Beer… So Much More than Good

My good buddy, Chris, and I recently returned from a 4ish day trip to the Seattle area that served as a belated bachelor party for him and birthday gift to me (from my beautiful wife). This was a neat trip for myriad reasons. I met Chris nearly 5 years ago at work and, after a few months, learned he wasn’t much into beer. I told him I had made beer at home, all by myself, and that it came out pretty good, which intrigued him. We eventually decided to brew up a batch of beer together and the start of a newfound shared obsession began. Beer is a significant component of our friendship. We’d always talked about certain trips we thought would be cool to take together—San Diego, his hometown of Denver, and my hometown of Seattle were always on the top of that list. When the time finally came to choose, Chris quickly selected Seattle. This was only a month ago. We worked out a general plan for the few days we’d be there, a relative of mine escorting us around the entire time, and off we went.

As we visited the multiple breweries and drank some truly fantastic (and not so fantastic) beers, I was reminded of a poignant realization I’d had in the past, an idea that centered me and served to reinvigorate my passion for this delicious elixir. But I’ll get to that later. First, a photo diary of our trip.

A quick disclaimer: I’ve never been a fan of structured beer reviews, they always seem a bit haughty to me, though I certainly don’t judge those who get into that thing. I fully accept the subjectivity of my experience when it comes to tasting beer, thus any comments below stem from that perspective.

FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2014
I was on a sub-2 hour flight from Fresno to SeaTac airport, we took off at 8AM. My first beer, Widmer’s Alchemy Ale, was consumed at about 8:30AM, with the attendant serving me one more cup about 30 minutes later. Not a bad way to start the day! To those travelling to the Northwest, Alaska/Horizon airlines serves free wine and beer 😉

My plane landed just before 10AM while Chris’ plane wasn’t set to arrive until about 11:30AM, so I decided to do what any married father of 3 would do without his family around: find the nearest pub and grab a drink! I knew from prior trips there was an Alaskan Brewing pub nearby.

I sat at the bar, alone at 10AM, and ordered a pint of Alaskan ESB, which used to be called Frontier Ale, a delicious mostly English-style beer hopped only moderately with Centennial. The bartender, a sweet woman, asked if I’d like to add a shot of Tequila for “only $3 more,” a tempting offer that I hastily declined.

Rocking a mild morning buzz after the 12 or so oz of Alchemy and pint of ESB, I decided it’d be best to wait at baggage claim for Chris. Once he arrived, my 21 year-old cousin, Parker, picked us up and we headed to our first official stop.

Redhook has been operating a relatively large brewery in Woodinville, WA, for quite awhile, moving to this location after outgrowing their space in the Ballard neighborhood. In 2008, the Craft Brew Alliance was formed and included Redhook Brewery, Widmer Brothers Brewing Company, and Kona Brewing Company. I won’t get into the details here, but suffice it to say the beers we drank here fell into the solid 6/10 range. Since we had no set plans for that day, we opted to take the tour, which cost $5 and included a pint glass.

The beers we got to try included:

Joint Effort (a Hilliard’s/Redhook collaboration session pale brewed with hemp seeds): bitterness was a tad sharp, otherwise a largely unremarkable though easy drinking beer
Redhook ESB: we all continue to agree that this is a solid beer, easy to drink, and rather enjoyable.
Redhook Porter: a little thinner than expected, but clean and tasty enough.
Redhook Mudslinger Brown: all 3 of us really enjoyed this beer, I would actually pay for it in a store.

Our guide was great and just happened to keep playing music from a lesser-known band I’m a huge fan of, Mandolin Orange. While all pours were half-pint, she was very liberal on the refills, making the $5 charge for a mostly redundant tour feel very worth it.

We learned that this brewery was used to brew many Kona beers and some of the seasonal Redhook and Widmer offerings. There were pallets and pallets of bottles from all three breweries in the bottling area.

That night ended with a delicious grilled salmon dinner, skillfully prepared by my gracious aunt and uncle, at the home I spent half my life in. We drank bottles of local beer we grabbed at the local grocery store.

SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 2014
This day would be dedicated to the city I lived in just prior to moving to California: Bellingham, WA. It started by driving to Stanwood, halfway between our starting and final destinations, to grab a tasty breakfast with my in-laws. With my father-in-law aboard, we headed north, picked up my old roommate, and made our first brewery stop of the day.

When I lived in Bellingham, there was one brewery, a fixture in downtown. Within just a few years of my moving, Kulshan Brewing Company started up. I visited their first year open when they had only 3 or 4 beer offerings, all of which were pretty damn tasty. They’ve already grown remarkably.

I started with a pint of Full 90 Session Ale, which is one of the better versions of a session IPA I’ve tasted- not too thin, good balance of malt and hop, and very easy-drinking. Then I got a flight.

