Sauced

Seattle Beer Week Picks: What to Drink May 16

Day seven is for sours, slap shots, and firkin faceoffs.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on May 16, 2012 at 09:45AM 0 Comments

As a Brave Horse once said, “ain’t no dinner like a West Coast Beer Dinner.” Image via Facebook.

Each day during Seattle Beer Week, Sauced will recommend a few picks from the vast calendar.

Today’s lineup is full of brewery nights, where bars devote considerable tap real estate to a specific beermaker. Consult the schedule if you’re interested in getting to know Georgetown, Diamond Knot, Silver City, Skagit River Brewing, or a joint session with SoDo’s brewing powerhouses. Here are a few more events highly worthy of your time and liver.

Brave Horse Tavern
West Coast Brewers Dinner
6:30pm
$50
Brave Horse is a great place for beers, burgers, and pretzels, but chef Brian Walczyk is at his best when he’s creating more artful dishes to pair with brews. This four-course meal showcases nine beers from some of the best brewers on the west coast: Chuckanut in Bellingham, the delightful Hopworks Urban Brewery in Portland, and Anderson Valley Brewing Company in California’s Mendocino County, whose head brewer, Fal Allen, learned the trade up here at Red Hook, Pike, and Big Time.

Elysian Brewing Co.
Fourth Annual Firkin-Firkin
3–10

San Diego is a new darling on the national craft beer scene, and Elysian is lining up a smackdown of our firkins versus theirs. A firkin is a wee cask, used to condition small amounts of beer into an even greater state of complexity and delightfulness. Eight local breweries will face off with eight SoCal contemporaries to see which city does it better. Though the real winner here is anyone who shows up and gets to sample these 16 beers.

American Brewing Company
Score on Skip
6–10

In addition to being one of the region’s most respected brewers, ABC brewmaster Skip Madsen is reportedly a whizbang hockey player. Hence he’s suiting up and inviting any takers to take three shots on goal against him. Prizes ensue for anyone who actually scores on him. What does this have to do with beer? Well, very little, but it sounds highly entertaining nonetheless. Plus this spectacle comes with a cask or two of beer rarities, and those three seductive words: hot dog buffet.

The Noble Fir
Snipes Mountain Sour Night
4–8

Sunnyside brewery Snipes Mountain is setting ts up shop at Ballard’s cidercentric bar to share a crazy bouquet of its best sour beers. Snipes is taking over five taps to pour Sour Coyote (a dark English mild), Darkstrong (aged in port barrels), Twangzister #3 (this one did time in bourbon barrels), and Dali’s Garag—a spontaneously fermented, unhopped heather and mugwort blonde, aged in Bordeaux barrels). Oh, and was that not extreme enough for you? There’s also Quinceanera, the blended culmination of the other four brews.

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Tags: Beer, Seattle Beer Week, Seattle Beer Week 2012

Seattle Beer Week Picks: What to Drink May 15

Day six is for exotic meats, flash mobs, and beer and ice cream pairings.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on May 15, 2012 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

Redmond phenom Black Raven Brewing will be grilling up brats at Hopvine. Photo via Black Raven’s Facebook.

Each day during Seattle Beer Week, Sauced will recommend a few picks from the ever-growing calendar.

Much like the weather, today’s event schedule is insanely good. These picks don’t even begin to cover the brewer nights, beer dinners, or tidal wave of cask-conditioned, rare, or otherwise notable beers being unleashed in bars, restaurants, and bottle shops around the city.

8oz. Burger Bar
Exotic Meats and Local Lagers
7–11

At first glance, Capitol Hill’s new burger restaurant comes off as awfully corporate, but the service has a great vibe, and friends and colleagues of all stripes have been raving about the burgers. Tonight Emerald City Beer Co. is paying a call (they brew in the Old Rainier Building next to I-5) to pair its Dottie Seattle Lager, Betty Black Lager, and Ivana Pale Lager with a trio of veal, lamb, and wild boar sliders.

