Beer Travels: Seattle Part 2

Part 1 of the Seattle trip ended at the Pike Brewing Company, located just off the Pike Public Market in downtown Seattle... 

From there, Jay and I took off on foot south towards the stadiums on the edge of downtown, heading for the Pyramid Alehouse.  Pyramid is a regional brewery, with 5 locations on the West coast, and the Seattle location is the original.  It's location is perfect for sports fans, right across the street from Safeco Field (which I checked out in Part 1 of this trip) and only a few blocks from Qwest field, where the Seahawks and Sounders play.  

Jay had set up a meeting with Meech Crowley, in marketing with Pyramid, so while we waited on her, it was time for a sampler platter of beers!  The deal was, you get to choose 5 of the beers on tap, and that was no easy task.  I went with the Audacious Apricot Ale, Curve Ball Blonde Ale, Thunderhead IPA, Draught Pale Ale, and a special Dark IPA they had on tap.  The Audacious Apricot Ale really stood out at first, a delicious fruit beer which is a hard balance to obtain.  The Curve Ball Blonde Ale is a great lighter summer beer to beat the heat, and it sure was hot on this trip!  I enjoyed the Thunderhead IPA, although I feel it was toned down a little for the baseball crowd as opposed to a real beer geek's IPA.  The Draught Pale Ale was another solid beer, exclusive to the Alehouse and a nice balance of malt and hops.  I was probably most excited about the Dark IPA, not even featured on the beer menu but on tap for a limited time.

After the samplers, an appetizer and an interesting discussion with Meech followed, about the history of Pyramid and their goals as a brewery.  It's always good to get the insider perspective!  Then... it was time for some food and some more drinks.  The sampler was a nice warm-up but I'm pretty sure that between Jay and I we went through the entire lineup by the end of the evening.  One of my favorites was the seasonal Grifter IPA, one Jay had sampled and enjoyed.  It's a stronger IPA than the Thunderhead, good kick and quite delicious.  As Jay noted, they were short on dark beers during our visit, with no stouts or porters, but a quick look shows that it was probably a seasonal thing, which makes sense for the hotter summer months.  All in all a fantastic visit, and one of my favorite hangouts in Seattle.

From there it was off to catch the train back downtown to visit Quinn's Pub.  The baseball crowd was filling in and as we were headed to the station... oh look it's AJ Burnett!  

After a quick ride on the train and a quick hop in a cab, we were at Quinn's Pub, the final stop of the night before we family obligations came calling and we headed to the pre-wedding festivities. 

Quinn's is more of a 'gastropub' than a traditional pub, with an equal focus (if not greater) on the cuisine than the beer.  And the beer selection was fantastic in both quantity and quality, so you can imagine the food was top notch!   The first beer selection was a Dick's Grand Cru, a belgian-style ale from Dick's Brewing Company in Centralia, WA.  A fantastic was to start this stop of our Seattle tour.   Regan Vaugn, the manager of Quinn's, met with us to discuss the food and beer and left a great impression of the place.  After some of the delicious food that Jay will cover in detail we finished off the stop with a Manny's Pale Ale from Georgetown Brewing and an Odin's Gift Ruby Red from Odin Brewing Company.  Both breweries are local to Seattle and did not disappoint in the least.  

It was a fantastic was to finish off our day's tour and taste some more of what Seattle has to offer.  The only real complaint is that we didn't have more time to spend in the city!  We had several other recommendations that we weren't able to see, including the Tap House Grill, Rock Bottom Brewery,  Hale's Ales Brewpub, and the Brouwer's Cafe.  Maybe next time... because there WILL be a next time.

Beer Travels: Seattle Part 1

One of the best things about out of town weddings, is turning the trip into more than just a one-stop hop across the country.  Earlier this month my cousin Erin was getting married in Seattle (congrats!) so what a great opportunity for Jay (of the popular biteandbooze.com) and I to get out there a few days early and take in some of Seattle's great beer scene.  I had been to Seattle last October for the LSU - Washington game, but there were a few new places to see, and some new places we weren't able to make it to.  In fact, the title image on this blog is from a place called the Taphouse Grill in downtown Seattle.  It's a fantastic upscale beer bar with an enormous draft selection, but it wasn't on the agenda for this trip.  Hey, check it out, Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Adams on the flight in!

Just like the last time, no trip would be complete without a baseball game... so I caught the Yankees / Mariners game the Thursday night I arrived... unfortunately Jay wasn't able to get on the flights he wanted to it was just me for this one.  One good thing about Safeco field, is that you can get a few of the Pyramid brews on tap!  Sure, you're going to pay ballpark prices, but at least it's ballpark prices for a local brew instead of a Budweiser, right?  More to come on Pyramid later in part 2...

Friday left Jay and I with a full afternoon of beer drinking to do before the pre-wedding BBQ at our Aunt & Uncle's house in North Seattle... and our original intention was to go visit Salumi, a fantastic artisan meat lunch spot that Eusebio and I had checked out on the previous year's trip.  Unfortuantely they were closed for the week, so we decided to go see what was up at the Pike Place Public Market.

Okay, so the market itself is a bit of a tourist trap, unless you're looking for some fresh fish or veggies, which wasn't the case for us.  Fortunately, right around the corner was the Pike Brewing Company, an appealing brewpub (in this case) located in the lower level of one of the shopping buildings around the market.  We both figured the best bet would be to start with the 6-beer sampler, which included the Naughty Nellie golden ale, Pale amber ale, IPA, Kilt Lifter scotch ale, Tandem double ale, and XXXXX extra stout.  In my opinion it was a nice variety of above-average beers.  None of them blew me away, but I'd have had no problems drinking my way through pints instead of samplers either!  I especially like the Kilt Lifter scotch ale and the XXXXX extra stout, and the Tandem double ale had a very nice Belgian feel to it.

After the sampler was done with, and we had a nice appetizer plate that Jay will describe in detail over at Bite and Booze, I finished off the trip to the Pike Brewing Company with a Monk's Uncle tripel ale, which is one of my favorite beer styles.  The menu declared "Find a better tipple of tripel and we'll all be a Monk's Uncle." and I can't say it quite compared with the best that Belgium has to offer, but for a local American version, it was pretty outstanding.  A great blend of malt and spice with characteristic fruit and floral flavors.  Definitely another I'd try again and a great way to finish off the stop at the Pike.

From there we headed south across downtown to the Pyramid Brewery with a belly full of beer and a thirst for more... but that will have to wait for part 2...