Washington Beer Talk: Recent Episodes
The Cycling Certified Cicerone
The Cycling Certified Cicerone rides a bike from brewery to brewery all around Seattle and Washington. Explore the inner workings and history of breweries in face to face interviews with brewers and founders. Do you think you have what it takes to run a brewery? Check out these first hand accounts of what it takes to open and run a brewery. We talk to brewer's about their origins, their day to days, and their plans to make it big, but most importantly, we talk about beer.
The Pandemic may be approaching our rearview mirrors now, but one of the things I’ve learned while hosting Virtual Beer Tastings is that there will never be a shortage of friends, family, and co-workers that have found themselves far apart and are looking for a way to get back together. If you are looking for a great event to set your family reunion around, look no further than a Virtual Beer Tasting. Perfect for company morale events for teams that work remotely for any reason!
Hosting a virtual beer tasting is easy as pie, and I’m going to show you exactly how we do it here at Cycling Cicerone with step-by-step instructions plus a few tricks I am not able to incorporate into my tastings! However, if you don’t want to put in all the work and you want a professional Certified Cicerone to guide you through your beers, then click this link and we’ll take it from here.
Step 1 - Make the Guest ListThere are few things to consider while putting together the guestlist for your virtual beer tasting. We won’t waste too much time on this step since you’re an adult (you are, right?) and can figure out how to choose your friends. Nevertheless, we have a few tips. Is it a company function or a “friends and family” one? Don’t try to mix the two! Alcohol never brings out the best in your family, and you don’t want your coworkers to see that. We assume. A virtual beer tasting is fine for a double date, but it really starts to break down if you have more than 12 folks. Unless you have a designated guide to keep everyone on track, it just turns into an unorganized Zoom cluster. Make sure everyone knows what they’re there for! They can lollygag and catch up after the tasting. Get everyone’s address, email address, and phone number. These will all be needed later when you’re sending beer out. The states they live in might make a big difference when choosing how you get your beer as some companies cannot ship to certain states.
Step 2 - Select Your Beers
Choosing beer is the most important step. You have to weigh considerations like cost, availability, group preferences, shipping, and creating a cohesive flight of beers that go well together. Unless you already know exactly what beers you want to have at your virtual beer tasting, the best place to start is with the styles of beer you are hoping to find. Is your group a bunch of macro, fizzy yellow beer drinkers? They need to be eased into craft beer. Start with something easy-drinking like a Kolsch, a Helles lager, or a blonde. Craft Beer has plenty of options that can be used to convince even the most fanatic Budweiser fan to come to the light side, bit by bit. Is your group seasoned craft beer drinkers? Then you might be interested in rare and unique barley wine, imperial stout, and barrel-aged sours to appease their distinguished pallets. We’ve found that a lineup of three different beers is perfect for an hour-long virtual tasting (Any more than that and you’ve opened too many bottles and cans to finish by yourself), so we split the difference between those two types of groups. One craft lager or “light” beer, one fancy imperial nonsense beer, and one craft crowd-pleasing IPA in the middle, that way there will always be something for everyone. If you know you have IPA fanatics though, go ahead and grab 3 different kinds! Aim to please, but also mix it up. In the IPA world especially, it is easy to find diversity. Your “Three IPA” flight could include a west coast IPA full of pine and grapefruit, a hazy IPA with a pillowy smooth mouthfeel and flavors bursting with mango and pineapple, and a Black IPA (aka Cascadian Dark Ale) with its bitter coffee and chocolate notes. A typical flight from Cycling Cicerone might have these 3 styles so there’s something for everyone:
- Helles Lager - easy-drinking crowd-pleaser. Even seasoned craft beer drinkers love a nice, clean crispy boi and craft newbies will find this a richer and more flavorful version of what they are used to drinking
- Hazy IPA - IPA is the most popular craft beer style by far and Hazies are an exciting take on the style. Adored by craft beer nerds and low enough on the bitterness to appeal to newbies, its a perfect middle to our flight.
- Fruited Sour - These go by many names, Berlinner Weise, Kettle Sour, Fruited Sour, but they all have one thing in common - they’re weird and they’re delicious. Even wine drinkers can find something they like in this beer and each is unique and trendy enough to impress even the most up-to-date craft beer fanatic.
Whatever you choose, be prepared to be a little flexible because sourcing and supplying beers is a little harder than it should be.
Step 3 - Source and Ship Your BeerYou’ve chosen the beer styles you want to see at your tasting, now comes actually sourcing it for your attendees. You might have noticed you haven’t bothered with choosing specific beers yet. That’s because sourcing a specific beer to every person regardless of where they live in the USA can be a real nightmare. A remarkably small amount of craft beer is available nationally, most are only available in their state or region. Or even more rare, only at the brewpub where they are made and served. There are three options available to you, and one of those is one that the Cycling Cicerone can’t even consider trying.
- Find a company that ships beer to everyone on your list. This can be a little tricky since every state you are trying to ship to has different laws and hoops to jump through. No companies in the US that we have found can ship to every state. You can probably already guess some of the states that are hard to ship to. The ones with the “family values”, reprehensible bad new voting laws, or with North, West, or South in their names are all going to give you a bad time. Our favorite option for great beer at a good price to most states is Tavour. They have gift boxes for $35 that have up to 6 beers. A company with more reach, but fewer options is Craft Beer Club. Their membership-like service allows for single crates to be sent to folks but you are at the whims of what they are shipping that month. Regardless, if you need an option that can ship to most states, they are your best bet. For either one of those, you’ll want to reach out to the companies before placing your order to make sure everyone will be getting the same beer. If you can’t wait for shipping, want to avoid shipping costs, or just can’t find beer you like available to be shipped to your state, you’ll want to go with the next option.
- Source your beer locally. When we’re organizing a tasting for folks who are mostly in shipping states but have just a few friends in Utah where shipping is illegal, we have to find some local options so they can have beer. Unless your attendees live in the middle of nowhere, these days there is always a craft brewery or bottle shop around the corner. Search “Breweries” on google maps in the area and start clicking through their websites. A bottle shop is going to have more variety, but in states where shipping is illegal, bottle shops are unsurprisingly uncommon. Liquor stores in this case are your best bet for a local selection of good beers. No guarantee on that one. Either way, you are going to have a bit of a hunt in front of you. To provide a seamless experience for your guests you can call ahead and prepay for beer. Depending on your budget, you can even book a courier on TaskRabbit.com to pick up the beer for you and drop it off at your attendee’s home. If all of that seems like too much work (it is a lot of work, take it from us because we do it all the time) there is one option that a legit business can’t try, but maybe you have a higher tolerance for breaking the law.
- Clandestinely Ship Your Own Beer. It is technically illegal for a person to ship beer to another person. Businesses get away with it but only after jumping through lots of hoops to accommodate different states and their laws. If you want to ship your favorite beer to your buddy in a different state, this is totally illegal. I’m not saying you should confirm that a 6 pack of mixed beers from your favorite brewery can fit in a USPS flat rate shipping box. I’m just saying that tons of folks in the market for rare beers have to find ways to move beer around despite these rules and they sometimes engage in illegal activities. You could theoretically, not that we’re suggesting it, put well bubble wrapped and secured beers in a sealed box before bringing it to the post office then neglect to mention the contents of the box and ship it. We’re definitely not recommending anything illegal, though we’ve never heard of anyone ever getting caught.
