Love Good Beer

Pyramid and Bottleworks

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 | Beer | 2 Comments

On day two of our Seattle beer excursion, we all woke up a little worse for wear.  The highlight of the morning involved Erik realizing he did not bring enough clothes and running to the store to buy new pants.  After a rejuvenating greasy breakfast, we headed for Safeco field to buy some Mariners tickets for a future trip.  There we found Pyramid Alehouse and what choice did we have but to stop in?  I can’t say I felt like drinking more beer and I don’t think anyone else did either.  That didn’t stop us from ordering their tasting rack of five sample size glasses.  I found their beer enjoyable (a feat that morning), but not overly interesting.  I think their wheat beers would make great summer sippers.

We next visited Bottleworks, a beer store of which there is no comparison in Vancouver.  Brewery Creek is great and I love it, but they have to deal with our pesky socialist liquor system.  Bottleworks has many great beers that I just can’t get here.  When I first walked in from the sunshine, I found the store so contrastingly dim that I couldn’t see.  While walking into shelves, I realized that Bottleworks was protecting their beers from harmful light.  Good on them.  I wish I could have stayed there for hours, but the wives were getting anxious for the Seattle Premium Outlets (worst place on earth).  I ended up leaving with:

• Fullers 1845
• Westmalle Trappist Dubbel
• Achel Trappist Brune 8
• Port Townsend Hop Diggidy
• Iron Horse Brass Ass

I can’t wait to drink them.  Pictures of our excursion below:

Cheers,

Chris

Tags: achel brune, bottleworks, brass ass, brewery creek, fullers 1845, hop diggidy, iron horse, mariners, port townsend, pyramid alehouse, safeco, seattle, westmalle dubbel

Washington Cask Beer Festival

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 | Beer, Events | 2 Comments

As a follow up to Erik’s last post, I thought I’d chip in with my impressions and some pictures of the Washington Cask Beer Festival.  It was definitely a very good time and a very impressive festival.  Vancouver has nothing to rival this event, which hosted almost forty craft brewers and sixty cask conditioned beers.  I was surprised at how crowded it was; even knowing that this was the second of two sessions to sell out.

As for the beer itself, it was good.  I can’t say much more than that, mostly because I don’t remember.  I recall liking some more than others and, like Erik, I recall a particular fondness for Port Townsend and their Hop Diggidy IPA.  We did manage to soldier through and taste each of the sixty beers on offer, although we were sharing tastes by the end.  Those who opted out of the sharing duly suffered, up was chucked….

We definitely drank too much.  Next time (oh yes, we’ll be back), we won’t hit up a German restaurant with a solid beer selection beforehand.  It definitely didn’t help that the majority of the beer was 50% to 100% stronger than normal.  Highlights of the evening include my wife stealing a wet floor sign, silly walking across the festival floor, and talking to Chris Martin of Coldplay (not even a good facsimile).  It was also cool to see pregnant Darci having a great time taking down our tasting notes.  She proved that you can have fun without drinking, which scientists had previously thought impossible.  It was also really fun to read the tasting notes the next day, one from Peter read “tastes like dry erase marker, but I like it.”

As for the pictures, you can clearly see how our night progressed:

From there we went and took ridiculous pictures with the Space Needle, which I will spare you from viewing.  Then the night sort of feel apart, but we ended up having a good time the next day.  More to follow.

Cheers,

Chris

Tags: Coldplay, erik is a good man, hop diggidy, peter chandler, port townsend, silly walks, space needle, washington cask beer festival