TUESDAY, FEB. 28 2017: Tacoma events + craft beer …
St Mary’s Episcopal Church + Peaks and Pints = That Wednesday and Fat Tuesday
The Grand Cinema + The Copper Door = Shorts weather
TROLLEYS CAN SUCK
Pierce County has been rockin’ the Fourth of July since 1841. It was a time for flag waving, potato salad and smiles, except in 1900. The patriotic Wednesday 116 years ago began with typical clouds and a light mist. But before the holiday was over, it would be remembered as anything but typical. Nearly 50 people would be dead in one of the worst trolley accidents in American history. Author Russell Holter captured that horrible Tacoma day in his book, The Fateful Fourth: The Story of America’s Worst Trolley Disaster. Holter will discuss the disaster at 7 p.m. in St Mary’s Episcopal Church in Lakewood, a town where some of the trolley victims lived.
PREFUNK: Tacoma is not much of a Mardi Gras town. For one thing, there’s simply no tradition for it here, the city not being a major center in its early days for the Catholic culture that made the pre-Lenten splurge such a mainstay in New Orleans, Mazatlan, Bahia, Galveston or Rio. And it’s simply too cold most years for there to be much of an impetus for serious bar crawling and associated outdoor revelry. Even this year, with temperatures around 40 tonight, it’s still a good night for libations of the indoor sort. Peaks and Pints has a Fat Tuesday theme beer flight today and three excellent wild and funky beers on draft. Throw on some beads, maybe a purple top hat and sip a 2015 Goose Island Loilta made with tart raspberries, Brettanomyces yeast and aged in wine barrels, VanderGhiste Flanders Oud Bruin blended with lambic beer and aged in oak for 18 months and The Commons Petite Classique table saison with pink peppercorns.
ANIMATED SHORTS
Four quite short animated films (less than 10 minutes each) and one 35-minute work made up this year’s batch of Oscar nominees. Piper, Alan Barillaro’s stunning photorealistic story of a young sandpiper struggling to overcome her fear of the ocean, took the Oscar. The Grand Cinema screens the shorts, and a couple extra animated shorts, at 1:20 and 6:30 p.m. If you have already seen the Pixar short Piper it’s just as charming the second time around. Pearl is also about growing up, as the relationship between a single dad and his rebellious daughter is charted over time, using shared touchstones of a love of music and a beat-up old car. The remaining shorts are a bit darker. All are cool for children except the longest film, Pear Cider and Cigarettes. Children will be ushered out so the adult can watch the compelling story of one man’s friendship with an alcoholic, self-destructive friend, Techno.
PREFUNK: The Copper Door has tropical craft beers on the brain. While they’re more often associated with frosty beverages sipped out of a coconut shell, exotic fruits and lemon can also provide an alluring twist to light, summery wheat ales and pale ales alike. The Stadium District bottle shop lands its weekly Tasting Tuesday beer flight on a tropical island at 6 p.m.: Dogfish Head Beer To Drink Music To ’17 Tropical Blonde Ale brewed with kiwi and hibiscus flowers, Maui Brewing and The Lost Abbey collaboration Lemongrass Saison, Kona Brewing Wailua Wheat Tropical Passionfruit Ale and Stone Brewing Jindia Pale Ale instilled with juniper, ginger and lemon peel.