Once you’ve figured out how everyone is going to get their beer, you can finally figure out what you are going to talk about at your tasting.
Step 4 - Host The TastingThis is the part that is totally up to you. If you were doing a Virtual Beer Tasting with the Cycling Certified Cicerone, you’d be getting a full hour of tasting techniques, history, and all kinds of beer trivia and fun facts to go along with your beer, but if you are hosting a casual gathering with your friends you probably want to spend more time catching up than you do tasting beer. There are a few “Art Of Gathering” techniques that you can keep in mind to try to host a stellar event. Set expectations for your group - let them know that a certain portion of the evening is committed to tasting and discussing the beers you went out of your way to select and get to them. If folks are expecting a casual hangout with beer, they won’t naturally spend any time discussing your beer. Be the leader - step in and take charge. Don’t let anyone side-track what you came here for! In our tastings, we know that after a few beers, folks can start to feel pretty comfortable stepping outside the bounds of the tasting. A little bit of that can be a lot of fun, but make sure the tasting doesn’t go too far off the rails. Bring some discussion topics. If your goal is to have an activity that a group of coworkers can complete together, consider creating or finding a tasting worksheet for everyone to fill out together. In the end it’s your event now, so run it however you like!
We hope this little step-by-step guide has helped you put together your beer tasting in some small way! If this is all too much work for you and you want someone else to take the reins for your tasting, consider booking a tasting through Cycling Cicerone. We’ll take care of all this nonsense so you can sit back and drink beer!
Book A Tasting
Week 2 of the Bellingham Brewery series, we’re at Boundary Bay, one of the oldest breweries I have ever visited! We chat with Janet Lightner who has been running the brewery since ‘97. That’s a long enough time to raise a family, and indeed she did! Now the gang helps run the brewery too! I didn’t expect to be crashing into a brewery with a family history but sho’ nuff here it is! Janet’s food expertise helped to host food and beer dinners and expand the restaurant half of the brewpub year over year!
This is part one of two. the second part is coming out next week to Patrons only! Go to Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to find out more.
For the next few weeks, we’ll be in Bellingham exploring the amazing scene over there. This time we’re at Bellingham Cider Co and chatting with Josh about some of the fun stuff they get up to! The cider industry is quite different than Beer and of course, brewing cider is a little bit simpler than beer, as Josh explains.
This is part one of two. the second part is coming out next week to Patrons only! Go to Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to find out more.
Austin Rood, the Board of Directors President of my favorite brewery, Flying Bike Cooperative Brewery up here in Greenwood, Seattle sits down with me to chat about Co-ops. He’s not a pro brewer and he only owns 1/2000th of a brewery. Just like me. And could be you too! We talk about what co-ops even are plus hang out with a couple of beers and chat about politics, pretentiousness in beer, capitalism and bud light. Flying Bike is a cooperative brewery which means it is owned by its members. On its surface, the $200 joining fee looks like a fancy mug club membership, but it isn’t! It’s so much more. But how do you express that in a world where phrases like “so much more than a mug club” are just marketing talk for “it’s just a mug club we want you to think is good.” How did we get here and how do we move forward? Give it a listen!
This is part one of two. the second part is coming out next week to Patrons only! Go to Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to find out more.
It’s Oktoberfest Season! My favorite time of year! If you are visiting Munich for the first time to see the real deal, here is what I learned on my trip, for your benefit
Josh Snyder and Tommy Brooks join up with the Cycling Certified Cicerone to talk about beer in a business that isnt just a brewery. These boys from Zeeks sit down at Reuben’s Brews to talk about how a pizza company can turn it’s beer program from a Dud Light to a Craftstronomical success!
This is part one of two. the second part is coming out next week to Patrons only! Go to Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to find out more.
Finally getting to check out a cult favorite brewery. With brews like Bad Light, Samoa Girl Scout Ale, and Habanero Amber, they have some of the most unique beers you can get your hands on in Ballard. Jason Shrum steps up to the plate today to tell the story of the brewery’s founding. This is part one of two. the second part is coming out next week to Patrons only! Go to Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to find out more.
Reuben’s Brews! What an exciting interview. I got to ask important questions like “Where did the name Reuben’s come from?” The answer might surprise you given that the co-founders are Adam and Grace Robbings. Jk it’s not all that great of a mystery, but you still have to listen to find out. This is part one of two. the second part is coming out next week to Patrons only! Go to Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to find out more.
Yikes! That was a bit of a hiatus. I probably coulda started episode up last week or maybe even one week before, but nothing could be done. Thanks to a non-cicerone related bike accident, I broke my collar bone. It set my schedule back a bit, but it was kinda nice to just relax for a while. Thankfully for me, I have plenty of episodes recorded and waiting to hit the editing room. Stoup is the first of those! So to all those waiting patiently, here we go!
Stoup is a fantastic brewery in Ballard, in the region of Lucky Envelope, Populux, and Reuben’s. Known for nailing a wide variety of styles including their German styles especially, they hit the ground running in 2013. The three founders, Robin, Brad, and Lara (who I spoke with today) came to the table with a good assortment of experience and skills and were relatively early to the scene, a hand of cards that has served them well as their brewery continues to grow rapidly. Give it a listen!
Thank you to Hans Peng, my newest Patreon member! He gets some stickers and coasters and will get to choose a question that will be asked in an upcoming episode all in addition to access to the real feed with every episode!
Washington Beer Talk has a Patreon! Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to select a rewards tier. Get access to extra and extended episodes and more!
I was on my way Beer Now, a conference in Great Falls, Montana for beer bloggers, when I decided to stop by Missoula for a quick pint. There, I found Greg Howard, one of the two brothers responsible for the creation of Great Burn Brewing. He and his brother decided to open up a brewery after the death of their fire fighting 3rd brother, and in a way created a memorial to him and his work as a fire fighter.
The Great Burn was a huge wild fire that devastated a huge swatch of Montana in 1910, a fitting event to inspire the a brewery! Hopefully nothing here ever catches fire like that!
We sat down in the noisy taproom to chat about Greg’s family and past and get the scoop on this 2014 brewery that has to compete with Montana power houses like Big Sky and Bayern. Be forewarned, my travel kit for recording is a little sparse, so please forgive some shoddy audio. I feel shame.
Washington Beer Talk has a Patreon! Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to select a rewards tier. Get access to extra and extended episodes and more!
Metier Brewing has taken the place of the old B-Side brewery. They have a focus on creating a strong community formed around damned good beer. In this episode, we talk with Rodney the CEO, Bob the Head Brewer, and Dreux the Manager about the business challenges they face. We talk about how to sell beer. Is it delivering a consistent, nostalgia inducing product, or does it have more to do with the values of your brewery?