Chuck’s 85th Street Market
Beer and Ice Cream Pairing
5–8
$10 for a flight of four pairings

The great thing about beer—it pairs with cheese, chocolate, savory foods, and even ice cream. Chuck’s, a covertly awesome beer shop, is bringing in Widmer Brothers and the frozen stylings of Full Tilt Ice Cream to win a few converts to this seasonally appropriate pairing.

Hopvine
Black Raven Brewing and BBQ
7–10

Black Raven Brewing’s taproom in Redmond is absolutely, positively worth a visit. But tonight the brewery is bringing its complex creations to Capitol Hill, and throwing some brats on the grill. Black Raven’s beer is spectacular in its standard form, and positively mind blowing after being conditioned in a cask.

Pike Brewing Co. (Museum Room)
Northwest Women in Beer
5–8
$20 (includes five tasting tickets)

This gathering is for ladies who generally eschew cosmos, novelty vodka, and those sparkly pink straps that let you carry a wine glass around your neck. Expect snacks, brews, and a strong turnout of women who make, sell, and consume beer. Dudes are welcome too.

The Troll
12-Pack at the Troll
11–11:30pm

When I interviewed Beer Week organizer Ian Roberts a few weeks back, he mentioned this flash-mob-cum-outdoor-drinking-session as one of his favorite events of the week. As the name implies, people just show up at the troll with beer, drink it, then scatter into the night. It’s the essence of Seattle’s beer community, distilled into one semirogue gathering.

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Tags: Seattle Beer Week, Seattle Beer Week 2012

Schooner Exact Plans a Brewpub

“Beer czar” Warren Peterson will captain a menu of sandwiches and meat and cheese plates.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on May 15, 2012 at 09:20AM 0 Comments

Schooner Exact’s comfortable taproom will expand into a brewpub later this year. Photo via Facebook.

Schooner Exact’s tasting room in SoDo has a comfortable seating area, an outdoor patio, plenty of parking, and taps dispensing IPAs, pale ale, porters and some barrel-aged rarities. It’s the sort of place where you could pull up a chair and stay a while—if only you had something to eat.

“If you want people to stick around, you need food,” says Matt McClung, who founded the brewery with his wife Heather in 2007. Hence Schooner’s plan to add a small brewpub onto its existing taproom space. Heading up the kitchen will be Warren Peterson, best known as the beer czar of Tom Douglas Restaurants, who recently left his post in the Brave Horse Tavern kitchen for a short stint at Elliott Bay Brewing’s new Lake City pub.

However don’t go expecting gastropub food here, says McClung. The kitchen will be a simple affair—no fryer, no grill, no hood—and he wants the food to be reasonably healthy, at least in the beer-adjacent sense of the word. The menu will largely consist of sandwiches and platters, made with high-quality meats and cheeses. With several great bakeries within a one-mile radius, McClung says quality bread is a safe bet as well.

This winter, the brewery took over a neighboring space in its industrial park digs; construction should start by the end of June, so expect Schooner’s brewpub to arrive later this year. McClung says the finished space will look out onto stacks of barrels, inside which beers will be aging away for future enjoyment. If you absolutely can’t wait to pair Schooner’s King Street brown, Gateway golden, or Seamstresses Union raspberry wheat with food, the brewery is headed to Serious Pie’s original location May 22 for the restaurant’s first-ever beer dinner.

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Tags: Beer, Coming Soon, Schooner Exact, Matt McClung, Heather McClung, Warren Peterson

Seattle Beer Week Picks: What to Drink May 14

Day five is for bingo, bulls, and Randall handling.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on May 14, 2012 at 10:15AM 0 Comments

Photo via Seattle Beer Week Facebook page.

Each day during Seattle Beer Week, Sauced will recommend a few picks from the ever-growing calendar.

Didn’t get enough Beer Week this weekend? Today’s schedule is overflowing with events, and you couldn’t ask for better beer-drinking weather.

