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Reuben’s Brews Plans Taproom, Microbrewery for Ballard

Yet another local brewer north of Ship Canal, this one family friendly.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Dec 07, 2011 at 08:40AM 2 Comments

Adam Robbings of Reuben’s Brews, destined for NW 53rd Street. Photo courtesy reubensbrews.com.

Ballard is becoming ground zero for craft beermen. The latest to enter the fray is husband-wife team Adam and Grace Robbings. They just signed a lease at 1406 NW 53rd Street, and in June 2012 plan to open Reuben’s Brews.

The microbrewery and taproom will showcase Adam’s impressive repertoire of decorated ales. Drinkers will find six seasonal potables, which will rotate monthly from an arsenal of forty, and possibly one guest tap “to complement what we have,” according to the Brit. You will also be able to fill growlers, to enjoy there or elsewhere.

In his years of home brewing Adam’s handiwork has included pumpkin suds with molasses and bourbon, a porter and a kolsch, an old-style ale, and a German rye, to name a few. “Most of my beers tend to have rye,” Adam explains before rattling off several more examples, among them the Roasted Rye PA that took the People’s Choice award in the 2010 PNA Winter Beer Taste. (Reuben’s was one of two home brewers allowed to enter.)

Though the Robbins plan to bottle their brews next fall, Adam is dubious of further expansion plans. “I want to stay close to the customer,” something he feels kegging and distribution would only complicate.

As parents of a two-year-old (the operation is named for their son, who as a babe “gave” Adam the home-brewing kit that kick-started his trade) the Robbings say Reuben’s will welcome fellow families. Adam may even conjure up an ale (ginger, of course) just for kids.

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Tags: Craft Brewing, Ballard, Microbrew, Seattle Beer, Seattle Beer News, New Ballard Bars

Slideshow: SoDo’s Nanobreweries

Take a tour of three tiny Seattle breweries south of the stadiums.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jun 13, 2011 at 10:18AM 3 Comments

Photo: Lucas Anderson

Click through the slideshow to see inside Epic Ales, the last stop on our nano tour.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

Click through the slideshow to see inside Epic Ales, the last stop on our nano tour.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

THE TOUR BEGINS AT TWO BEERS: Here are its storage tanks and fermenters, which share a space with the bar and tasting room.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

Joel VandenBrink, founder and head brewer of Two Beers, takes a break with one of his brews.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

The official Two Beers Mascot, Willis the dog. The name of one Two Beers beer, the Crooked Belgium Wit, was inspired by his feet.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

The Trailhead ISA, Two Beers’ 2011 summer ale.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

A fine day for a tasting on Two Beers’ patio.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

ON TO SCHOONER EXACT, the largest of the three nanos. This is its brewing facility.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

Schooner’s boiler and grain tank.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

Don’t miss the Constellation IPA, a 12-brewer collaboration currently on tap at Schooner’s tasting room.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

Stacks of kegs sit in Schooner’s storage room. The brewery plans to expand this year to make more space for a grain room and a kitchen.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

Schooner’s owner and brewer Matt McClung takes a quick break from making a batch of raspberry wheat. The beer will be on offer at the Washington Brewers Festival over Father’s Day weekend.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

OUR LAST STOP IS EPIC ALES. Its motto, “every possibility is conceivable,” is etched onto the entrance of the tiny brewery.

View Slideshow » Photo: Lucas Anderson

Cody Morris pours a pint of his Lyli, an ale made with green tea and intended for summer BBQs.

View Slideshow » Illustration:

Morris’ entire work space totals just 180 square feet. That’s nano, people.

View Slideshow » Illustration:

This one’s made with mushrooms.

All right, here’s what I’m suggesting: Right this minute, by whatever means necessary, arrange it so that your Friday afternoon is cleared of responsibilities.

Because on Fridays, beginning at the magical hour of 3pm, (or “beer o’clock,” as we say here in Enablerland), all three of SoDo’s very small breweries are open and ready to pour you local beer straight from the source.

