a stairwell leading not to the cellar, but to the stars. That’s the story E9 insists has nothing to do with Spaceships IPA, their hazy citrus-tropical marvel that drinks like peach rings and mango nectar slipped into low orbit. It’s pillowy soft yet grounded in quiet pine, a beer that convinces you Tacoma haze can, in fact, fly. Of course, the brewery will deny the hatch exists, but rumor has it Spaceships was named for the brewers’ late-night test batch that mysteriously disappeared … only to return a week later tasting better than anything they’d brewed before. Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe Tacoma’s oldest craft brewery has already colonized a taproom on Mars.

E9 Brewing Running Free West Coast IPA

6.5% ABV | West Coast IPA

Running Free is the beer that struts into your glass like it already knows the ending to the story. Krush, Strata, and their hop conspirators crackle with nectarine, pineapple, and strawberry dankness over a bone-dry frame that drinks faster than you’d think possible. It’s E9 Brewing’s modern West Coast shout, born from the same Engine House No. 9 lineage that once watered Tacoma firefighters and, according to a very hush-hush “Secret Tacoma” whisper, was the first beer in the city secretly taste-tested by a sitting mayor… at 8 a.m., in uniform, behind the old horse stalls. True? Who cares. Like the horses Nip, Dick, and Joe who pulled the last engines from this station, the legend lingers, the pint runs free, and the secret tastes just as good as the truth.

E9 Brewing Starbreaker IPA

6.8% ABV | Northwest-Style IPA

Starbreaker isn’t just another hop missile—it’s E9’s wink to Tacoma’s skies, a Northwest-style IPA stitched together from Strata and Galaxy hops until it smells like someone cracked open a strawberry, passionfruit, and peach nebula and poured it into your glass. It’s crisp, bitter in all the right ways, and clean as a bell ringing down Proctor Street at closing time. But here’s the whispered “Secret Tacoma” angle: legend has it the first pilot batch was brewed under the constellation Orion, and if you tilt your glass just so, the lacing patterns trace out a star map known only to brewers and firefighters long gone from Engine House No. 9. Whether that’s true or just another Tacoma barroom fable hardly matters—the secret tastes better when you’re in on it.

E9 Brewing Omega Man IPA

7% ABV | West Coast IPA

Omega Man is E9’s crystalline West Coast IPA, sharp and lucid as a Tacoma morning after rain. It gleams gold in the glass, a pure rush of grapefruit rind, lime zest, and pine resin cut with a sly tropical whisper. Dry, brisk, and brutally clean, it’s built for speed and clarity, the kind of IPA that resets your palate like a cold plunge and leaves you wanting another. And here’s the whispered Secret Tacoma twist: legend has it the first test batch was brewed under cover of night in the old Engine House garage, with the brewers swearing they heard Nip, Dick, and Joe — the ghost horses of the original fire brigade — clattering their hooves in approval. Whether true or not, one sip of Omega Man feels like a secret handshake between past and present, Tacoma grit and modern brilliance, a pint of the city’s stubborn, luminous soul.

LINK: Peaks & Pints beer and cider cooler inventory