Here are some highlights for Monday.

Brouwer’s Cafe
Ride the Bull
6–11

Fremont’s destination for uncommon and exotic brews will be pouring uncommon and exotic brews from…Missoula. Reps from Montana’s Big Sky Brewing will be serving up cans of Big Sky IPA for the first time in Seattle, but let’s be honest, here: The real draw is the mechanical bull. Is it possible to ride one of these suckers ironically? We’ll find out tonight.

Emmer and Rye
Meet the Brewers: Pike, Scuttlebutt, and Alpine
4–7
$20

Beer Week isn’t all bull rides and tattoos. One of the biggest draws is a chance to encounter new beers (and the men and women who brew them) in relaxed and nonintimidating settings. This event strikes a happy medium between wandering into a bar, and a full-on, five-course beer dinner.

Pyramid Breweries Seattle Alehouse
Beer Bingo
6–9

Okay, I admit. I include this event for the sole reason that I love bingo with a deep and abiding passion. Plus it’s free to play, and this game of minimal skill and logic goes down better with Pyramid beer specials.

The Pine Box
Can You Handle My Randall?
3–10

This event wins points for its name alone, but the sensory-challenging mashups of beer and flavor notes are absolutely worth the trip to Capitol Hill. One of the coolest features of the Pine Box is its built-in Randall tap, which infuses a beer with whatever flavoring elements you put inside. Tonight the bar will have an unholy number (eleven) of Randall taps in the house, and will be serving up combinations like Flyers Pacemaker Porter with coffee and vanilla beans, Fremont’s Summer Ale with Thai basil and lemongrass, and a dark, smoky Emelisse Rauchbier with bacon.

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Tags: Seattle Beer Week, Seattle Beer Week 2012

Seattle Beer Week Picks: What to Drink May 11–13

Days two, three, and four contain pig roasts, free tattoos, beer can races, and brewer faceoffs.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on May 11, 2012 at 11:50AM 0 Comments

Quinn’s hosts a bevy of Beer Week events, including its annual pig roast and an epic half-off happy hour that lasts all week. Photo via Facebook.

Each day during Seattle Beer Week, Sauced will recommend a few picks from the ever-growing calendar.

This weekend is the thick of Seattle Beer Week, and the list of events is mighty. Oh, beer-curious Seattleites, I beseech you: Consult the official event listing, because there are more great happenings on here than one human could possibly handle. Many of them are casual drop-in affairs, aka easy and inexpensive opportunities to try something new.

Here are some highlights for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

ALL WEEK

Quinn’s
Beer O’Clock
All day

The bar’s already-impressive Beer O’Clock happy hour gets amped up, offering the entire beer list at half price for all of Seattle Beer Week. Any draft beer, any rare Trappist ale or $19 bottle—all half off. Plus good food…which you will need to combat the effects of half-priced Belgian beers. In all seriousness, if you’ve been curious about certain beers or styles, but put off by the high price tags, this is an excellent forum for some fiscally sound beer exploration. Or a full-throttle spending spree.

FRIDAY

Urban Family Public House
Avery, Boneyard, and Fromage
4pm–midnight

Beer and cheese are a natural pairing, and in many ways, a far more local duo than wine and cheese. Weigh in on this grand debate by sampling some combinations at Urban Family. The bar’s 25 taps, usually a shrine to all things Belgian, will be taken over by Avery Brewing out of Colorado, and Bend, Oregon’s Boneyard Brewing. These are two breweries we don’t see nearly enough of in Seattle, and their wares will each come with a companion cheese, designed to bring out the best flavors in both. This is one of those drop-in events where you can sample something and move on, or park it for the entire night. Check the Beer Week calendar for other beer and cheese events.

Pub at Piper’s Creek
Inking and Drinking
6pm–2am

Clearly, there’s no better environment to make lifelong decisions about decorating your body than a bar. This event was a big hit last year, and basically consists of tattoo artists offering free ink to drinkers—as long as said ink is the combined logo of sponsoring breweries Skagit River and Left Hand. Requests for butterflies, dolphins, and faux Asian symbols will come with the usual fee, and probably a bit of side-eye from fellow drinkers.

