Alphabetical list of Wash. stops in 2010

Brewery                                                                        Month
Anacortes Brew. Co.                                                      12
Baron-Three Skulls                                                         12
Big Al's                                                                           9
Big E                                                                              9
Big Time                                                                        12
Black Raven                                                                    9
Birdsview                                                                        6
Chuckanut                                                                     11
Diamond Knot                                                                 9
Dick's                                                                              8
Engine House No. 9                                                         9
Everybody's Brewing                                                      10
Flyers                                                                            12                                                                  
Foggy Noggin                                                                  9
Frank-n-Stein                                                                 11
Fremont                                                                           9
Gallagher's                                                                      8
Georgetown                                                                     8
Gordon Biersch                                                              11
Grove St.                                                                       12
Hale's                                                                            12
Harmon's                                                                        9
Hazel Dell                                                                     10
Hood Canal                                                                    8
La-Z Boy                                                                       8
La Conner Brewing                                                          9
Laht Neppur                                                                  11
Laurelwood                                                                   11
Mac & Jack's                                                                 8
McMenamins-Dad Watsons                                           9
McMenamins-Olympic Club                                           7
McMenamins-Queen Anne                                            10
McMenamins-Vancouver                                               11
Naked City                                                                     9
North Fork                                                                     6
North Sound                                                                  10
Peaks                                                                             9
Pike                                                                              11
Pyramid                                                                          9
RAM-Northgate                                                            11
Redhook                                                                         9
Rock Bottom-Seattle                                                     11
Roslyn Brewing                                                             10
Schooner Exact                                                             11
Scuttlebutt                                                                      9
Silver City                                                                      9
Skookum                                                                       8
Snoqualmie Falls                                                           10
Whitstran                                                                       9

Anacortes Brewing Co.

  Oversight!  I've been in the Rockfish Grill, the pub name of Anacortes Brewing Co., several times this year and not yet posted a comment. This place sits on a busy corner in downtown Anacortes and is usually busy inside, too.

This is a lively music scene, too, with regional blues groups making the Rockfish a tour stop and local rock bands also playing here. They have many great looking labels, only on tap handles and t shirts as they don't bottle at this time. I have to root for Mai o Maibock, showing a microphone in front of a baseball diamond.  This honors the late Dave Niehaus, who broadcast the Mariners from the team's inception until he passed away this year, but not before he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
  (Visited 10/09/10)

Shelton's excellent brewpub

   The Grove Street Brewhouse was a stop last June, with notes that want to be blogged before the year ends. Shelton is a logging town with plenty of clean Hood Canal water to sustain shellfish operations by Taylor Shellfish and other companies. The Hama Hama oysters are a south Sound specialty that appear on one of Grove Street's unique pizzas, the Hama-hama Hammer. I enjoyed one last June with a pint of Brewhouse Hefe.  Some of the brew names are eye-catching:  IPACOLYPS and G.S.B. E.S.B.
   The brewpub occupies a building that was built in 1927 and was a Pontiac dealership for many years. They have a few old photographs in the back, although most of the wall space displays local artists and photographers.  Just thinking about the Pontiac brand, no longer with us, brought back memories of the G.T.O., considered by many the first true muscle car back in 1964.  I wonder if Grove Street could draw in fans of this classic by collecting and displaying some memorabilia, hubcaps, hood ornaments, etc. of the GTO and other great Pontiac brands.
  (Visited 6/10/10)

Baron Three Skulls

   No, that tag is not about some voodoo rival to Baron Samedi.  Its about the evolution of a brand name.  The outfit that started out as Baron Brewing Company, a production brewery in South Seattle, with a decidedly teutonic theme, subsequently opened a pub up on Greenwood Ave., in the same block as Naked City. They called this spot Pillagers Pub, and started working up a pirate theme.

