Monday, July 10, 2017

Des Voignes: a new twist in Woodinville

   He Said Beer, She Said Wine: a really fun book by Sam Calagione (yes, the Dogfish Head founder) and Marnie Old, a top wine sommelier in Philadelphia. riffs on badinage and pairings, like "what could you possibly uncork, Marnie, for a pepperoni/feta/black olive pizza that would go half as well as my 90-minute IPA?"  And she has lots of put-downs, too.
   I was reminded of this cross-cultural mix when I went into the Des VoigneCellars and Brewery in Woodinville recently.  The wine culture is, let's face it, striving for a retail shopping experience a la Nordstrom, with elegant tasting rooms in buildings Louis XIV would have been at home in. While the prevalent mode of a craft beer startup is a metal building in an industrial business park (or in Snohomish Co., a garage).  So when a winery, around for eleven years, decides to jump the culture gap and make some beer, it's news.
  This is the opening scene going into Des Voigne, tasteful furniture and art. Turn right for wine, straight ahead for beer. The Des Voignes, Darren and Melissa, started making upscale wines eleven years ago.  Darren studied winemaking at UC Davis and handles that side, but they hired brewer Bob Thorpe when they began making beer a couple of years ago.
   The culture cross carries over into our flexible beverage of choice.  My pint was a Fusion Barrel Aged Red Ale, 6.2% abv and 23 IBU, aged in barrels that previously held Des Voigne Cabernet Franc (a great wine, usually blended).  Hopped with Fuggles and Golding, you know it's beer but that sweet grape note lingers on the tongue.
  The seven-barrel system, presented here by Anna, a bartender from Bellingham, is modern and busy.  The plant is in a business park, typical for newer Woodinville wineries given the pricey real estate there.








(Visited 07/01/17)

Sunday, July 2, 2017

River Time passes muster in Darrington

The small, extremely scenic town of Darringon, Washington won't draw many tourists on their way to somewhere else. State Route 530, rebuilt after the tragic landslide in 2014, may lop a few miles off a journey coming up from Seattle to the North Cascades National Park, but that's just a summer route.  The first effort to brew beer in the old city hall, by the Whiskey Ridge Brewing Co., couldn't sell enough the rest of the year to justify staying open, and they eventually moved to Arlington.
But brewing has returned to Darringon, as the River Time Brewing Co..
A couple of guys down in the Seattle area, Lon and Troy, loved hanging out on the nearby Sauk River, and got to know Neil, a guide who has built his home on said river.  Lon and Troy came up with the idea of starting a little brewery here with Neil to handle the brewing.  And when he is doing that, Kristin is behind the bar pulling pints.
The backers found  a nice 3-barrel system, so River Time misses out on the nano category.  They have a 7-barrel fermenter for the times Neil feels like double-batching.



The most popular style here, as it is most places,. is the IPA, so that is likely to go in the bigger fermenter (there is a 3-barrel tank for that function, too).   I chose a Scotch Ale for my pint, 6% abv and malty all the way, a rich mouthfeel.
Summer having shown up nicely, it was not a day for stouts or porters, but Neil gave me a little sample of each. His stout, in the drier Irish style, had a spicier aroma but the porter won the battle of the taste buds. Neil gave some of the credit for the porter's flavor to Liberty hops, which he described as way underrated.



 Did I start out saying Darrington was kind of scenic, even by Washington standards?  Look out the front door of the pub and you see Whitehorse Mountain, the most jagged of several peaks that surround the town.














(Visited 06/22/17)