pike brewing

Seattle Beer Culture

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 | Beer | 2 Comments

I was in Seattle this past weekend for yet another stag.  I am always impressed by the beer selection that almost everywhere in Seattle seems to have.  We did actively seek out some fine purveyors of beer, but we also visited a few places we were surprised to find had an excellent selection of craft beer.  And yet even some among our group of Canadians held onto the notion that Canadian beer is superior to American, a notion I’ve refuted as a myth on this blog.  I hope that Vancouver can one day match the availability, not to mention affordability, of excellent craft beer that we came across in Seattle.

On Friday we began our weekend with a few pints in the Pyramid Brewing beer garden across from Safeco Field.  The beer garden was packed full of the Mariners pregame crowd and provided a very festive atmosphere.  Pyramid had five beers for sale in the beer garden, including an amber, a blonde, an IPA, a hefeweizen, and their famous apricot ale.  I thoroughly enjoyed the beer garden at Pyramid, an experience enhanced by my soon to be married friend dressed in a beaver suit.  If only the Mariners game could have measured up to the pregame.  This was my first live baseball game and I found it even more boring than baseball on TV.  I may have loudly expressed my opinion to anyone nearby, and for that I apologize.  The few too many pints at Pyramid beforehand may have contributed to my rudeness.  The best part of the Mariners game was the members of the crowd who stopped by to gawk at my poor friend the bachelor.  Seriously though, if you’ve ever seen hockey, how can you like baseball?  Anyway, I was very impressed by the beer selection at Safeco, which is funny because this Washington beer blogger doesn’t share my opinion.  He’d be sorely disappointed with the beer on offer at GM Place.

After the game, or maybe before the game ended, we went to a bar called Cowgirls, which is a wonderful place to a take a bachelor.  Think Coyote Ugly with better looking staff.  After Cowgirls, we bypassed the next morning and headed straight out for lunch a little worse for wear.  We found a pub called the Fox Sports Grill right beside our hotel.  By the way, we stayed at the Sheraton in downtown Seattle for a mere $94 a night thanks to Hotwire.com.  The Fox had twenty odd craft beers on tap and also afforded me my first crack at an undercooked burger.  In Canada, burgers must be cooked well done, whereas I was able to enjoy my burger cooked medium.  It is official, burgers cooked less than well done are delicious.  We are too paranoid up here.

After lunch, we headed to West Seattle Golf Course for a round.  Being a public facility, the course was very affordable, but also very crowded.  How do you spice up a six hour round?  You try to run over your buddies golf balls with your cart, accidentally flipping it with yourself still inside.  That hurt.  And no, I was not inebriated from consuming some of the excellent beers for sale at the course.  I am just stupid.  Even public golf courses in Seattle have solid beer selections.  I’m starting to get bitter here.

For dinner we headed to the Taphouse and Grill, also very near to our hotel. The Taphouse has 160 taps of interesting beer with samplers of four available for $9.50.  This place was heaven for me and I wish I could have spent a lot of time at the bar, but maybe another time.  I didn’t even know how you could fit 160 taps into an establishment, but they had them all in there, wall to wall and staggered at two levels.  I tried to take a picture, but my crappy iPhone camera failed me in the dim light.  When you consider that our top beer bar, the Alibi Room, has only 19 taps, it puts 160 taps into perspective.  Wow.  That evening took us too a few more bars and pubs, none of particular interest to beer enthusiasts.  The last day, we headed straight for lunch again, this time stopping at the Pike Brewing Brewpub, another fine establishment.

It was another succesful stag, one where we enjoyed far too much excellent beer.  Seattle really is a great beer destination.  I can only hope to say the same about Vancouver in a few years.

Cheers,

Chris

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Seattle and Beer

Saturday, February 7th, 2009 | Beer | 1 Comment

I went to Seattle last weekend.  It was my friend’s stag – he likes beer – we drank beer, and then some whiskey.

We left Vancouver in the late morning and arrived in Mount Vernon for lunch at the Skagit River Brewery.  I fell in love with Skagit River Brewing from the minute I stepped out of my friend’s truck – the entire area surrounding the brewery smells like BBQ – not that fake propane BBQ smell, it was real smokey barbecue goodness.   I love BBQ and therefore love Skagit River Brewing.  I discovered this brewery a few months ago while on my way home from a weekend in Leavenworth – it smelled like BBQ then as well.  The beer was terrific, the pulled pork was beyond description and all was right in the world.  But good things cannot last forever and we were forced to move on in pursuit of more beer.

The Elysian Brewing Company in Seattle’s Capitol Hill region was our next stop .  My job was to navigate – I did not do a good job – Google Maps let me down – my friends laughed at me – we still found it.  Elysian Brewing is incredible; their beer is flavorful, creative and fun to drink.  Elysian Brewing is innovative while remaining true to beer’s four key ingredients: water, barley, hops and yeast.  I have no problem with adjuncts – they use them all the time in Belgium and I’m sure they use them at Elysian from time to time.  However, it is always impressive to see a brewer create a diverse selection of unique tasting beer without relying heavily on novelty ingredients such as coffee or pumpkin.  If you ever happen to find yourself in Seattle, please stop at Elysian Brewing -  their round of tasters is a very welcoming discovery.

Gordon Biersch was our dinner stop and I cannot say any of us were impressed.   The beer was okay, the food was not great, the service was mediocre and the atmosphere was somewhat “stuffy”.  This brewery did not capture the creative spirit that the other two brewpubs had.  When I visit a brewpub I expect to find  unique tasting beer imparted by the brewmasters personal style and simple yet tasty food.  Their beer was not bad and they had a good selection of German lagers, but this is not a place I would recommend to a true beer lover.   But It was not all bad, we at least were able to have fun with the word Biersch – it is a fun  name to say, especially after a few drinks.

I had planned to visit the Pike Brewing Company to give their barley wine a try, but the evening had other plans for us.  After parading my friend around  Seattle in a tight fitting A.C. Slater style wrestling suit we ended up at a cowboy saloon and spent the rest of the night drinking bourbon whiskey until our throats became too hoarse carry on.

Beer is such a great way to send a good friend off into the world a marriage.

Cheers,

Erik

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