Washington Beer Talk has a Patreon! Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to select a rewards tier. Get access to extra and extended episodes and more!
Get more episodes on CyclingCicerone.com
I’m Andrew Bieber, the Cycling Certified Cicerone
Burke Gilman Brewery is a new brewery along the Burke Gilman Trail right smack dab in the middle of the Burke Gilman Beer desert where previously only Ravenna Brewery laid claim. Thanks to their mentors at Ravenna, Ty and Kenneth along with some other founders were able to make the home brewers dream come true. Since they are such a fresh brewery, the trials of opening a new brewery still sting, which makes for an exciting episode with tons of details on the hardships of opening a brewery that a well established place has long forgotten.
Washington Beer Talk has a Patreon! Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to select a rewards tier. Get access to extra and extended episodes and more!
Metier Brewing has taken the place of the old B-Side brewery. Bob (up until about a week ago) kept brewing in the same space as it transitioned from B-side over to new ownership to become Metier. They have a focus on creating strong community formed around damned good beer. In this episode we talk with Rodney the CEO, Bob the Head Brewer, and Dreux the Manager about their beer origins and the origins of the brewery. It is part 1 of 3. Part 2 is about beer and part 3 is about my favorite: businessy stuff.
Nani Moon Meadery in Kauai is easily the best mead I have ever had. Mead brewer Stephanie is a self taught pro of the craft. In this episode we start with the compelling origin story of Nani Moon then get a walk through of the meads she has available. Finally, we wrap up with her advice on how to start and run a meadery. Some visitors assume the brewer is a man working somewhere behind the scenes, but Stephanie doesn’t mind. If any of those old visitors listen to her here, they may remove their feet from their mouths at their leisure.
Washington Beer Talk has a Patreon now! Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to select a rewards tier. Get access to extra and extended episodes and more! This is a free to listen episode, but next week won’t be so check out the Patreon for access
Kauai Beer Company is one of two breweries on Chicken Island, Hawaii. There is no way to show it in the podcast, but they brew some of the best beer I have ever had and it simply isn’t fair. I showed up there one weekend on vacation and now my life is ruined forever. Thankfully I had some podcasting equipment so we set up in the noisy office to record a little interview. Founder Jim, Brewer Justin, and Enigmatic Marketing Guy Larry all joined along with my co-host Mia and spectator Renee for the 51st episode of WBT.
I am experimenting with the format of the episode. If you like (or didn’t) the sound of this episode in particular (ignoring the abysmal room sound quality (should I have mentioned that, am I the only one who would have noticed?)) then please leave a comment to say so!
Also, Washington Beer Talk has a Patreon now! Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone to select a rewards tier. Get access to extra and extended episodes and more!
Shout out to my first Patrons, Kennan Bieber, Terri Bieber, and Claire Bieber and also CraftBeerBoot. I’m glad you love the show!
Patreon.com/CyclingCicerone
Hey, Washington Beer Talk Listeners. This is Andrew Bieber, The Cycling Certified Cicerone. There is no new episode this week, instead just a quick announcement. From here on out, we’ll be switching the posting schedule from every Friday to every other Wednesday. Switching to a midweek release day is an easy choice - it will make sure you get your WBT right when you want it - in time for your commute, workday lunch, or evening bike ride, plus if I am a little tardy with posting the new episode, you don’t need to wait till Monday to get your brewery fix. Also, responding to other feedback, we’ll be shortening the episodes a bit. Our interviews tend to get a bit carried away these days and an hour or more long episode can’t quite be knocked out in a single commute, so expect to see more 30-45 minute episodes.
If you are now lamenting that you don’t get your episode this week, well fear not because I have another exciting announcement! WBT has made the move to Patreon. If you don’t know, Patreon is a crowdfunding platform where fans of Washington Beer Talk can get access to extra episodes including extended interviews and multipart episodes, Cycling Cicerone swag, and other great perks like episode shout outs. This week, exclusively for patrons, is part 2 of my discussion with Will from Bosk where we talk shit on beer snobs and find out which breweries he’d marry, bang, and kill. This episode is just for those who become patrons of the show over at patreon.com/cyclingcicerone. If you want to get access to a bonus episode every other week, and maybe score a shirt, a pint glass, or more, go check out patreon.com/cyclingcicerone. Thanks for listening to Washington Beer Talk. I’ll be back next Wednesday with Kauai Beer Company. And that one is for everyone!
Bosk has made an interesting Gamble. They have opened a production scale brewery in a beer market that is arguably running out of room and in addition to that, they are choosing to focus on lager beer! Will Lefevre is the head brewer here at Bosk and he’s been given free reign to brew how and what he wants… more or less. We talk about what it’s like getting a gig like that, what it was like before when he worked at Lagunitas (now Heineken), and what is on the road ahead.
I wrote an article for a beer magazine in Melbourne, Australia. They don’t know I’m here. Quick, take this!
Flycaster Brewery is a tiny little brewery out in Kirkland. They’ll be showcased in East Side Beer Week on one of my bike routes (TBA). Jeremy Eubanks and his wife co founded the fly-fishing themed brewery in May of 2014, making it one the oldest breweries in Washington and the first in Kirkland. It’s managed to stay small because Jeremy runs this brewery as his side hustle, still maintaining his day job in the tech world. He has some warnings for those that want to follow in his footsteps.
This is part 2 of a 2 part episode. Go back to last weeks episode if you don’t want to be hopelessly lost. In the concluding half of the Post Doc Episode, taproom manager David jumps in and gives us some more details and tells his story of how to break into the beer world.
Post Doc is over in Redmond. It started with a joke - the obvious answer to what you do with your life when you are post doc is open a brewery. That is just what Tom and Debbie, along with their respective partners, decided to do. The post docs expertise in chemistry helps give capital P Post Doc the upper hand. But what do you do when your landlord tells you they plan on demoing your building when the light rail comes to town. Get the answer in this two part series.
Post Doc is over in Redmond. It started with a joke - the obvious answer to what you do with your life when you are post doc is open a brewery. That is just what Tom and Debbie, along with their respective partners, decided to do. The post docs expertise in chemistry helps give capital P Post Doc the upper hand. But what do you do when your landlord tells you they plan on demoing your building when the light rail comes to town. Get the answer in this two part series.
Spindletap is an interested Houston phenomenon. Their hazy IPA catapulted them to the spotlight and they have been living the high life ever since. Rushing from release to release, with their IIPAs making up for their non IPAs, they feature on average at least one “I” per tap handle. They use their giant space to their advantage to throw giant events. They even used their huge warehouse, shared with a friendly neighborhood oil logistics company, to stage relief supplies for hurricane Ike. True Houston super stars
Back in Texas, we chat with JJ and Paul of Under the Radar Brewery. This brewery is right in the middle of Houston and is a little special. With the founders and owners taking a step away from the brewery, Head Brewer JJ and Manager Paul, seamlessly step in to keep the beer flowing strong!