I’ve also heard tell of sports folk, ultimately bound for Safeco and Qwest, who work their way through the three nanos and then stop off for dinner and more beer at the Pyramid Alehouse.

Below you’ll find hours and other info for Two Beers, Schooner EXACT, and Epic; but the main event on this post is the slideshow from Seattlemet.com photographer Lucas Anderson. He’s provided a mouth-watering look into what to expect on your nano tour, including the summer seasonals currently on tap. Enjoy.

THE BREWERIES:
Two Beers Brewery
4700 Ohio Avenue South Unit A, SoDo
Tasting room hours: Wednesday through Friday 3-8pm, Saturdays 12-4pm.
The brewer: Joel VandenBrink

Schooner EXACT
3901 1st Avenue S, SoDo
Tasting room hours: Monday and Thursday 4–8pm, Friday 3–8pm, Saturday and Sunday 12–7pm.
The brewers: Matt and Heather McClung

Epic Ales
3201 1st Ave South, Ste 104, SoDo
Tasting room hours: Friday 3:30–8pm and Saturday 12–4pm.
The brewer: Cody Morris

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Tags: Craft Brewing, SoDo, Microbrew, Seattle Beer, Nanobreweries

Attention Beer Fans: ExBEERience and Hop Scotch Are Approaching

Seattle’s annual spring beer events get under way.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Mar 01, 2011 at 01:20PM 1 Comments

Hopscotch returns to the Fremont Studios.

Photo courtesy: Hopscotchtasting.com

On Saturday, March 12, ExBEERience comes to the Weatherman’s Room at Redhook Brewery in Woodinville.

On hand will be 15 local craft brewers alongside a number of home brewers—so you can see how those hobby dudes compare. (Most commercial brewers start out as hobby dudes anyway right? Also why am I calling them “hobby dudes”? That sounds dumb.)

A buffet lunch and six beer tokens are included in the $25 ($30 at the door) price, proceeds go to Childhaven. Tickets on sale here.

Then of course you’ve got Hop Scotch, the annual beer-and-scotchanalia that benefits SIFF. In addition to the main tasting event—lots of good West Coast brews—there are tequila and scotch flights and hour-long seminars with a master of whiskey.

Hop Scotch happens on April 1 and 2 at Fremont Studios. General admission is $25 ($30 at the door). That buys you five tokens, each good for a schooner of beer. Upgrade to the $35 price and you get 10 tokens. You also get a big buzz, unless you happen to be a Superhero called Megatolerance (dumb joke number 2), so plan your ride home accordingly. Advance tickets to Hopscotch are available here.

PS: If you’d like to volunteer to work at Hop Scotch (free admission/tokens), be quick about it! A lot of people volunteer.

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Tags: Fremont, Woodinville, Craft Brewing, Beer Festivals

Full Sail Beer and Cheese Pairing at Urbane

Five dishes for $17, no reservations required.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jul 29, 2010 at 09:53AM 0 Comments

Beer and cheese, an easy pair.

On August 27, Urbane is throwing a beer and cheese party from 5 to 9pm, and it’s a pretty good deal: For $17, you get five cheese-based dishes paired with beers from Full Sail Brewery, an Oregon craft brewer whose expertly balanced ESB is a fridge staple chez moi.

No need to make reservations with Urbane or arrive on time, just show up between 5 and 9 and start sampling.

A thought on beer pairings: I love beer—with pizza, with spicy food, with nachos, on it’s own—but if we’re really talking palate talk, I have experienced few beer pairings that came close to a really good wine pairing. I’m not saying it can’t be done, I’m saying it’s difficult to do. Cheese, however, is an exception. Cheese and beer make for easy pairing, as any Belgian will tell you.

A thought on wine versus beer when pairing cheese at home: I like to think about where my cheese came from. Wisconsin and Vermont are beer-making meccas, and Wisconsin and Vermont cheddars tastes great with beer.

If the cheese is St Marcellin from the Rhone region of France, however, it’s Chateauneuf du Pape o’clock. Though, come to think of it, St Marcellin would probably taste pretty good with beer….

