An auspicious confluence of events occurred on November 8, 2014. Two old friends of mine came into town, in part to visit another old friend’s relatively new food truck, which happened to be at the Grand Opening celebration for Blue Lightning Brew. It was all very convenient. Old friends, a sampler flight from a new brewery, and some grilled cheese sandwiches from The Ultimate Melt. Pretty awesome. Blue Lightning is an interesting spot. They’re in the same warehouse space with a winery, but their equipment is separate and distinct down in the open area below the shared taproom.

Samplers on the scenic parking lot table at Blue Lightning — Woodinville, WA

Rob’s Picks
• Papa Gay Gay IPA – 6.9% – Big tropical fruit blast, as well as some earthy hops. Caramel malt support and good lingering flavors.
• Double Ott Stout – 6.8% – Big roasty aroma and flavor. Light coffee/chocolate and brown sugar sweetness, with some dark chocolate bitterness.
• IPA Ratticus – 6.5% – Big tropical fruit aroma and flavor. Underlying caramel. Light piney and earthy hops, too, with good lingering flavors.
• Just the Tip ISA – 4.7% – Light but still has a good mouthfeel. Floral, earthy, and herbal hop flavors with light breadiness.

The Rest
• Horny Blonde – 4.5% – Sweet bubblegum start to bready finish, with some light honey sweetness. Some herbal and spicy hops, as well.
• BP-A – 6.7% – Pale Ale. Biscuity, bready, and some honey, with floral hops.
• Hopped Scottish – 7.2% – I think this is now called “Scotchie Scotchie Scotch” or “Scotchie Scotch Scotch” or some other silly repetitive thing. Anyway. Big biscuit, caramel, and bready malts. Some floral, herbal, and earthy hops. Underlying smokiness. (The grain is home-smoked in a BBQ rig with apple wood.)
• Oktoberfest – 5.7% – Light, crisp, with lots of malt flavor – caramel, graham cracker, light toffee. Light floral and herbal hops with some bitter zing on the finish.

Blue Lightning is a few doors down from Dirty Bucket and almost across the street from Triplehorn. Seems like Woodinville has its own confluence going on these days.

Yeah, I’m finally writing a post on Redhook Brewery, the grandaddy of the Seattle craft beer scene. I visited the Forecasters Pub once when they were still in Fremont, back when I was starting to learn that beer came in more forms than just fizzy yellow water. In the ’90s, pretty much every bar I went to had Redhook ESB on tap, but then they went national with the help of Anheuser-Busch, and at some point in the 2000s it seemed like they got crowded out by all the shiny new microbreweries that were opening. The three beer bars I frequent the most these days have never served anything by Redhook, as far as I know. Some people have written them off, but they still make some good smaller batch stuff like the Double Stout with Caffe Vita coffee (I hope they make that again) and their collaboration hemp beer with Hilliard’s, and they have so much production capacity that Oregon’s Laurelwood Brewing is using their facility to expand into the Washington market, and their lavishly remodeled Forecasters Pub is very conveniently located along the Sammamish River Trail (even though it’s usually ridiculously busy). So I still think of them as a force for good in the craft beer world, even though I don’t drink much of their beer anymore.

Sampler tray at Redhook’s remodeled Forecasters Pub — Woodinville, WA

Rob’s Picks
• Cross Czech Pils – 5.3% – Light, crisp, refreshing, with a nice little herbal hop edge. Goes right down.
• ESB – 5.8% – Some caramel malt, some herbal and floral hops – good balance. Can’t remember the last time I ordered a Redhook ESB, but it’s a decent beer.
• Long Hammer IPA – 6.5% – Grapefruit/citrus aroma and flavors. Light maltiness. Just enough bitterness. Miss the Ballard Bitter name.
• Blackhook Porter – 5.2% – Coffee aroma. Fairly light on the tongue. Nice coffee/dark chocolate flavors, with toasty/roasty maltiness and good lingering flavors.
• ECS No Equal Amber Lager – 5.2% – Crisp, light banana/clove, some caramel sweetness, with a bit of bitterness on the finish. Interesting sportsball beer.
• Big Ballard Imperial IPA – 8.6% – Similar aroma to Long Hammer, but everything’s amp’ed up. Extra hop bite, fairly intense maltiness, but very well-balanced.
• Joint Effort – 5.6% – Collaboration with Hilliard’s Beer. Made with hemp seeds, and lots of marijuana jokes. Bit of malty, earthy aroma. Sweet but edgy start. Good malt character – caramel, slight toast. Light herbal hops with good bitterness. Underlying funky vegetal/earthy flavor from the hemp seeds.

The Rest
• Wise Cracker Wit – 5.3% – Slight banana/clove aroma, but more pronounced in flavor. Lightly bready, with a slight lemony twist, and that’s about it.
• Audible Ale – 4.7% – Floral aroma. Light floral hop flavor with light toasty maltiness. Light and easy.

As you can see, I don’t hate their beer. It’s just, well, I don’t know. They’re just not as flashy or exciting as a lot of the newer breweries, although they did create some “buzz” with their Joint Effort. (See? The marijuana jokes are so easy to make.) I hope they build on that and continue to put out interesting new smaller batch beers.