Welcome back to Fremont Brewery Part 2. Sara Nelson takes off to head to an important meeting and Head of Brewing Operations, Matt, joins in. Somewhere along the line, the cliff hanger question about different brewing waters is left unanswered so I figured I’d fill in a bit of time answering that question before Matt takes it away. Next week we return to some Texas Breweries.
I’ve still got a few more Texas breweries, but while I get those ready, here is the Fremont Brewery episode I’ve been waiting to put out! Sara Nelson is the co-founder of Fremont Brewery. A real beer MVP, she champions independence, environmentalism, and brewing high-quality beer. Sara applies one of her many mantras, “there is no waste, just resources out of place” to running an environmentally friendly brewery that is constantly looking to improve its use of resources. In the constant search for the secret sauce to create the perfect brewery, Fremont Brewery is a story about how mixing together hard work, a little cross-industry experience, and a financial downturn might be what it takes. Sara is part 1 of 2. Part 2 will be released next week!
Jennifer from No Label last week pointed me towards her old homebrewing buddy, Aaron, who now runs beer operations at Saint Arnold Brewery. Saint Arnold is the oldest craft brewery in Texas, an order of magnitude larger than No Label, and a Houston cultural staple. Aaron has been in the beer business for years shares what it is like climbing the beer ladder.
I hate making excuses, but the mic Aaron was wearing was picking up some interesting background music from a totally unknown source (if I had to guess, earbuds playing softly in his pocket) and as a result, his audio is pretty doctored to have the music removed. I figured I’d get ahead of that one now so you can know of my shame.
This week is my first favorite brewery and the star of my home town, No Label Brewery out in Katy (a suburb of Houston). It’s the only brewery this far out west of and is the 3rd oldest in H-town. Jennifer Royo, co founder, joins me today while I wax nostalgic about Texas and gives us her take on the industry. She and husband Brian started a family around the same time as they started they brewery, so she also talks a bit about the juggling act of raising a young family and a young brewery at the same time.
Co founding couple Dave and Haley and brother/salesman Mike, run Peddler Brewing. They combined their two passions, biking and beer (hmm, that sounds familiar) into a bike themed brewery. We talk about the collectors market, what it’s like running a brewery right next to Heineken’s big taproom, and wholesale vs taproom sales.
In March 2013 Peter Charbonnier opened up the smallest brewery in Ballard. Even after moving out of their tiny bachelor shack brewery and into the grand place next door, they still have their 7-barrel brew house and their smallest Ballard brewery prize. Pete recounts the early days of trying to keep beer in the wall, selling out of everything, and brewing the quickest beers possible to keep up with demand. We talk about the other breweries in the neighborhood too and discuss what it means to be creative in the brewing industry.
Outlander Brewery over in Fremont is quite a unique story. Known for its strange recipes featuring tons of unexpected ingredients, it started off much like any brewery: friends Dragon and Nigel build a small brewery in an old house and brought it up from nothing. 6 years later, they are ready to get out of the game. In August of 2018, everything they’d built traded hands to friends Angela and Johnny, who found themselves thrown straight into the frying pan learning about running a business and the beer industry at the same time. Assistant Brewer, Jason, who was being groomed to take over operations at the brewery, became the senior employee at the brewery over night and an indispensable part of keeping things going. Will they figure it all out? Sounds like they have a great shot at it!
I swung through Colorado for a hot minute and popped into WeldWerks. Of the many options in Colorado (the famous Ft. Collins is not far) and the growing number of breweries in Greely I chose Weld Werks (named for the county they are in, not for their welding skills) because I had the hookup. The head brewer is a friend of a friend of a friend and I’m glad he was because Weldwerks was a fantastic choice. They have an insanely large menu of beers and while many of them are stellar hazy IPAs, they really specialize in barrel-aged beers. We talk steam boilers, barrel aged beers, and branding with Nick and Kristin.
Ryan Petz, co founder and CEO of Fulton Brewery in Minneapolis joins us today on the phone to talk about his big Minnesota brewery. That’s right we’re back in Minneapolis for one one more bonus interview from the best bike city in America. Ryan’s brewery started off brewing contract only and as the business grew, Ryan saw his role and business model changing drastically.
Founded in 2008, Chuckanut is the second oldest brewery in Bellingham and one of the oldest in Washington. This isn’t Will are Mari Kemper’s first rodeo: Chuckanut Brewery takes all that they have learned and makes it work hard as their medal wall shows. They consider themselves the parents of many local breweries who got their starts brewing here. They specialize in lager beers, recently opened a new production brew house, and earlier cracked the top 25 largest breweries in Washington. I couldn’t be more excited to talk to the folks behind so many award winning beers. It’s obvious that the know what the are talking about and put great care into everything they do.
Illuminati is a winery turned brewery. Out in the “boonies” of Bellingham, Illuminati is a just a hair off the beaten path. Bill Kimerly talks about his righteous quest to change the Washington State law to allow for a winery and brewery to exist in the same building. Before he got involved, you’d have to build a wall between your winery and brewery, really screwing the benefits of trying to make both with shared equipment. Now, thanks to him in part, the law is changed. Bill has skills from his old industry that he gets to bring over and he’s been homebrewing for longer than I have been alive so he has a lot to tell us about!
Wander was an especially noisy brewery and I experimented with some new noise removal processes. Like what you hear? Leave a comment!
The family that brews together, stays together… that’s how that phrase goes right? Chad and Coleen are a brewing family. Wander is their 20 barrel brew house that is several steps larger than others just starting out. Wander was designed from the get go to be a production scale brewery. Chad tells us how he and Coleen juggle their growing family while their brewery grows into it’s bones.
Wander was an especially noisy brewery and I experimented with some new noise removal processes. Like what you hear? Leave a comment!
Aslan Brewery is an organic brewery and a B Corporation focused on their triple bottom line - People and Planet then finally Profit. Jack Lamb and his co-founders started Aslan much like any other brewery, but despite the self-imposed, margin-slashing decision to go certified organic, they grew quickly to be one of Washington’s top 25 largest breweries. Lamb is on a mission to make beer be the first thing when you hear Aslan, not a lion from the other side of a wardrobe. And yes, I ask him right off the bat how a guy named Lamb went straight for the lion themed brewery.
Surly Brewery is the last brewery on the Minneapolis tour and the biggest brewery I’ve talked to yet. At well over a 100,000 barrels, they smash most of the other small breweries and blast through the legal barrel limits for selling growlers and self distribution. What’s insane though is that Surly is really only 12 years old. What sets them apart from other breweries? Let’s listen to Ben Smith, Head Brewer at their massive production facility and tourist attracting brewpub to find out
We’re nearing the end of the Minneapolis journey. This week we have Head Flyer, a new brewery at only about a year and a half old. Neil is a straight shooter who plays it by the books. I see if after a couple of beers I can goad some real talk out of him, like how his young brewery pulled together funding for their beautiful tap room or how he manages juggling his young children, running the brewery, working his day job, and keeping up with his Netflix queue. Sweat on his brow, I’m sure he was ready for a nice chance to breath, sit down with a beer, and to have an easy little chat about brews. Sorry, not today. Let’s see if we can sweat some answers out of him.
