The Spirit World

I mentioned last week that I left the comfortable confines of Long Island to venture into the Pacific Northwest, a region famed for its bold and hoppy beers. I covered a fair bit of territory on my eight day trip and sampled as much of the regional beers as I could. Whenever I travel I try to immerse myself in the local beer culture. I’ll give you some of my impressions of Washington breweries.

I started my exploration at the Powerhouse Brewery and Restaurant in Puyallup. This brewpub is located in a converted power station. It was smaller than I imagined it would be. What I had in mind before traveling there was something like the expansive Generator, a fictional Philadelphia restaurant in Jonathan Franzen’s novel The Corrections. Reality often doesn’t scale with fiction despite the degree of strangeness reality commands over fiction. But there was nothing small or strange about the beer at the Powerhouse.

It was a hot day, so I elected to sit outside on the patio. This choice influenced my selection of beer. I wanted something that would be drinkable and that would cool me off, so I opted to start with the Hefeweizen.

When I sat down, the sun was obscured by clouds, but by the time the beer arrived at my table I was sitting in full sun without the benefit of an umbrella. I wasn’t so worried about my fair-complected self as I was my poor beer which was suffering the abuse of a full-on UV assault. Within minutes I was drinking a glass of banana flavored skunk juice. At first I was a little put out with myself for choosing to sit in the sun and a little annoyed that the brewpub didn’t have an adequate supply of patio umbrellas, but then I remembered something that Charlie Papazian wrote in one of his books. He wrote how much he enjoyed drinking skunked beer because it reminded him of sitting out on a particular ridge with a spectacular view of the Rockies. Drinking beer in that spot in full daylight meant the beer would be a bit skunky, so he got used to it. Now just a whiff of skunk will remind him of those contemplative and quiet afternoons on that ridge.

I’m not sure that I’ll have an equally romantic association with skunked Hefeweizen after my experience at the Powerhouse, but thinking about Charlie’s perspective made me realize that enjoying a beer in the sun requires a little sacrifice for the privilege.