The Spirit World

I just got back from a week long tour of Seattle and Tacoma area brewpubs. On the flight from New York to Seattle, I was thinking about the chapter in Ken Wells’s Travels with Barley about the Portland, Oregon beer scene. I was impressed with the numbers that Wells’s printed concerning the craft beer production and consumption in the greater Portland area and in Oregon in general. According to Wells, beer drinkers in Oregon choose a locally brewed craft beer almost as often as they reach for a megabrew. That might not sound surprising, but considering that nationally only about one out of 25 five drinkers choose craft brewed beer over a megabrew, Oregon is indeed extraordinary. Why? Ken Wells reports Fred Eckhardt’s explanation:

Eckhardt thinks beer’s complexities are what make it attractive to Portlanders and Oregonians in general, who perhaps lead the rest of the U.S. in beer knowledge. He credits this to the fact that most of the early beer writers like himself hailed from out West, where the craft beer revolution began, and where craft beer still probably gets more press exposure than in other regions. “An educated clientele is a big part of it, honestly…. Every time you get an article in the newspaper it helps. Look what the wine writers have done: they’ve educated people about wine. When the newspapers everywhere start paying as much attention to good beer as they do good wine, we’ll sell a lot more good beer everywhere.” [Wells p. 244]

Basically, the more people know about what’s available on the beer menu, the more they choose craft beer. To be honest, I was sitting on the airplane thinking about how I could get down to Portland for a few days, but once I landed at Sea-Tac International Airport I was greeted by a brewpub right in the airport. I decided that Seattle and Tacoma might have a buzzing beer culture too. And that’s exactly what I found.

During the following eight days I visited a dozen breweries and brewpubs in Seattle, Tacoma, and vicinity. I won’t run down the whole list, but if I was going to hand out a “Brewpub of the Week” award, I would have to give it to The Harmon Brewery and Restaurant in Tacoma.

Why the Harmon? Well, all the brewpubs and breweries I visited had good beer, but what I noticed was that most of them stuck with a fairly predictable basic menu of beers: a Blond or Light Beer, a Pale Ale, an India Pale Ale, a Porter, and a Stout. Most also had one seasonal offering such as a Hefeweizen (either Bavarian or American) or a Belgian Wit. One thing that was apparent from the Harmon’s beer menu was willingness of the brewer to experiment and to provide unusual beers like their Braveheart ale which was spiced with heather rather than hops. That light bodied, golden colored, aromatic and flavorful beer was vaguely smokey with a flavor that tasted of peat—not that I have ever eaten peat, but that’s what I think of when something tastes rich and earthy. I can’t say that I especially liked the Braveheart, but I could appreciate it and understand the accomplishment of the brewer. I’m glad I tried the Braveheart and now have that taste and aroma in my library of personal experience. I always look for something on the beer menu that will challenge me and my taste buds. The Braveheart did that.