Tom and Dane are the “Burning Brothers,” a pair of fire eaters turned brewers. Burning brother is no ordinary brewery, though. You see, it turns out that while eating fire is child’s play, eating gluten turned out to be the real fire. Burning Brothers is a 100% gluten free brewery in Minneapolis. Sales manager Dominic stands in for Dane and together with Tom, we get the full scoop on just how they juggle the unique demands of going gluten free.
Holly and Mark Irhig join the Cycling Certified Cicerone at Sumerian Brewery. They are in the middle of growing their brewery into a production brewery powerhouse of Washington. They aspire to rub elbows with the likes of Georgetown, Fremont, and Mac and Jack’s and they talk about what it is going to take to make Sumerian a household name in Seattle and Washington as well as getting in close with distributors. If you want to make your brewery a production scale brewery, this is what you want to listen to, but beware, you’ll be picking up some rough competition!
How to start a brewery in 2018 - get $10 million dollars and a time machine. If we were to do this again, we would buy a 7 barrel system, two 14 barrel fermentors for your IPAs and four 7 barrel fermentors for everything else. Tips like this and more from Matt and Matt of Lake Monster in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They talk about their experience opening a brewery and share some great insights as well as banter in this week’s episode of Washington Beer Talk. If you want to make a million dollars in the brewing industry, start with $10 million.
This week I visited Willows Lodge, right in the heart of Woodinville’s wine and beer country. The beer scene out there has changed a lot in just a short year and there is more to explore!
It's Everett Beer Week so I'm gonna pause the Minneapolis Episodes again to bring you a brewery in South Everett. Middleton is a brewery I've discussed at length in previous blog posts and now they get their very own episode. Known for Kona the brew dog and their newest addition, Gravy the Corgi, Middleton brews infused beers like the Cereal Series.
Everett Beer Week Starts this week and this Sunday, yours truly is leading the bike and beer ride! See you Sunday September 9th for a killer ride to all five of Everetts breweries!
Whooo eee, it has been one hell of a month for the Cycling Cicerone. We just wrapped Gigantic Bicycle Fest (#GBF18) and now I'm exhausted. Thank you to all the volunteers who came out and helped me make it all possible. I couldn't have done it without you. We've got lots of remaining beer so that will be making its rounds to everyone to helped out. The party isn't over yet, the Everett Bike and Brew ride is still coming up on September 9th and Vashon Island Oktoberfest happening on September 22th. There's still more beer to drink!
Next up in the Minneapolis beer tour, I popped into Lakes and Legends brewery for just a minute to talk with whoever I could find. Luckily for me, brewer Jason Glowinski was around to take some time with me. We shoot the shit for a bit and get the scoop on Lakes and Legends. It is a much shorter than a normal episode, but I consider it a lucky get. At first, Lakes and Legends wasn't on the agenda but thanks to some stars aligning, I was able to get in a short interview and a couple beers!
Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.
Back in Minnesota again, we find ourselves in St Paul, one of the twins of the Twin Cities. St Paul's Flat Earth is a brewery that has taken up residence in the shell of the old Hamm's Brewery. We got the tour of the spooky, unused floors that are currently, slowly, being renovated. The history of the brewery is more than the history of the building though, and our boy Franco gives the low down.
Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.
Indeed Brewing Company
Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.
Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/
Tin Whiskers Brewery
Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.
Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/
This is a special bonus episode of Washington Beer Talk! For the Gigantic Bicycle Festival, coming up soon, I got the opportunity to interview Casey Neill of Casey Neill and the Norway Rats, a local band! It's not a brewery and I think you'll be able to tell that I keep using my brewing knowledge to guide the conversation with some measure of success. There's also lots of Cycling Cicerone events in this one including The Beer Bloggers conference, The Everett Bike With The Brewers ride September 9th which I am hosting along with Everett breweries Middleton, Lazy Boy, At Large, Crucible, and Scuttlebutt, and The Vashon Island Oktoberfest coming up September 22nd which I am hosting along with Vashing Island Brewery. There's a lot going on over here!
Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.
Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/
This year I am hosting the beer garden at the Gigantic Bicycle Fest! Among the several breweries that have been invited to join, a winery also snuck in! This gave me a great opportunity to dip my pedals into a realm of alcohol that I am only passingly familiar with! It was a great joy to hang out with the fellows of Wilridge Winery, Seattle's oldest winery! This was especially true because they are major bike fans. This interview was recorded to showcase the folks coming to the festival, but it makes for a good episode too so here it goes!
Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.
Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/
Top 10 Breweries by neighborhood in Seattle. These are the next breweries to try this weekend.
We're taking a quick little break from our Minnesota tour to come back to Washington for one episode. Crucible is a member of the Washington Bikers and Beer Drinkers Club and will be serving their beer at the Gigantic Bicycle Fest in just a few short weeks. Crucible shares a tearjerking tale of what it sometimes takes to keep a brewery running.
Crucible Brewing
Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.
Indeed Brewing Company
Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.
Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/
Tin Whiskers Brewery
Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.
Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/
One of the things I like to say is that it is impossible to rank breweries. If you can’t rank them, you can at least pick your favorites.
Continuing on our Minnesota tour, we head over to North Eastern Minneapolis to chat with Kelly Moritz about what makes Indeed special. Indeed is a grandpa of a brewery at 6 years old and as such is a good amount larger than some of it's competitors in the area. With a massive team of people turning the cranks, Indeed pumps out a lot of beer and Kelly leads their marketing department. She talks about Indeed, her role there, how she got into it, and even gets real with us and talks about women in the beer industry, always a fun topic!
Indeed Brewing Company
Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.
Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/
Tin Whiskers Brewery
Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.
Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/
This week we're starting our Minnesota Tour. Minnesota has the highest bike-ability rating in the country and their beer scene isn't half bad. Tin Whiskers is the first on that tour. They are in St Paul, Minnesota, one of the Twin Cities. We dive in to some of the local beer laws, which turn out to be surprisingly different than those of Seattle. We talk about what a Tin Whisker is - an interesting phenomenon that plagues electrical engineers and space shuttle engineers alike.
Tin Whiskers Brewery
Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.
Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/
I’m back from the Twin Cities and have learned a lot. We beat them in total number of breweries, but they shove us to the bottom of the pit of shame when we compare bikeability.
The Ballard beer scene continues to grow. Lucky Envelope opened in 2015 and at the time was brewery 9 (give or take). When they first thought of opening in 2011, there were only 3 breweries in the neighborhood. Now in 2018, there are 11 breweries and the area is finally showing signs of slowing down. For the past 3 years, Lucky Envelope has been brewing consistently the best beers of the neighborhood. Barry is too humble to agree, so you'll have to take the Burke Gilman trail over to Ballard sometime and try them all out yourself.
Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.
Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/
This week I rode over to Kirkland WA to visit Chainline Brewing, a bike themed brewery (whoa, sounds cool) with a focus on lager beers. They ferment low and slow and hopefully bike faster. A route around Lake Washington will show off many of the great trails that can take you there, The Burke Gilman, the Samamish River Trail, the Kirkland Corridor (a new favorite of mine that lets you ride in what feel like isolated woods straight through kirky) and the 520 Bridge Bike Path. Shawn (man, there sure are a lot of Shawns), Eric, and Tom are extremely knowledgable about beer. We ended up getting carried away talking about how Red Hook is skirting the line of what it takes to be an independent brewery, the value of style guidelines, and the significance of beer competitions. That wasn't all, so this is only part one of what will have to be a two part series.
Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.
Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/
Vashon Island Bike and Brew featuring Vashon Island Brewing, Nashi Cider, and Dragon’s head cider
This week I rode over to Kirkland WA to visit Chainline Brewing, a bike themed brewery (whoa, sounds cool) with a focus on lager beers. They ferment low and slow and hopefully bike faster. A route around Lake Washington will show off many of the great trails that can take you there, The Burke Gilman, the Samamish River Trail, the Kirkland Corridor (a new favorite of mine that lets you ride in what feel like isolated woods straight through kirky) and the 520 Bridge Bike Path. Shawn (man, there sure are a lot of Shawns), Eric, and Tom are extremely knowledgable about beer. We ended up getting carried away talking about how Red Hook is skirting the line of what it takes to be an independent brewery, the value of style guidelines, and the significance of beer competitions. That wasn't all, so this is only part one of what will have to be a two part series.
Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.
Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/
The Interurban Trail is Washington’s bike and brew highway connecting well over 30 breweries
This week I visited Lazy Boy Brewery in Everett, WA. Everett and its stash of breweries are easily accessible via the Interurban Trail, a nice little bike path that combines some street and trail riding along I-5 to connect cities along the I-5 corridor. Lazy Boy has been around for 12 years making it one of the oldest breweries around. I know that sounds weird, but craft beer hasn't been the monster it is for all the long. Perhaps because of this breweries age, we learn of some stuff that we might not have heard of otherwise, hop contracts and using Budweiser as a distributor instead of as a nemesis among them.
Support the podcast and give the gift of beer at Craft Beer Club.
Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Fest August 24-26 2018. Use promo code 'beer' for half off camping. https://www.giganticbicyclefestival.org/
This week I met with Cliff of Vashon Island Brewing, a brand spanking new brewery over on (you guessed it) Vashon Island, where it is the first and only brewpub. Cliff has just taken his 6-year old production brewery into the retail space by opening up a tap room. I spotted some similarities between Chris and Cliff's beer philosophies especially regarding beer categorization, perhaps I should introduce them to each other.
How to Start a Brewery - Cliff just opened this place, so we talked a lot about some of the hiccups he hit along the way while all the wounds were fresh.
In this episode of Washington Beer Talk, I ride out to meet up with Chris of Lantern Brewing. His little brewery that he started with his wife has been slowly growing for the better part of a decade. Despite being one of the older breweries in Seattle, predating many of the Ballard mainstays, you probably haven't heard of them. Chris explains why.
Segments in this episode:
Brewers Corner - Chris talks about his approach to categorizing his beers and how he treats his water.
You're Drinking Beer Wrong - you are using Untappd wrong and it isn't helping anyone. Even trained and tested tasters are wasting their time.
The gang tries out light beers in attempt to answer the age old question: do these beers even taste different?
Gig Harbor Beer Fest is over and it was a big success! I can’t wait to go back next year.
Ghost Fish brewery is an all gluten free brewery and pub in Sodo, Seattle. Unlike other gluten free beers that are often merely "gluten removed" and thus not suitable for those with Celiac disease, Ghost Fish brews with ingedients that never contained gluten to begin with, so they are clear to drink! Brewer and co founder of GF, Jason, clears up some of the misconceptions about gluten free beer for drinkers and brewers alike and shares his wealth of knowledge that he built from the ground up after being told he'd never be able to drink beer again. Well, Doc, he says, take that!
Thanks for listening to the Washington Beer Talk Podcast. If you want to support the podcast and get delicious beer delivered straight to your door, check out the craft beer of the month club. Click Here
Join me at Gigantic Bicycle Festival, a yearly festival supporting arts and music hosted by The Levee Breaking. If you like camping, arts, biking, or charity, then consider giving it a look. Of course there is a beer garden and this year I just so happen to be hosting it, so I have a promo code to give out for half off a weekend of camping and fairgrounds. Just go to GiganticBicycleFestival.org and use the promo code "beer"
Interested in getting your office set up with the perfect homebrew system? The Cycling Cicerone explains how you can do it for less than a grand. Incidentally, it’s the best homebrew set up for your home too.
This weeks episode of Washington Beer Talk is a special one. Normally I talk with brewers about their breweries, but this particular brewery owner is also the president of the brewers guild of Washington. Today we sat down in the second floor of Hales Brewery near Ballard while they set up for their quarterly Brewers Guild meeting. She is the owner of Icicle Brewing in Leavenworth Washinton, but we didn’t have time to talk about that at all. Instead, Pam and I discussed what the guild is, the benefits of joining the guild, of which there are many, the beer fests the guild organizes, and we even get a little political and talk about the presence of women in the brewery and the takeover of breweries by ABinBev.
Brewers Association
Washington Brewers Guild
Brewers Commission/ WABL
Pink Boots
Come join the Cycling Cicerone at Gig Harbor Beer Fest. I’ll be leading a ride down there from Seattle as well as reporting on the event.
The Tacoma beer scene is thriving. Breweries like Odd Otter are all connected via a free light rail so you can go to every brewery without spending a dime! Usually the Cycling Cicerone advocates for using a bike to do this, but dammit if you can’t beat that convenience. Odd Otter is set in a spooky old building with mysterious history, an abandoned underground, amazing beer, and a ghost, I’m sure of it.
You may have been hearing whispers of a new brewery in Ballard. It is a bit difficult to describe this brewery in its bizarre state of being opening. Technically it is a production only facility with beers on tap in a few local bars and bottle houses. Despite that, it feels more like an advanced homebrew set up and owners Rob, Jon, and Frank, who at various points in the week find time to attend their day jobs, all seem to agree. That won’t be the case much longer (hopefully) as they have just started making moves to open a new taproom in Magnolia as well as hired a brand new full-time brewer, Sean, who contributes his experience and opinions to this sours-only brewery. Welcome to Dirty Couch.
Glossary of Terms-
Bright Tank - A big, cold vessel where beer cools down and sediment drops out of solution. The beer clears up over the course of a a few days to weeks, becoming “brighter”
Cool ship - a long, wide, shallow vessel where hot wort is set to cool. This process is much slower than modern cooling techniques so it gives bacteria and yeast time to settle in. This is done deliberately for “wild fermentation”
Fouder - A big wooden fermentation vessel. Similar to big barrel except in here beer undergoes its primary fermentation as it picks up the fouders indigenous bugs and flavors in the wood.
Time to take a look at a classic trail. Revisited and revised, the Ship Canal Trail has more to offer than ever before.