SATURDAY

The Pine Box
Pine Box Derby
3–8pm
Remember the Pinewood Derby, that oh-so-wholesome racing event where kids (and helicopter parents) build their own little cars and race them down a hill? Capitol Hill’s newest beer bar is recreating that tradition—except with cars made out of empty craft beer cans. Participants can build a car at home, or get creative on the spot after draining a can of New Belgium, Hilliard’s, Two Beers, Church Key or Seven Seas. The full rules are over here and the winners get a lifetime supply of household cleaners and sponges. Just kidding…they totally get beer.

Quinn’s
Pig Roast
11–3
Tickets $35 at the door (if the event isn’t already sold out)

This one ranks high in the annals of Beer Week traditions; a ticket gets you unlimited quantities of pork and beer. And this year Scott Staples’s gastropub has doubled its pork offerings to keep up with the demand for tickets. This year’s pig roast gets washed down with Fremont Brewing beers, including some special casks. There’s a homebrewing competition component as well.

SUNDAY

Beveridge Place Pub
Iron Brewer Triple Header
5–8pm

Here’s how it goes down: The bar came up with three sets of ingredients, assigned each one to a pair of local breweries, and now the beers go head to head in a public tasteoff. Black Raven and Odin will be bringing blackberry and lavender brews, Seven Seas and Port Townsend worked with coconut and lemongrass, and Silver Cities and Airways will rock some apricot and almond creations.

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Tags: Beer, Beer and Food Pairing, Seattle Beer Week 2012

Seattle Beer Week Picks: Where to Drink Tonight

Day one is for kickoffs, casks, and Kastrated Dawgs.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on May 10, 2012 at 10:00AM 0 Comments

The official beer of Seattle Beer Week will be flowing freely tonight and for the next 10 days.

Each day during Seattle Beer Week, Sauced will be recommending a few picks from the ever-growing calendar.

When I stopped by Brave Horse Tavern yesterday, and the pub was festooned with so many banners, signs and decorations that it looked like the joint was throwing a Beer Week-themed birthday party. But you can’t blame the staff for being excited. The fourth installment of Seattle Beer Week begins today, and brings a formidable list of events, each more intoxicating than the last.

Here’s where beer fans should be celebrating on Thursday, May 10.

Elysian Brewing Co. (first stop)
SBW 2012 Kickoff
5pm and on
Drinkers usher in this most beery of weeks with a progressive celebration that begins at Elysian and continues on to Pyramid, Naked City, and The Pine Box. The highlight of this first stop will be tapping the inaugural keg of the official Beer Week brew, Elysian’s Split Shot Espresso Milk Stout.

Elliott Bay Pizza and Pub
Drink Your ‘Fn’ Beer
6-9pm
Every brew I’ve tasted from Bothell brewery Foggy Noggin (most recently the English-style pale ale Diablo del Sol) has been damn delicious, and I do enjoy a brewery that gives its creations names like Bit O’ Beaver and Kastrated Dawg (UW fans probably don’t buy a lot of that one). Brewer Jim Jamison is kicking off Beer Week at this Mill Creek pizza spot, and bringing some rare kegs with him.

Beveridge Place Pub
Cask-O-Rama, Part 1
6pm-Midnight
West Seattle’s coziest of beer bars will set up 12 cask-conditioned ales, each from a different Seattle brewery, and let you have at it. The night’s offerings include Elysian’s official Beer Week brew, the Space Needle Anniversary Ale brewed by Pike, and Two Beers’ Heart of Darkness Cascadian dark ale, infused with habanero and plum, as well as beers from Georgetown, Schooner Exact, Big Time, Maritine, Odin, Elliott Bay, Hale’s, Big Al, and Naked City.