Have fun at the party.

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Tags: Tastings and Classes, Beer, Cheese, Craft Brewing

Stone Brewing Dinners Begin this Thursday at Emmer and Rye

Bonus: You leave with a sixer.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jul 20, 2010 at 10:45AM 0 Comments

Stone Brewing gargoyle

Queen Anne restaurant Emmer and Rye starts a new Thursday night “Market Series” dinner this week. It’s a five-course, all-inclusive meal for $70 and it will take place fortnightly on the second floor of the restaurant.

Chef Seth Caswell is partnering with Stone Brewing, a San Diego brewery that makes some seriously powerhouse beers like Arrogant Bastard ale and Ruination IPA. (The labels have a distinct Dungeons-and-Dragons flair. There seems to be some serious overlap between the D and D and the microbrewery communities, amIwrong?)

Caswell is paring the beers with each course, and the cool thing is that at the end of the night, you get to go home with a six-pack of your own Stoners to drink at your leisure.

The food will be sourced from nearby Queen Anne Farmers Market. Call E&R to make a reservation.

I should also mention that on Thursday, Auguut 5, Salty’s is hosting a halibut fish fry. It costs $24.99 and comes with a pint of amber ale, a beer made particularly for the restaurant by Pyramid Brewing.

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Tags: Special Dinners, Craft Brewing, Stone Brewing, Emmer and Rye

Emerald City Brewing Opening in Old Rainier Brewery

Each beer will be named after a “girl” that inspired it.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on May 11, 2010 at 12:35PM 0 Comments

Dottie’s Seattle Lager. Named for the brewer’s grandmother.

Kendall Jones of the Washington Beer Blog reports that new brewery Emerald City Brewing is setting up shop in the Old Rainier Brewery at 3100 Airport Way South. It will occupy space formerly held by Tully’s Coffee, which has moved to a new roasting plant.

According to Jones, Emerald City will be a lager-focused brewery and “each different beer that they produce will feature a different girl and each girl will in some way reflect the character of the beer.”

The flagship beer, an amber lager called Dottie’s Seattle Lager, is named after brewer Rick Hewitt’s grandmother. The label design is pictured here. So. Now you know what to bring nana next time you are visiting her in the nursing home.

Look for Emerald City beers to debut at the Washington Brewers Festival in June.

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Tags: Beer, Craft Brewing

Chaco Canyon To Make Its Own Beer

Will that beer be organic? What do you think?

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Apr 23, 2010 at 10:36AM 3 Comments

Chaco Canyon Healthy eats destination and future microbrewer

About six months ago, Chaco Canyon, the organic cafe in the U-District obsessively frequented by UW’s raweys, vegans, and vegetarians (plus the people who love them), started serving alcohol. Organic alcohol, of course—wine, sake, and draft beers from Elliot Bay Brewing.

Now, says owner Chris Maykut, Chaco Canyon is going to start brewing its own beer.

“We pretty much make everything ourselves in house” says Maykut, “chai, chocolate sauce, ice cream, all soups, dressings…and our Head Chef [Lois Blanfold] is quite passionate about brewing. We just got our organic hops and four-tap tower in, so we should have a rotating housemade beer available in the coming months.”

Maykut promises to let me know when the new brews are available. I’ll keep you posted.

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Tags: University District, Booze News, Craft Brewing, Organic, Vegetarian/Vegan Whatnot

The Jolly Roger Taproom Hires Four Farestart Trainees

Another reason to check out the brew pub’s new digs.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Apr 08, 2010 at 02:27PM 0 Comments

Jolly Roger Taproom recently hired four Farestart trainees—a line cook, prep cook, and two dishwashers. That is a cool thing to do, Jolly Roger. Way to do it.

If you’re not familiar with Farestart, it is a non-profit that trains homeless and otherwise disadvantaged people to work in commercial kitchens. Farestart’s chefs nights are a big thing.

The taproom, whose new location is at 1111 NW Ballard Way, is Maritime Pacific’s brew pub—I’m currently in love with Maritime’s crisp, graceful Portage Bay Pilsner. (That beer, it so happens, is also on tap at Summit. I had some last night in fact.)