Urban Family is a brewery known for its sour beers, though this wasn't always the case. Their history isn't quite as cut and dry as some of the other local breweries. They have undergone a few ownership changes as well as completely changed direction from their "Urban Family Public House" origins. The family of friends for which Urban Family is named aren't even all still involved, but that doesn't stop this week's guest, Andy Gundel, from taking names and kicking ass. Guided by him, talented brewers and a couple other partners, Urban Family has grown into a Seattle staple, even if it is a little hard to find.
This brewery is located right on the Ship Canal Trail, which puts it right on the map for the Bike and Brew map that we've just created! Visit Urban Family, Mollusk, Rooftop, Figurehead, Old Stove and Belltown Brewery and get your stamps so you can score your own "Beer is Better With a Bike" T-shirt.
The Cycling Cicerone explores Greenwood and finds a fantastic array of breweries. Bluebird, Naked city, Flying Bike, and Lantern are a nice short ride with great variety between them
Continuing our now two-week trend of going to breweries that fly, we are at Flying Lion Brewery. Accessible on your bike via the beautiful Lake Washington Loop trail and a little bit of hill climbing, this brewery is in the charming neighborhood of Columbia City, not far off from more breweries to the West in Georgetown.
Griffin poured us some rye stout and we talked about what it’s like to run and raise a brewery. Griffin and his family have an eye for the details and have created a place with an eccentric and charming personality. I think you’ll notice them when you hear them. I tried to edit it out, but as you’ll hear, I’m enamored with this brewery.
I’m The Cycling Cicerone and this is Washington Beer Talk.
This week I visited Flying Bike Coop Brewery in Greenwood. Head brewer Kevin and board member David join me in the busy taproom to talk about running a coop. The first ever coop brewery in Washington, Flying Bike has its own set of interesting challenges and that includes making all decisions democratically. That means the members get to decide what beers get brewed and whose recipe to use, as well as big business decisions. As they say, this is sometimes to their benefit and perhaps sometimes to their detriment. Having over 1800 people with a stake in the brewery who contribute their wide variety of skills and assets should make running a brewery a breeze!
Note from the editor: lessons were learned in managing background noise in the making of this episode. To put that another way, Flying Bike invites dogs and kids to come hang!
Join the Coop today and get all kinds of great benefits including dollar off pints and two dollars off growler fills.
What is the difference between a porter and stout? A popular question with a simple answer: Stouts are stouter. Satisfied? I didn't think so. The Cycling Cicerone elaborates
This week the Cycling Cicerone visits Scrappy Punk Brewery in Snohomish. Snohomish is a little town near Everett, Washington with a lively brewery scene all easily accessible by bike. You may remember them from the bike route map I made a while back for their little town. Scrappy Punk is a well suited name for such a small brewery. Its 3 barrel system isn't the smallest I've seen, but the garage Greg, the Scrappy Punk himself, brews out of is no bigger than a one car garage, and in fact, basically is one. In this episode Greg tells his tale of what it took for him to become a brewer, some of the huge hurdles he's jumped along the way, and gives a warning to anyone else bold enough to follow in his footsteps.
The Cycling Cicerone explains what the Beer Style Guidelines are. If you don't know what those are then you are in for a treat! If you do know what those are, well, you're a nerd.
This week on Washington Beer Talk, I talk with Cody and Carey of Mollusk Brewery. Here, they run the beer side of the busy brewpub. They brew beer and make sure their beers are cohesive with the pub half. While they need to brew some hair-color beer that, as Cody puts it, your dad likes to drink, they also have tons of room to experiment and make weird beers. The somewhat uncommon constraint of brewing for a restaurant (at least less common here in Seattle) has, instead of limiting the strangeness of the beer they serve, allowed it to explode into a huge selection of beers on tap and in bottles, all brewed and bottled right there at the Dexter Brewhouse in Lower Queen Anne. Mollusk is a brewery that is more than meets the eye.
Cody started off with his own much smaller brewery called Epic Ales. After teaming up with Carey, it grew to become Mollusk, the name of which was a play on his original beer pairing-centric gastropub, the Gastropod. Since then, Mollusk has been acquired by a local restaurateur and Cody and Carey get to focus on running the beer operation. Mollusk is planning to expand this year and open a second larger location in the Magnuson Park area of Seattle which will allow the smaller facility on Dexter Ave to focus on piloting and brewing the weirdest brews.
Cody is a published academic, part of the group that discovered a completely new type of yeast previously uncataloged! You can read about it here: Microbe New To Science. Cody thinks he might be the only brewer in Seattle that is also published in such a way, though he nodded at Post-Doc brewery in Redmond which, if their name is any indication, probably has published something in the academic world.
Mollusk is on the Ship Canal Trail Bike and Brew Route. Coming soon, if you visit Mollusk and the other breweries on the route and fill out your punch card, you win a unique Ship Canal Trail Brewery shirt!
Just in time for Cask Beer Fest in Seattle, learn a little about what you are getting into. What exactly is a cask beer anyway?
When I was back home in Texas, I stumbled upon Southern Star. Maybe I never had my eyes open, but the Texas beer scene has been blowing up like crazy in the last few years, much like everywhere else. However, unlike everywhere else, I grew up in Texas, so seeing beer go nuts there caught me by surprise. One brewery that has been around for a while to see this all happen was Southern Star. While I didn’t get the chance to explore this north Houston brewery while I was there, I met the owner and founder, Dave Fougeron and had the chance to talk to him on the phone about what it takes to be a regional brewery in Texas.
Take a listen!
The Cycling Cicerone explores the Mount Pleasant hood of Vancouver. Turns out, the beer scene in the Great White North is quite enviable, and this isn't even half of it.
Another beer lecture post about the tyrannical leader of beer off-flavors known as Diacetyl. This buttery flavor coats your mouth. Some love it and some hate it. Count me among the haters
We've come up with a name for the podcast now: Washington Beer Talk! This week we explore Figurehead Brewery. It's small and it's fresh. One of the co-founders, Bob Monroe walks us back there to talk about the European leaning beers they like to brew.
If you listen to this and think of a question you'd like to hear from the brewers, then tell me! I'll ask the next brewery
There's lots of history behind glassware. Most of it is gibberish so I strip away most of it to give my take. Honestly, I got a little carried away.
It's the summer of biking, here is what the Cycling Cicerone is up to this summer. Long rides and podcasts!
Recently I had the pleasure of exploring the hidden depths of Rooftop Brewery with the owner and founder Craig Christian. That tiny tap room is just the tip of the iceberg of the brewery, with a surprising amount of bulk hidden just below the surface. When Craig invited me down I was excited to check it out and use the chance to interview him on what’s going on with Rooftop. I recorded the whole thing for your listening pleasure in the first of what might be called the Brewer Interview Series! Ok, the name needs work. This was pretty fun to record and make, so I intend to keep it up.