The last stop on my Woodinville-area brewery bike ride was the very new Triplehorn Brewing. They are just up the road from Dirty Bucket, where I made a quick stop beforehand, and as you leave, helpful sandwich boards guide you to next brewery. Jim Jamison from Foggy Noggin was there, saying hello to his new neighbors. I sat down at the bar and ordered a sampler, thinking I should hurry in order to bike back home before it got too dark, but started chatting with folks and then did a little tour of their brewing set up.  Pretty friendly vibe at this nicely built-out warehouse space. I have to say, over the past couple years it’s been interesting to see the different ways new breweries have been starting up: from part-time nanos growing slowly to going-all-in large production micros. Triplehorn’s definitely in the latter end of the spectrum — cheers to them.

Tasters at Triplehorn Brewing — Woodinville, WA

Rob’s Picks
• Bitfrost Pale Ale – 5% – Floral aroma and flavor. Solid maltiness with caramel notes. Light lingering bitterness.
• Landwink IPA – 5.9% – Fairly strong citrus aroma and flavor. Good malty base. Great bitterness.
• Folkvang Irish Red – 5.8% – Solid caramel malty base, with nice sweetness and lingering bitterness.

The Rest
• Falcon Cloak Blonde – 6.3% – Floral aroma. Some breadiness, some bitterness, some honey sweetness. Pretty interesting.
• Freya’s Wit – 4.7% – Apricot wheat ale. Strong apricot flavor to light bready finish, with some subtle bitterness. Bit too sweet for me, though.

I tend to be a bit of an optimist with my bike rides. Leave home at 1pm, leisurely visit four breweries, and be home before nightfall? No problem! At least I was smart enough to bring my biking lights and an extra layer or two. Next time I bike out to Woodinville I’ll be sure to leave earlier. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

I’ve visited Brickyard Brewing twice so far.  First time was the second stop on my Woodinville-area brewery bike trip, just a short, downhill ride from Foggy Noggin. Next visit was about six weeks later, on their official grand opening. Brickyard is a two-man outfit, and the one who was there both times recognized me when I showed up for the opening party. Pretty cool. I guess arriving on a bicycle and spending up to an hour scribbling down mysterious tasting notes can you make you somewhat memorable.

Samplers at Brickyard Brewing — Woodinville, WA

Rob’s Picks
• Stones Throw Pale Ale – 5.8% – Really smooth start. Fairly malty with a touch of caramel, and light balancing bitterness.
• Brickyard IPA – 7.3% – Great mix of flavors — bit of a sweet start, good malty backbone, to floral hoppiness. Awesome balance.
• Masonry Oatmeal Stout – 7.1% – Good chewy chocolatey stout with subtle coffee flavors and slight alcohol edge.
• Blonde – 4.9% – Nice honey flavor, slightly bready, with some caramel, too. Very smooth. Banana/clove flavor mixed in — pretty cool. They normally call this their “Concrete Blonde” but apparently it’s not supposed to have the banana/clove flavor, so it may not be there next time. Maybe I should refer to this batch as the “Bavarian Blonde.”
• Pumpkin Ale – 5.2% – Good balance of pumpkin, caramel maltiness, and bitterness. Not particularly sweet, which is nice. Tried this one on my second visit — you can the soon-to-be-drinkable pumpkins in the background of the picture I took on my first visit, above.

During the grand opening, they handed out samples of their ice cream stout float, with ice cream from a local creamery. It was pretty darn tasty, and I hoped the amount of ice cream was small enough not to trigger too many uncomfortable lactose intolerant side effects. Not much else food-wise, but they do serve free popcorn, freshly popped from one of those old-time movie theater-style poppers. (Lazy Boy has one of those, too.) They also sell logo glasses and growlers, as well as refurbished PCs, although I forgot to see if those sported the Brickyard logo. So, you can satisfy all your beer and IT needs in one go. Very convenient.

I’d been waiting on two things before visiting this new brewery in Woodinville: construction work on the Burke-Gilman bike trail to finish, and then a sunny day. All the repair work wrapped up in February, and finally the rain let up for a few days in early March. Ended up biking out there on the less warm day, but it was good to be on the bike, and the re-done section of the B-G was pretty awesome. Made me excited to arrive at Twelve Bar Brews. It’s located in a nondescript warehouse, but you walk in and the taps are right in front of you. Plus there’s a cool (but broken) electric bass on the wall (soon there may be more non-functional instruments). They had three of their four beers on tap, which wasn’t ideal, but oh well. The tasting lasted ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and then we were back on our bikes, pedaling home to Seattle. Made the Portland tastings seem pretty leisurely in comparison.

I wanted to try their IPA before writing up this post, and about a week later I found it on tap at a convenience store in Greenwood, at the soon-to-be-named Chuck’s Hop Shop. They’re the latest in the convenience store cum alehouse craze that’s sweeping Seattle.

Samplers at the Twelve Bar Brews tasting room — Woodinville, WA

Rob’s Picks
• Pentatonic Pale Ale – Very light in color. Crisp and dry. Good strong hoppiness, maltiness not too strong. Good lingering hoppy flavor.
• Turnaround Red – 5.7% – Really smooth and good strong maltiness. Six different hops used (four during the dry hopping), but the maltiness just soaks up all the hops. Goes right down.
• Supertonic India Black Ale – Nice dark color. Great balance of roasty maltiness and hoppiness. Really drinkable.

The Rest
• Wicked Riff IPA – 6.9% – Strong bitter and citrus flavors. Subtle bready base. Long lingering bitterness, that was a bit too much for me.

You’d think I would have run out of Seattle-area breweries by now, but there are, in fact, two places right in town (Pike and NW Peaks) that I have yet to blog. And there will be a third (Reuben’s Brews) by the time summer rolls around.  One small brewery that was on the to-visit list closed recently (Battenkill), so I’d better get a move on…