7 Seas: New Digs in Gig Harbor

    The last time I saw 7 Seas Brewing, they were on a hilltop several miles from the town's waterfront heart.  Last December they moved the brewing, the taproom, the whole works down to where the action is.  Maybe a block or two from the water, at the end of a little strip mall they share with an Ace Hardware, a florist, a teriyaki place, and a couple others.

The mainstay brews are the same: primarily British styles, Rude Parrot IPA, British Pale Ale, Cutts NW Amber, and the well-known Ballz Deep Double IPA.  Only the Pale and the Ballz are marketed in 16-oz cans; the others leave the premises by keg or growler.
I tried the Port Royal Export Stout with some take-out teriyaki; the variety of tastes suggested on the website's description are indeed there.  6.8% abv and a subtle 40 IBUs.
The equipment is fully visible from the taproom.

I looked for but did not see a canning line.  7 Seas is, after all, the first Washington brewer to embrace the aluminum can.  The old canning machine is still around but little used now, I was told; a mobile canner comes up from Portland every couple of weeks and cans a ton of Pale and Ballz.
Up on the hill, owners Travis Guterson and Mike Runion were brewing in an eight and a half barrel system. It came here but sits in the shadow of a new twenty-barrel system.

Great to see another craft brewer growing sales and prospering enough to be expanding.
(Visited 8/14/13)