  It seems the pirate theme caught on a lot better than the rotund German baron.  We have had pirates roving the seas all over the world, from the Vikings in the North Sea way back when to the Somali pirates off the horn of Africa today.  But to us English speakers, the English speaking pirates of the Caribbean who preyed on Spanish treasure ships in the 17th and 18th centuries are the real deal. Just ask Disney. And what instantly recognizable symbol did Capt. Kidd, Long John Silver, J. Depp,and all those other guys have?  The skull and crossbones, of course!
   Unlike Skagit River in Mt, Vernon and Iron Horse in Ellensburg, who just put the skull and crossbones on their knock-you-back IPAs,  Baron Three Skulls puts the cheery symbol on all the ales they make under the Three Skulls name. They tell me the baron will be retired one day soon, pensioned off to some Bavarian village, no doubt, and the only brand made here will be branded Three Skulls. At the Winter BeerFest, they were the only brewer with a slash in their name>Baron/Three Skulls.
(Visited 12/10/10)

Taking a Flyer on Oak Harbor

  While Scuttlebutt pays tribute to the sailor and ships of the U.S. Navy that call Everett their homeport, our navy is also up in the air, at the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, and Flyers Restaurant and Brewery pays tribute to naval aviators.  Well, to military aviators in general, past and present.  They celebrate the whir of a propeller on their nifty website and with their seasonal Proptober.  Aircraft old and new decorate the walls and ceilings of this cozy pub in Oak Harbor.

  The jets that the Navy flies now don't show up much in the decor.  One could say the Afterburner IPA takes its name from a key feature on the modern jet fighter. By the way, Flyers just started bottling Afterburner and Pacemaker Porter in 22-oz. bottles, within the past couple of months. For the startup, they are using the bottling gear at Skagit River Brewing in Mount Vernon.  The label on the Afterburner I brought home is pretty neat.  It also carries the note that brewing and bottling was done at Skagit R. for Flyers.  That may be a collectible if Flyers develops their own bottling capacity.

The food is pretty good here, too.  I had a tasty buffalo burger with a cup of brown ale soup and a pint of the Daybreak Breakfast Stout I had admired at the Winter Brewfest last week.
(Visited 12/13/10)

Big Time by UW

  The Big Time Brewery and Alehouse sits right in the heart of the university district, in the middle of a block full of college student type stores.

When I popped in, before the Winter Brewfest, I saw a nice selection of taps, including 4 (FOUR) different IPAs:  Scarlet Fire, Bhagwan's Best, Perspective, and Random Thought Generator Rye IPA. My server elucidated the subtle differences, but I can't imagine anyone with the taste buds to compare all four in a single session.  Any one of these well-hopped ales stomps my taster like the other NFL teams have been stomping the Seahawks lately.
  The kitchen stays busy whipping up pub fare food.  In the back one of the brewers came out and confirmed what their website says, that when they opened in 1988 they were the first brewpub in Seattle.  Not craft brewery, but brewpub, with on premises sales and food. So that's another milestone to note in retracting the history of modern craft brewing in Washington.

(Visited 12/10/12)

Hale's and hearty; what a party!

  Hale's Ales, strategically located between the Ballard and Fremont neighborhoods (two of Seattle's hippest) has been brewing the right stuff in one Washington location or another since 1983.  That's old enough to mark it as a genuine pioneer. They like to feature other brewers' wares alongside their own.  One such event is to offer five little flights of the same type of beer, e.g., five IPAs or five ambers, their own and four from other west coast brewers.

Founder Mike Hale caught the brewing bug in England in 1982.  He remains staunchly pro-British in brewing philosophy and even drops a hint or two in the decor of the premises.

A portion of the space downstairs is called the Palladium, usually a venue for music events.  The past weekend it was given over to the Washington Beer Commission's winter beer festival.  Most of the brewers west of the mountains were there, 35 in all, each with their most interesting winter ales.  And yes, it was wall to wall beer enthusiasts, knocking back five ounce tasters.

There is no way anyone could have sampled one of everything.  Some personal favorites I did try: Fremont's Bbomb Abominable Ale, conditioned in bourbon casks.  Flyers' Daybreak Breakfast Stout, with oatmeal and coffee flavors. Naked City's French Dude, their Big Lebrewski aged in wine barrels.  Two Beers' 20-20 Blonde, infused with rose petals, currants, elderberries, and just the right hint of lavender.

(Visited most recently: 12/10/10)