Scuttlebutt: The new brewery

   The last time I posted anything about Scuttlebutt in Everett related to its brewing operation, they were in the old seafood building on Marine Drive.  When they moved the pub out by the marina, they put the brewing across town, in an industrial section between Everett Station and I-5.  Stopped by a few days ago and was impressed by the technology as well as the philosophy.
    As I walked toward the building, I saw Eric Noll, who had been one of my brewing mentors at Gallaghers-Where-You-Brew in Edmonds. Eric offered me a tour, an offer I of course could not refuse. First thing was the bottling line. Scuttlebutt does a lot of trade in 12-oz six-packs and 22-oz singles.  Their one machine can do both, switching back and forth.

Eric told me that Scuttlebutt is ramping up to ship to
some giganto distributor in New Jersey, who will put them in markets up and down the east coast.  They are looking at being registered in thirteen states in 2013.  These guys are running the bottling and labeling line full-tilt to fill those pallets.

All those Navy towns up and down the east coast: good marketing will give Scuttlebutt a niche, with its navy-themed labels like Homeport Blonde (one of my favorite blonde ales) and Gale Force IPA, and the fact that Everett has for years been the home port of at least one carrier, currently the Nimitz, and some smaller ships.

I wondered aloud if Scuttlebutt was going down the industrial-craft beer road.  This is not an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms.  We think of industrial beer in America in terms of the insipid flavors of Bud and Coors, which we, as consumers, demanded for the last half of the twentieth century. Yet, as Shock Top and Blue Moon demonstrate, the big brewers can make beers that taste better and have some character.  Should these be called "craft" beers? Certainly not "microbrews", the old term that seems to have been supplanted by craft beer now.  Micro connoted a brewery in a garage, and clearly some of our brewers best known for flavorful beers are way beyond that scale:  Redhook, Widmer Bros, in Portland, the Anchor Brewing plant I touned in San Francisco last summer.  I think Lisa Morrison may be on the right track in her Craft Beers of the Pacific Northwest when she contrasts the term with wine's terroir:  "But instead of being shaped by the soil's condition or mineral content, craft beer's terroir is influenced by the personalities of the brewers, the surrounding communities, and the particular culture that envelops each brewery."

The brewers at Scuttlebutt look as if they are ready to play around, experiment.  Eric. pictured here in front of a row of fermenters, pointed out a large whiskey cask to be used for aging some special brew.

The surrounding community, Everett, is solid blue-collar with the Navy and Boeing.  As to a particular culture at Scuttlebutt, I wish their public face, the pub, had more personality, but the sterile space on the marina has been crowded each time I have stopped by. The brewery projects an adventurous image, and I see Scuttlebutt as a craft brewer on the way up.
(Visited 12/21/12)

Fish sighted in Everett

Olympia's Fish Brewing Co. has a newish pub in Everett, across the street from the Comcast Arena with its ship masts making a landmark.

The pub opened about a year ago; there are plans to install brewing equipment here in the future. The bit of unique the Fish folk have come up with here is an international collection of empty 55-lb. malted barley bags hanging from the ceilings. Domestic malts are usually shipped by truck to brewers of all sizes, but the European malts cross the pond in these white canvas bags.  Fish uses them mostly in its Leavenworth series of German beers.

  Stopping by for just a short schooner, I passed on the Leavenworths and tried one of their seasonal brews in the Reel Ale series: the Monkfish Belgian Style Tripel Ale. I put in a link so others can see the label and admire what a singularly ugly fish this monkfish is.  The ale, though, is splendid--I would like to try it alongside Pike's Monk's Uncle Tripel, a personal favorite in that sweet&tart style.
(Visited 12/222/12)

The RAM moves north, to Marysville

    The RAM chain of breweries, with several locations in Pierce County and several others in W. Washington, and a handful in other states, has opened a new location in Marysville. The new spot looks like all the others I have seen, in a mall,  large restaurant area with huge screens for the sports bar trade, the same beers brewed in all locations.  The most distinctive feature in the new spot would be the Tulalip Casino across the asphalt.

The casino may be the first attempt at a new architectural style, "Las Vegas-Northwest,"  we can hope it doesn't start a trend.
I tried their Buttface Amber, a decent ale, and a bit of the 71 Pale (1971 being the year the firm opened its first restaurant.  Craft brewing would come along some years later.)
(Visited 12/1\5/12)

Skookum relocates within Arlington

    The bucolic setting of the Skookum Brewery in Arlington, log buildings behind horse pastures, posted here in August 2010, will now be just a memory for beer tourists. That location is still the home of Ron Walcher and Jackie Jenkins, and still the site where they brew.  But the tasting room has been moved several miles southeast, to a metal building by the Arlington Airport.

