Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Way out in Westport at a brewery

    Most of Washington's salt-water shoreline lies along the hundreds of pieces of Puget Sound; just a couple hundred miles face the open Pacific where the next landfall is Japan.  Only one town in this rainy, stormy coast has its own brewery at this time: Westport.  In a yellow cottage in the town, behind a yard full of flowers in the summer, lives a lady, Robin Duus, who brews beer in what was once the garage.
Terry Helland, Jr. is the brewmaster at Westport Brewing, the guy who watches the wort, but Robin seems very much the hands-on owner.  She poured me a row of tasters to show her mainstay beers.  The names highlight the local geography: Shoalwater Stout, Plank Island (an old nickname for Aberdeen) Porter, Dungeness Dark (a Cascadian Dark Ale), Sailor's Dellight Amber, and Wetsuit Wheat. A wetsuit is standard garb for surfers out here--the Pacific is cold, cold water even in mid-August.
     The site mentions a series of cranberry-flavored ales (Ocean Spray has a big plant just outside the town and cranberry bogs must be nearby), but none of those were on this day.  I particularly liked the CDA, the Dungeness Dark, and the Sailor's Delight amber.  Notes on the latter talk about a "biscuity" flavor and once pointed out, I could taste that.  5.25% abv, 30 IBUs.
    The current system is rated at three barrels capacity, but Robin says a fifteen-barrel kettle is on order and will be running next spring.  She is also considering opening a second taproom, perhaps in Olympia.  Another craft brewery with bright prospects--good to see.
(Visited 8/15/13)

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