Pheeel's Seattle Brewery Tour

[Pheeel]

I lived in Seattle for 10 years and have been a back a number of times in the 1 1/2 years since we moved.
While I was there I lucky to live in Seattle proper (rather than the burbs). The last place I lived was a neighbourhood called Ballard. It is brewery heaven. I used to be walking (stumbling) distance of at least 10 breweries! Seattle doesn't have the rep of brewing that Portland has but there are so many great breweries there. They ALL have taprooms which is one of the things I miss in Ireland

I made a business trip to Seattle last month and as I often do I do a tour of the local breweries so one afternoon in February I dragged a few friends around some of my old haunts and figured I'd document it

Reuben's Brews
http://www.reubensbrews.com/
Reuben's is regarded as one of the top up and coming breweries on the west coast. Connection with Ireland is that the owner knows Rick from Kinnegar!! It used to be a much smaller brewery but has recently moved into new digs. The Taproom is still not massive but they have a lot more capacity to produce



The beers here are fantastic and eclectic! They have sours, lagers, Belgian, IPA's and there are some barrels aging in the corner (not in the picture)

Just look at the selection on tap...


If I remember correctly I went for their Crikey IPA and a Marzen. Both delicious

Lucky Envelope
http://www.luckyenvelopebrewing.com/
This was a new one on me. Never heard of it before but it was less than 5 minutes from Reuben's. The taproom didn't have as nice a vibe as the last one but the beer was decent enough


I'm struggling to remember what I had here but I think it was a Schwarzbier and maybe a Helles. Both pretty tasty

Populuxe
http://populuxebrewing.com/
This was one of the newer breweries before I left. It is micro and I mean small. I couldn't tell the size of the system but I'd say it's no more than 600L. The place was jammed!


The Bitter was delicious. Served slightly colder than cellar temp but you could taste the malt. The CDA (Cascade Dark Ale) though was a revelation. People use CDA and Black IPA interchangeably but it was unlike an Black IPA I'd ever had. Almost a brown ale tinge to it. Amazing beer

Shiny!!


We ended the night going for a burger and ending up at some regular bars but despite all I'd had to drink felt great the next day...

The next day we started again but only two breweries this time!

Schooner Exact
I'd never heard of this place before but apparently it had been around for donkey's years. We went there because a friend said it had the best IPA in town. The brewery was in the arse end of nowhere but with the best IPA in town I had to try it out.

Frankly disappointed with the IPA. Very little aroma and little flavour



Again out of shot it had some beers barrel aging in the corner...
I followed up with a Schwarzbier which was thankfully a lot better!

I love the decoration outside


Ghostfish
http://ghostfishbrewing.com/
Ghostfish is a rare beast. It's a 100% gluten free brewery. My friend's wife is celiac and has a severe reaction to Gluten so I said we'd go along

Most of their beers are surprisingly good. The one negative is that there is definite body lacking in most of them but the flavour is not far off

We started with a sampler


Brown - Wow, this tasted just like an English brown ale. Delicious
Stout - Another surprise, really great. I'd say it's closer to a porter in taste but I could drink this all day long
Grapefruit IPA - I don't like grapefruit. What was I thinking?
IIPA - If I recall this came in at 9.5%. It really didn't taste that strong. Dangerous stuff!

We started playing Cards Against Humanity so more pints came along. That IIPA creeps up on you!

They seem to rotate their specials and are produced in smaller batches than their regular beers. You can see the full list here


Well that's it. You made it this far so well done

[Simon_]

Well on by this point or being ejected?

[Pheeel]

Before my first beer. Must have been the jitters from the previous night