   Ron and Jackie had neighbors who never warmed to the idea of a brewpub at the end of their lane, to the extent of trying to get local government to shut them down.  This was another case of a home brewing operation going commercial out of a garage (or barn, in Ron's case) and eventually having to move to more commercial space. 
    For now, the handsome brewing apparatus is still back at the home place, but the pub is a spacious and friendly area with plenty of seating.  I confess, I always visited the old spot on sunny days and wondered how the clientele was faring on our more-than-occasional rainy times.  Now the tasting room is weather-proof.

The warehouse space is so roomy, in fact, that they have lined out a shuffleboard court in the back and you can sip to the sound of pucks sliding down the concrete.

    The beers were the popular favorites Ron has been making for several years now: His dark, bourbony Murder of Crows was my first choice, while D.B. enjoyed his Amber's Hot Friend. I had a sip of the Woody's Oak before carpet bombing my taste buds with the Crows:  it wasn't quite the tangy resin taste I remmbered from the last time.
(Visited 11/24/12)

Big E: big plans in Lynnwood

 

I stopped by Big E Ales, hard by I-5 where Mountlake Terrace fades into Lynnwood, a few miles north of Seattle.  The operation sits at the end of a little commercial strip, shared with a variety of small businesses. 

I got to chat a bit with founder Rick Ellersick, who took out a brewery license for his garage homebrewing setup fifteen years ago (1997), when it was not a common happening the way it is today.  Rick is proud that his kids are involved in the business, too, with one son doing most of the day to day brewing and others marketing, cooking, serving, etc.  The WA Beer Commission has posted Kendall Jones' piece on Big E in its brewery profiles series and a lot of the story can be found there.
The news, in late November, is that Big E is ready to join the canning ranks.  They have 40,000 empty 16-oz cans and a portable can filler that can be wheeled onto the brewery floor.  All they need is beer enough and time.  The 15-barrel brewing system and 30-barrel fermenters have been running full tilt just to keep up with demand in the pub and in the retail draft accounts. 
Big E makes ten regular beers and one seasonal: this season it has been Oompah, an Octoberfest special Rick was very proud of. "We used lager yeast and lagered it for two and a half months," he said. "Supposed to come out 8.5% abv; this year it ran a little over nine."  It was the popular favorite in voting at the Anacortes Beer Festival this fall.  He gave me a taste and the malty richness had that tongue-coating quality you have to love.
(Visited 11/20/12)

Nodding Head in Philly's downtown

    The day after the wedding I ventured into Philadelphia to check a previously unvisited brewpub in the downtown area: the Nodding Head.  This is a second-story job--literally.  Another restaurant is on the ground floor of this old building on Sansom St. and the brewery is up the stairs.

     The interior is done in dark wood booths and bar with the brewing apparatus in the back. The name either derives from or has inspired an impressive bobblehead collection, on display.

   The taphandles have the bobblehead look as well.

   Nodding Head was pouring a modest assortment this evening: the Grog in the foreground is a brown ale, the 700 level is a blonde ale, and the IPA was called Wet Chinook, which I ordered for the Washingtonian name.  It's styled a Double IPA at 8.5% but that seemed to refer to the dry hopping after the first batch of chinook hops went in the boil.  It had nice body but not the suck-a-lemon bitter that we occastionally run across here in the NW.  Then with mussels for dinner I had their Ich Bin Ein Berlinerer Weisse: they call this a sour wheat beer, not a hefeweizen.  It was tart but not quite like a sour ale.  Nice.
    My server said this brewpub has been going thirteen years, making it one of the older brewing pubs in the city.  A quiet, relaxing spot.  About three blocks on down 16th St., I finished the evening libations at the legendary Monk's Cafe.  West Belgium, they could call it for the lovers of all things flemish and fermented.  I had a Cazeau Tournay Black Stout--who knew the Belgians went in for such English things as a stout with coffee and chocolate tastes?  Not me until then.
(Visited 10/7/12)

Victory Brewing, Downington, PA: wedding brew

    About forty miles NW of Philadelphia, out the Main Line, the town of Downington has a good-sized (68,000 bbl last year) plant called Victory Brewing Co.  As the website says, Victory is in the process of opening a second brewery about thirty miles away, with plans to hit that 100,000 barrel mark.
   The younger daughter was married last weekend in an outdoor site a few miles from Downington. Dad offered to provide the beer for the wedding feast and Victory's pilsner seemed like a natural.  So the groom's father and I went and fetched the better part of one of those barrels (5/6, to be exact) from the brewery to the wedding. 
   My one picture of the front of the retail side didn't turn out, but I did get the T-shirt and a sticker.

  And the wedding was a beautiful and memorable affair. Just look at the radiant bride!

(Brewery visited 10/5/12; wedding 10/6)