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Tags: Beer, Seattle Beer Week, Seattle Beer Week 2012

In the Pink

Put down the preconceptions and get to know some rosé.

Posted by: Julie H. Case on May 09, 2012 at 09:30AM 1 Comments

The pale Château Pradeaux Bandol.

A lot of people are afraid of rosés.

“It’s too sweet,” says a friend, Yvonne. “You should serve it with a side of something dry. Like sand.”

Rosé may get its bad rap because for years the U.S. was associated with making sweet, pink wines with loads of residual sugar. There are a lot of winemakers working hard to dispel that myth, and with a flurry of rosés headed to shelves right now, it’s time to forgive the pink. Plus, rosés, are mostly meant to be consumed young, when the fruit is still bright and vivacious, which means, much like Copper River salmon, it’s time to get them when they come in.

Truth is, the beauty of rosés are many, not least of which may be that the wine screams summer and sunshine. And since rosés are primarily red wines made in a white wine style, good rosés can pair with everything from the most dainty of fish to a hearty pig roast.

Emerald City, it’s time to uncork something pinkish.

If you’re afraid of getting a “sweet” rosé, begin by exploring the Old World. France, where the wines are vinified dry, and where they are known for producing epic dry, terroir-driven rosés, is a good place to start.

Choose a Bandol-style rosé, for example, and you are principally getting a mouvedre, plus cinsault and grenache, wherein the maximum residual sugar—the amount of sugar that remains after fermentation—is 3 grams per liter of wine. Pretty much any wine under 12 g/l is considered a “dry wine.”

For example, the Château Pradeaux Bandol rosé, (which, according to Vinum Importing will soon be appearing across the city) is composed of cinsault and grenache as well as mourvedre, macerated on the skins briefly to produce a very light color, then aged in stainless steel. The nose is herbaceous, while on the palate the wine has a rich mouth feel, yet is dry. There are more herbs here, and a bit of rose petal, and light red fruits. No bubblegum or raisinated cherries; the wine is lean and delicate and does not need that bucket of sand.

Bandol is just one example, though. Travel to Tavel, in the southern Rhone, and you’ll discover the only commune-level AOC devoted entirely to dry, pink wines. No red wines and no white wines are produced in the region. (Ahh… the French and their terroir and regional style, and subsequent laws.) The rosés here are typically grenache-based, and have a maximum residual sugar of 4 g/l, and maximum alcohol of 13.5 percent. In Spain, where most of the rosés must adhere to minimum aging requirements, they take this style so seriously that winemakers call it by two different names, depending on the color of the wine: rosado for light pink, clarete for dark.

If you’re wondering why one rosé is salmon colored and the other looks like a Twizzler, it’s usually the result of different methods of making the wine. Champagne rosé, for example, allows for blending of a finished red with a finished white. Elsewhere, sometimes a red and white wine might even be co-fermented together to form a rosé. In the maceration method, the wine remains in contact with the skins until it has obtained the desired hue. Leaving mouvedre with the skins for two hours might produce the palest of pale dusty rose; half a day or a day and it’s cherry-juice red.

However the saignee technique is the reason a vast majority of roses are made. In saignee, one makes a red wine, bleeding off some juice to make the red darker, richer, and more tannic. That bled-off juice can be made into rosé.

Finally, because all rosés are not made from the same grape, you may have to cast some favorite single-varietal red assumptions aside. You can have a grenache rose, or a syrah rose, a tempranillo rosés or cab franc rosés, a mouvedre rosé, or a red blend rosé, to name a few, but you can’t just assume that since you love grenache then grenache-based rosé should be your first choice. Granted, some of the profile aspects will be the same—you might get tart red cherries in your pinot, for example—but I bet I’d be hard-pressed to find a sommelier in this town who can correctly identify each varietal in a blind tasting of a bunch of rosés.

So, go try some Old World rosés over the next couple of weeks, then prepare your palate to play along: In the coming weeks, Sauced will introduce you to some of the countless Washington rosés just hitting the shelves.