If you’re trying to decipher the above photo, the board was upside-down. For whatever reason, I chose many of the types of beers I usually don’t drink, probably because the other folks in our group had ordered pints of many of the other beers, which I’d sampled. After sharing this sampler with the other 4 guys, we all agreed something must have gone wrong with the IPA and IIPA, both of which had a very noticeable medicinal quality. Surprisingly, all of us agreed that the best beers were the Smoked Stout and RIS. Overall, Kulshan has a lot of potential and makes some pretty good beers, but my mind wasn’t blown.

Our next stop took us to a place I’d been pining to return to since my last visit, a brewery whose beers I recall being so fucking good that I’ve arrogantly touted their deliciousness to my fellow California beer lovers.

Chuckanut Brewery was fairly recently started by Wil and Mari Kemper of Thomas Kemper Root Beer fame. Their primary focus is traditional, well-made German lager, though they do have some ales on tap. During our visit, I consumed pints of German Pils, Dunkel, and Kolsch, all better than I ever imagined. Chris ordered a Golden Ale and my cousin tried the English IPA, both were delicious. I was excited to discover they recently started selling bottles and grabbed 5 to bring home and share.

I could have stayed at Chuckanut and drank the rest of the day, but we had one more stop to make before calling it a day, the brewery that served me my first (legal) craft beer.

The memories of the times I’ve spent drinking beer at Boundary Bay Brewing Company are many and great. I still wear the shirt I bought here when I was a student at Western Washington University in 2002. Our group grabbed a table in the bar area, ordered some snacks, and began sampling the beers.

For better or for worse, the beer was exactly as I remember it. Not bad at all, though certainly nothing phenomenal. But the atmosphere was great, made all the better by sharing the moment with friends old and new. We headed home that evening with full bellies, battered livers, and warm memories. Thanks to my Uncle Greg, the non-beer lover of the bunch, for carting us around safely. Once back in Bothell, Chris, my cousin, and I shared a few more local beers then hit the sack to rest up for the next day of adventure.

SUNDAY, APRIL 6, 2014
The plan for our last full day of the trip was to hit up myriad breweries in Ballard and downtown. The only place that opened at 11am just happened to be one of the places on our list with a great starting location.

Sometimes jokingly referred to as The People’s Republic of Fremont, this Seattle neighborhood is known for it’s budding art scene and liberal attitudes. Adding to the statue of Vladimir Lenin and the gigantic Troll under the bridge is Fremont Brewing Company, a brewery that distributes canned beer and seems to be growing at a fairly steady rate. The available beers were many on this fine Seattle day.

I started with a flight and everything was good.

My particular favorites were the Bonfire Brown and Summer Ale, the latter of which was the only beer I ordered a full pint of. The flavor of the Summer Ale was unique, dry, low esters, and subtly fruity without being overwhelming. Like a Kolsch with late hop character. I asked the bartertender what the ingredients were and she happily looked up the recipe for me, sharing that it was a 100% Amarillo hopped Blonde Ale. Delicious and refreshing. Chris’ flight included the 2 randall beers… none of us were big fans, though the flavors certainly carried through.

The next brewery on the list is one I’d heard about first on Kickstarter then later on The Brewing Network’s January 13, 2014 episode of The Session. The story was great, they came across super cool in the interview, and the guys from The BN really seemed to enjoy their beer. Reuben’s Brews was a must.

Located in a quaint warehouse in the Ballard neighborhood, Reuben’s Brews has created a rather beautiful and welcoming tasting room. With fermentation tanks lining the walls, an upstairs seating area, a rad bartender (I wish I could remember his name), I can’t recommend checking this place out more! Plus, they have 12 beers on tap.

The 4 of us decided to share a sampler of all 12 beers then go back for pints of our favorites.

Every single beer on the list, even the Roggenbier, an odd style I’ve never really enjoyed, was incredibly well made. While sipping gaily (I get it), I struck up a conversation with the bartender about brewing related shit, after which he asked if we might want to try something “special.” Duh. He pulled out a randall chock-full of freshly cut kumquats, explaining he threw it together the night before for an event held at the tasting room. He connected the randall to the American Rye, a beer of theirs that is getting rave reviews, and poured us a pint to share. Now, I’ve never been a fan of fruit beers, I mean, I’ll drink one, but rarely do I enjoy them. Daaaamn, was this beer good! I was absolutely floored with the flavors created by the blend of rye malt, American hops, and kumquats. It was almost exactly like drinking an Orange Julius, but better. After sharing with the bartender how much I enjoyed his concoction, he opened the randall and squeezed the beer out of the saturated fruit right into our glass… fuck me. As if things couldn’t get any better, he then recommended we grab lunch from a taco truck just around the corner. We did and brought our food back to Reuben’s to eat with a pint of beer, Cream Ale in this case. Best goddamn lengua burrito I’ve ever had, no joke. We were sittin’ pretty.

While we could have stayed at Reuben’s Brews all day, we had to trudge forward. A quick Google Maps search revealed a number of small breweries within walking distance, we chose the closest one that also had some really good reviews.

