The Ballard breweries just keep coming. Will nothing stop them?! I can only hope that no, nothing will. For about two months Stoup Brewing was the newest Ballard brewery, but then another one opened. You’d think I’d move from Capitol Hill to Ballard in order to keep up with all the beer happenings there. It’s tempting, but it’s probably better for my health being a bike ride away. Anyway, the Stoup folks are pretty nice. Some scientist types and a fully-certified Cicerone. Since my first visit, I’ve been by a couple more times to gather enough experimental data before writing up my findings and conclusions.

Little beakers of beer at Stoup Brewing — Seattle, WA

Rob’s Picks
• mk Special Bitter – 4.8% – Bitter start to biscuit and caramel, then changes to bready finish with some citrus. Interesting.
• Citra IPA – 5.9% – Tropical fruit aroma and flavor. Big, juicy fruit flavors to a lingering finish.
• T2R Haymaker TIPA – 10.5% – Made for the Hop Mob Triple IPA Road Show. Fairly light in color. Boozy, piney aroma and flavor with a bready finish.
• Weissbier – 5% – Bavarian Hefeweizen. Spicy banana/clove aroma. Great balance of banana/clove and spicy flavors, with subtle bitterness and good bready finish.
• IPA – 7.5% – Good amount of citrus and floral hop flavor with caramel and biscuit malt balance. Nice lingering flavors and a medium amount of bitterness that blends back in fairly well.
• NW Red – 5.5% – Biscuit malt aroma and flavor with light balancing floral hops. Smooth but with a bit of a bitter bite at the end.
• Porter – 6.5% – Coffee and dark chocolate aroma and flavor. Pretty complex malts. Bit of spiciness on the tongue and very subtle floral hops. Fairly dry finish. A big but subtle beer.

The Rest
• Bike Rye’d Saison – 6.7% – Collaboration with Flying Bike Coop. Light, some funk, dry rye spiciness, bit of lemon, and subtle egginess. Some bitterness on finish.
• ISA – 5% – Citrus and floral aroma. More floral than citrus flavor, though. Light malt. Fair amount of lingering bitterness and a slight lemon zing at the end.

So yes, the data indicates that Stoup is a good addition to the Ballard brewery scene. Ongoing data collection will need to happen, however, to corroborate my findings. Will update as necessary.