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Tags: Wine, Wine Tastings, Wine Wednesday, How to Taste Wine, Rosé

Seattle Beer Week Starts Thursday

Brace yourself for 11 days of epic beer events.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on May 07, 2012 at 09:45AM 0 Comments

Seattle Beer Week, now a four-year local tradition, begins Thursday, ushering in 11 days of beer dinners, brewer events, drop-in tastings, rare brews, and an excuse to build tiny cars out of beer cans.

The official listing of events has swelled in recent days, and should keep growing this week; keep an eye on Sauced, where we will be recommending our top Beer Week picks each day starting on May 10. Spoiler alert: Buy your tickets to the annual pig roast at Quinn’s now. This very instant.

Meanwhile, local beer blogger extraordinaire Kendall Jones has shared his survival guide for properly appreciating Seattle Beer Week. Commence preemptive hydration now.

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Tags: Seattle Beer Week, Seattle Beer Week 2012

Urban Family Readies a Ballard Beer Garden

Twenty-five taps, plus outdoor real estate in one of the city’s hottest neighborhoods? It all happens this weekend.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on May 04, 2012 at 09:30AM 1 Comments

Starting this weekend, Urban Family’s beermosas are best enjoyed in the backyard beer garden. Photo via Facebook.

Remember that one weekend of glorious sunshine? The one that got your sandals out and your hopes up? Urban Family remembers. And the Ballard temple to Belgian beers is preparing for the elusive return of outdoor drinking weather by transforming its rear patio area into a beer garden. The wood-walled outdoor space’s proximity to both stupendous beers and the Ballard Farmers Market means seats will go fast on sunny Sundays.

Urban Family owner Tim Czarnetzki says the finished patio will be ready this weekend, weather permitting. It will be open whenever the bar is—again, weather permitting. For now it seats about 22 people at 12- and 8-foot picnic tables, but a forthcoming bar top will add eight more seats by next weekend. The pub also has a new sandwich menu, as of last night.

Urban Family has also begun a Friday night raffle, with each weekly winner receiving a bottle of incredibly rare beer; last week’s winner took home a Westvleteren 12, a trappist beer made by actual monks that’s all but unattainable in the U.S. (we won’t ask). Being eligible for this windfall is simply a matter of coming in between 4 and 5:30 on a Friday night—you get a raffle ticket with each beer purchased in this time frame. The winner is drawn at 6pm, and this week’s giveaway is a gueuze from Belgian brewery Cantillon.

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Tags: Beer, Outdoor Drinking, Urban Family Public House

A Few More Cinco de Mayo Options

You might as well cancel any Sunday plans now.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on May 03, 2012 at 06:30AM 0 Comments

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo at the Saint.

As is underscored in these Cinco de Mayo and Derby Day roundups, May 5 holds great promise for fans of the sauce. Since those first posts went up, we’ve heard from even more establishments going all fiesta. Some of the better options are highlighted below.

Little Water Cantina
Saturday looks to be primo patio weather, and you really can’t beat the alfresco setup here. A special taco menu is on offer starting at 11am; on the drinks front are margaritas made with chilies and fresh fruits and juices. Country Lips take the stage out back from 4:30-7:30, where you’ll also find a cash bar. Oh, and a happy bday to Little Water, which celebrates its first anniversary this weekend.

Two Beers Brewing
How fortuitous. The SoDo tasting room christens its extended Saturday hours this very weekend. Stop in between 1 and 6 to sample the festive rotating tap: Heart of Darkness Imperial CDA infused with habanero plum.

Belle Clementine
Saturday’s three-course feast boasts a Mexican twist with the help of some Cinco-appropriate libations and a succulent pig from Stokesberry Sustainable Farm. For reservations call 206-257-5761 or email eat at belleclementine.com.