Within about 2 minutes we arrived at Stoup Brewing, another newer brewery built into an industrial warehouse. They had 6 beers on tap and, as had become the norm, we shared the first sampler then ordered pints of what we each enjoyed the most.

I can’t recall what the actual name was, but my favorite was their ESB. All of their beers were solid. We met up with my cousin and her girlfriend here, saw an interesting bike-beer-tour-thingy, and continued to swill. Cool place, to be sure.

It was time to head downtown. My Uncle had to be somewhere for a bit, so he dropped the 3 of us off at our next stop, a brewery that has been growing in both popularity and volume over the last few years.

Elysian Brewing Company had numerous beers available. I can’t speak for everyone, but I wasn’t necessarily fully coherent at this point. Even so, it was clear Elysian made good beer.

Their samplers were quite large. The Split Shot, an espresso Milk Stout, was memorably tasty, a nice change of pace from all the hop-forward beers we’d consumed. After polishing off a huge plate of sweet-potato fries and about a gallon of water apiece, we started our trek down to the next and final brewery. Along the way, we walked passed Capitol Cider and decided to stop.

Chris bought us a 3 glass flight to share.

Meh. On we went, walking across a bridge over I-5, past the Convention Center, and right into perhaps the most scenic area of Seattle, Pike Place Market, home to a fixture in the local beer scene.

The Pike Pub & Brewery has been providing the folks visiting this area of Seattle a fantastic place to grab some grub and beer since it was founded in 1989. I’d been to Pike numerous times before and thought it’d be a great place to end our trip. My Uncle returned with my Aunt and cousin, we chowed down on some clams and nachos, drank a few more beers, and enjoyed each others company.

Chris was deeply engaged in what I’m certain was a meaningful and profound conversation with my Uncle. Welcome to the family, pal.

We were back at the house around 10pm. Despite our plans to wake-up relatively early and grab breakfast before our departure, we sat around, talked, drank more beer, and savored the moment. The trip was a success, Chris saw a bunch of new places, we drank some truly fantastic beer, and yet here we sat talking about whatever we could think of to stay awake. Parker suggested we put on an old family video, the one where my siblings and I first moved to Seattle, no intentions of making it our home. I hadn’t seen the video in a long time. It was pretty hilarious. I couldn’t help but think of just how different my life was because of all the little things that happened along the way. My Aunt and Uncle graciously, courageously, crazily allowing 4 pre-teens to live with them, forever… expecting their own first kid… the same kid who’d been awesomely hanging out and drinking delicious beer with me… and Chris… this guy I randomly met one day in a city I never thought I’d return to, both of us in the same profession because of the life my Aunt and Uncle provided me, our friendship solidified by a shared obsession over a simple drink that’s been around for thousands of years.

Beer, to me, is so much more than just a good drink or a way to numb my sorrows. It’s so much more than just grain and hops and yeast and water, mashtuns, sparging, vorlauf, or secondaries. Beer is a catalyst and conduit for connection with others. It’s no wonder the folks I know who enjoy brewing and drinking beer as much as me often say their favorite part, the thing that keeps them coming back, is sharing their creation with others.

MONDAY, APRIL 7, 2014
My cousin dropped a slightly hungover Chris and me off at the airport around 9am, the first flight, mine, leaving at noon. We talked over breakfast then headed to the same Alaskan Pub I had my first real beer of the trip at. We drank and talked about how we might get the keezer I’d recently built for Chris to his place, 200 miles north of where it sat in my garage. We talked about how happy he was in his marriage, how good life was, and I was sure to remind him how much he was missed in the town he’d left 2 years prior. We talked about my beautiful wife and adorable kids. We connected. My plane was ready to board, we hugged and said our goodbyes, comforted by the reality of this connection and our knowing that we’d see each other soon. And have a beer… or 4.

I had a brief layover in Portland and the only place to grab a bite next to my terminal just happened to be a brewery.

The one pint I had at Laurelwood Brewing Company, some sort of one-off Pale Ale, tasted like ketchup (catsup?). The fish and chips I had more than made up for it. I scarfed, guzzled, and boarded the plane for my favorite place on earth: home.

While waiting for my beer-loaded bag to come around the carousel, I heard the most satisfying sound, the thing I’d been dying to hear since I left Friday morning, the sounds of my kids yelling, “Daddy!” I was bombarded with hugs and kisses, my amazingly gracious wife walking behind them with our 9 month old daughter, they both got kisses, too. I was in my place. Exactly where I needed to be.

To Laura, my patient wife, the woman who encouraged me to take this trip knowing she’d have her hands overwhelmingly full…
To Chris, my brewing/drinking brother and forever friend…
To Parker, one of the coolest dudes on Earth…
To Uncle Greg, our chauffeur who humbly put up with more swearing than I’m sure he’s heard in years, all while making us laugh constantly…
To Aunt Sheila, an absolute angel who warmly welcomes everyone who comes into her home and can throw together a fantastic salmon dinner in no time at all…
To all my brewing buddies out there who have helped deepen my understanding of beer and self..

CHEERS! I love you all.