Full disclosure: Seattle Met is, as of very recently, a Farestart media sponsor.

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Tags: Beer, Beer, Craft Brewing, Ballard, Good Cause

Signs of Spring: Bock Beers

In Germany, strong lagers mark the transition from winter to spring. We’ll drink to that.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Mar 23, 2010 at 09:04AM 3 Comments

This mural, painted on a wall at the Pillagers Pub, captures the aesthetic of the bar rather nicely.

In Germany, bocks—strong lagers—are associated with spring. Well, guess what people. Spring is upon us. Let’s drink some bocks.

You may be most familiar with maibocks—in German that just means May bock, a bock you drink in May (some heavier bocks are made for late-winter drinking). Elysian Brewing’s head brewer Dick Cantwell makes two bocks: the Ambrosia Maibock and Pandora’s Bock. (The sweet-then-bitter-then-sweet-then-bitter Ambrosia is amazing.) Cantwell says he thinks of bocks as outdoor-drinking beers, something you might bring on a picnic.

Jeff Smiley, head brewer for local German-style micro Baron Brewing, rotates a few bocks at his Greenwood brewpub, the Pillagers Pub. I sat down with him recently and tried a bunch of his beers, the electrically fresh and extremely drinkable Helles Bock was pouring especially nicely that day. Read more about that here, then go get you some. They have it at Bottleworks.

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Tags: Beer, Craft Brewing, Greenwood, Bocks

Two Beers and Tako Truck Team Up for Haiti

Ditch Saturday chores in favor of beers and tacos for a great cause.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Mar 05, 2010 at 10:58AM 0 Comments

The Tako Truck boys: Cormac Mahoney and Bryan Jarr
Photo: Nick Feldman

If you haven’t yet heard (and even if you have), Two Beers Brewing and closed-but-still-cooking Tako Truck have teamed up on a benefit for Haiti that is to be held Saturday, March 6 at 4700 Ohio Avenue South. There is a minimum donation of $20—this buys you four tickets, each ticket is worth a beer or two tacos or three turns in some sort of toss game—all proceeds go to Shelterbox. The event begins at 1pm and is expected to go until around 6pm. Expect DJs.

PS: If you can’t go, maybe consider sending another of those $10 Red Cross text messages (“Haiti” to 90999).

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Tags: Haiti, Beer, Craft Brewing

Try Food-friendly Beers at Epic Ales

SoDo’s new “nanobrewery” opens its tasting room at 3:30pm every Friday.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Feb 26, 2010 at 10:33AM 0 Comments

SAM Remix begins at 8pm tonight—a full three hours after the universally recognized cocktail hour. What to do in the interim? Well here’s something: Epic Ales, the new SoDo “nanobrewery,” opens up its tasting room from 3:30 to 8pm every Friday.

Brewer Cody Morris—he’s the one that taught me the nerdy word “nanobrewery,” now I can’t stop using it—makes four different beers set to hit stores in early March, but you can taste them today inside his tasting room at 3201 First Ave S, Ste 104.

The Solar Transamplifier most resembles a Belgian witbier. “The major difference,” according to the web site, “being a change from wheat and oats to rice, and also switching from coriander and bitter orange peal to ginger and chamomile.” Terra-Saurus ale is made with shiitake mushrooms, and the Simple Ale is a hoppy and malty beer in the Northwest spirit. The fourth and final beer, the OTTO-Optimizer, is a porter brewed with Turkish coffee and designed to be sipped alongside dessert.

In fact, Morris says all four were created with food in mind. “For a wine person, restaurants are a great experience,” he says. For a beer fan, not so much. He aims to change that by offering local restaurants “true culinary ales” to pair with their food. The brewer points out that such a distinction is important for setting your beers apart in the glutted field of craft brewing. When Morris was working to get legal with the state, he was told there were 17 other breweries seeking licenses. That’s a lot of beer.

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Tags: Beer, Locaboozers, Craft Brewing, SoDo