Pecade Bueno
The Fremont taqueria is also getting piggy with it. In addition to the whole-hog roast, find $3 margaritas, a free salsa bar, and build-your-own tacos, all to be enjoyed on the spankin’-new patio. The party—and live music—starts at 4pm, while food and drink specials begin at 11am. Families welcome until 8pm; $10 cover.

The Saint
The Olive Way mainstay is a no-brainer destination, with its fun-happy vibe and tasty guac. An added incentive: the bar’s new tequila passport program. Normally it costs $25 to partake, but on Saturday the sign-up is $20. Included is a spiffy booklet for tracking your tastes of the bar’s more than 80 tequilas. Discounts are offered for each pour, and after making it through the program, you get a party for you and your pals. Doors open at noon instead of 5pm.

Oddfellows
For the early birds, the tenders are mixing up a batch of “brunch punch”: Aperol, jalapeño, and grapefruit and beet juices. Hornitas margaritas, a happy hour staple here, are $5 all night long, amigo.

Barrio
Another one for those who like to get at it early. Brunch dishes and $6 morning cocktails are available 10:30 till 2, when the Saturday-exclusive menu rolls out. A patio bar is tented, and shot and beer specials are promised. Anybody able to make it out of bed Sunday can hit repeat and check out the “recovery brunch” for hangover-pleasing dishes and cocktails, again priced at $6.

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Tags: Drinking Events, Oddfellows, Belle Clementine, Little Water Cantina, Two Beers Brewing, The Saint, Cinco de Mayo 2012, May 5 2012 Drinking

Total Wine and More Headed to Bellevue

The wine (and spirits) superstore makes its 1183-inspired appearance in late June.

Posted by: Allecia Vermillion on May 02, 2012 at 10:30AM 0 Comments

Bellevue, many, many aisles of wine, beer, and hard alcohol are in your future. Photo via Total Wine and More.

We are four weeks away from June 1, that nebulously ominous or exciting date when liquor sales as we know them undergo an overnight transformation. The state Liquor Control Board has been flooded with applications from Targets, QFCs, and Safeways, and (obviously) Costco. Big booze box BevMo! recently announced it will open stores in Tacoma and Silverdale.

Now Bellevue is getting a liquor superstore of its own. Delaware-based chain Total Wine and More has announced plans to open in the former Larry’s Market location at 699 120th Ave. The 30,000-square-foot space will start plying Eastsiders with the drink in late June.

As the name suggests, Total Wine and More isn’t just a place to pick up handles of Smirnoff. The company bills itself as the nation’s largest independent retailer of fine wines, with a selection of more than 8,000 (along with 3,000 types of spirits and 2,500 beers). The Bellevue store, the company’s 81st location, will have a walk-in humidor, climate-controlled storage for rarer bottles, and a space for tastings.

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Tags: Coming Soon, Liquor Privatization, Post-1183, Liquor Stores

Voxx Coffee to Open Second Cafe in Downtown Seattle

It’s going on the corner of Sixth and University.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on May 01, 2012 at 11:23AM 3 Comments

Voxx Coffee brings its Synesso espresso machine and retro aesthetic downtown. Photo via Facebook.

The downtown crowd is due for another local java destination come summer. Voxx Coffee, an Eastlake Ave staple for more than four years now, is opening a second cafe on the corner of Sixth and University.

Regulars of Voxx know it as a spot where custom Lighthouse blends brew by day, and wine and beer flow by night. Michael Uetz and fellow co-owner Myriam Guillemin will import that same beverage menu, as well as the stellar sandwiches, wraps, and pastries. And the 4-7 happy hour? “Not sure,” says Uetz, “but I have a feeling we will.”

Also carrying over is the retro styling that makes Voxx such a looker. “I have a passion for mid-century design,” says Uetz. “We’ll incorporate some of the same elements.” But expect touches unique to 2.0, too. This new cafe is longer and narrower than the original, so Uetz guesses it will accommodate a smaller crowd, maybe around 20 people. The contractors are having at the space as we speak; Uetz anticipates it will open in July.

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Tags: Seattle Coffee News, Voxx Coffee