If you don’t have 35 minutes to burn listening to Craig’s and my silky smooth voices talk about his awesome brewery, here’s basically how it went:
The interview jumps right off a little bit after Craig started his tour of the downstairs of Rooftop. Their space is a massive warehouse shared by two coffee roasting companies with brewing and cleaning actively going on while we walked around. We jumped from topic to topic. Craig shared a bit of the history of the brewery, its origin as a small garage with a 1 barrel system, and hiring several Kyles to help out. We talked about their plans to fill out their space, max out their capacity by adding more of their 30 barrel fermenters, and their ongoing construction inside the brewery to make more room. They have plans to expand into the coffee roasting space when those guys clear out. We talked all about his opinions on Untappd (which is a controversial topic among brewers these days), the growth of the beer industry, and ABinBev. In general, he’s optimistic on all these topics! Thank you so much, Craig, for taking the time.
I’ve been thinking a little bit more about how to properly review breweries. As you know, I have taken several stabs at it and longtime readers will have noticed that I frequently change up my ranking schemes. This is yet another attempt to find an objective way to categorize and rank breweries, and while it is quite bold of me given my track record of rapidly cycling through them, I think this one will stick!
Last week I went on an impressive rant about why I don’t rank beer and you shouldn’t either. So what are we even doing here if we can’t rank beer? Well, I don’t really want to rank breweries either. I always get so frustrated when I see a list of “Top Breweries in Madeupiappolis” and the top hits are the Red Hooks and Elysians and other breweries of that ilk. Sure those are the “top” places, but that’s because they are huge, been around awhile, and have ABinBev money. It’s like when my buddy, Danly, says that Olive Garden is great because “why else would it be everywhere?” I have to acknowledge that some people like Olive Garden style breweries (I mean, without BJs what would every suburb dweller snicker at while driving to work?) so I guess technically they aren’t worse… just different.
Basically, there is not a great way to objectively rank breweries. I have made several attempts that include a series of semi-objective categories like Intimacy, capital ‘C’ Cornhole, and “The Smell”, but usually they lack the resolution to really make an accurate picture of a brewery. Ideally, each piece, regardless of how subjective it is, when combined together to make a whole, will reveal the objective image of the brewery. People have different tastes and when reviewing a brewery, and you want to make sure that each brewery finds its audience. I don’t like crowds, so when I review Fremont Brewery I complain about DMV level beer lines. Of course, there are plenty of people who look specifically for crowded spots because waiting is how they get hyped up, so each of the ratings shouldn't be negative or positive, more a spectrum of differing opinions.
What am I getting at? Does he even know what he is doing? Am I stalling? Ok, let’s take a stab at it, I’ll probably change it again in a month anyway.
You’ll Like this brewery if you like…Here are the five reasons you might like a brewery, the five different goals you might have when going to a brewery in no particular order. Each is a spectrum, none of them are good or bad, but instead, try to categorize and quantify what it is you and I like about different breweries.
The Smell:
It’s when a brewery feels like a brewery. There’s equipment out, the air smells like beer. You can tell you aren’t at just another bar or restaurant. You can tell it is a working space. You’re getting beer straight from the source and you know it. Every place sits on a range of The Smell. At the top are the garage and warehouse breweries. A narrow line of caution tape keeps you from accidentally stumbling into the brewery; you could lean on the fermenters while you drink, barrels of aging beer count as decor. Near Seattle, Populuxe in Ballard, Tripplehorn in Woodinville, and Scrappy Punk in Snohomish are some of the Smelliest breweries. The bottom of the range are places like McMennamins and BJs brewhouse. Sure, they claim to be breweries, but there ain't no way this place employs a brewer; that equipment is for show for sure if they even bother to put up the facade. Brewpubs tend to lack the Smell since food is the main attraction. Somewhere in the middle are most breweries, ranging from completely hidden brew facility that you’d have to seek out even if you can still detect them with a good sniff, to well-separated facilities far behind the bar or revealed via a window. I love the Smell and seek out places with high Smell factors, but that isn’t for everyone. You might not even think twice about it.
Cornhole:
Cornhole (with a capital ‘C’) is the term for the collective activities of a brewery. Most breweries these days have a stack of old board games you can whip out while drinking. That might be a law. Some breweries rely solely on good beer and good company to captivate their guests, but that doesn't always fly. I like a solid showing of cornhole, shuffleboard, video games, and bimini rings if I am in the South (or wherever those are). If you don’t bother with it, then you don’t. I love me a good game of cornhole.
Eccentricity:
You know the place. They barely bother with the classic IPAs instead stick with a menu that exclusively features barrel aged yadda yaddas and Belgian shenanigans. Brettanomyces yeast populations flourish here. Hay, barnyard, and horse blanket. These are the places for people seeking weird stuff. Less weird stuff like sours and cask ales have a home here. Drinkers seek these out when they have grown bored with their standard hair color beers. If you want something familiar, you want to avoid these places. If you want something you’ve not had before, then seek them out.
Intimacy:
I think you can define intimacy. It’s a little tricky though since it relies on a place not being busy, but if you can sit at the bar and chat with the bartender (or the brewer if you are lucky!) and with your fellow drinkers, then you are in an intimate place. Brewpubs lose this completely since you usually don’t have the chance to meet others. Rooftop Brewery is a prime example of an intimate place - its small taproom and limited tables mean you’re mingling with the locals and the bartender no matter how hard you try. Fremont Brewery tries with its longhouse style picnic tables that you have to share with those around you on crowded days, but with no bar and a dozen bartenders, it’s hard to get to know anyone. You might hate it, you might love it, or you might just need to be in the mood for it.
Food:
It comes in 4 categories.
1. Bring your own ‘cus all we have some license appeasing snacks. You know, pretzels and chips. Maybe a broken panini machine.
2. Food trucks outside - a rotating calendar of food trucks during the good parts of the day.
3. Casual food inside, basically a food truck inside. You don’t have specific seating or a waiter, but order food at the bar and pick it up there or have it delivered to your table if you are lucky.
4. Last is the full-blown brewpubs. Beer is a second-class citizen at these places yielding to the food, hosts, and waiters.
The Google Maps Stats:
These are the things that you need to know about a brewery before you go. They might be deal breakers, but they have little to do with the beer and location. Tangential. Pet-friendly, child-friendly, and sports on the TVs. You might really need to know, but you probably don't care.
I think we are getting closer. With those five metrics and the Google maps stats, I think it is quite possible to have a very firm image of the brewery before you even set foot inside, and rightly so it makes no mention of the actual quality of the beer. Tell me if you agree below! Thanks for reading!
The Cycling Cicerone explains why you and I can't say if a beer is bad or good. 2 real reasons and one fake one!
The Cycling Cicerone explores the brew n brew trail of Everett. They even have a punch card! So official! A rehashing of previously reviewed breweries on a shiny, sexy new route featuring everyone's favorite Interurban Trail.
The Cycling Cicerone explores another classic Burke Gilman based bike and brew route. Riding up hills is a required to access these otherwise hard to reach breweries!
Time to take a look at a classic trail. Revisited and revised, the Ship Canal Trail has more to offer than ever before.
The so-called North County Scene is full of great beer! Not quite a bike route just yet, but this is a little preview of a few of the places up there.