Author: Brouwer's Cafe

We are very proud and honored to become a Scotch Malt Whisky Society “Society Spot”.  The launch is tomorrow night, Thursday, April 10th at 6pm.  “What is a Society Spot? ” and “What does this mean for me?”  Here is what it means to you.  The Society purchases single barrels and produces their own line of Single Malt Scotches. In the past these limited edition bottles were only available to members of the society.  We are becoming a Society Spot which means, you, a non member, or you a member, can come in and purchase these previously member only scotches for in house consumption.  We purchased 15 different Scotches and have tasted some of the offerings, they are fantastic, ranging in age from 4 to 33 years old.  There will be representatives from the Society on hand to answer questions as well as pour a complimentary taste. 

We are very excited to announce that we will be hosting a Black Raven Brewing Brewer’s Night on Wednesday, April 23rd @ 6pm.  We are still finalizing the draftlist for the event,  but we are featuring a special beer.  Let me digress…a while back we sent them a used Dry Fly Wheat Whiskey barrel and they put some beer in that barrel.  They used beer from that barrel and a couple others to blend a beer that we are told has a sour character with notes of mezcal, even though no mezcal barrels were used.  It will be pouring at our event.  We hope you plan on joining us for this event.

Seattle Beer Week is approaching fast.  We are hard at work putting together the draftlists for our 3 events:

Thursday, May 15^th Sour Fest—we replace just about every tap with a delicious sour beer.

Hardliver Barleywine Festival is this weekend, March 15th and 16th, we apologize if for some reason it seemed otherwise.   Our livers are sufficiently prepared, we hope yours are too. We have just about all the beers in the cooler and are getting them organized and ready to serve.  We will have 57 beers flowing on Saturday, March 15th when we open.  In our last post we announced most of what will be available.  We have some special beers that we have not announced yet, and you will be rewarded for arriving early.   This year we are not doing the judging early we are going to be deciding the winners by the vote of the people.  Don’t forget to vote for your favorite.  Just a reminder that we will be closing at midnight on Friday, March 14th, so that we can prepare for the event.  Thank you in advance and we look forward to seeing you on Saturday for an amazing day of drinking!

If you didn’t know now you do.  Our 9th Anniversary is approaching and we will be celebrating it on Friday, March 28th starting at 3pm.  We are planning on tapping a few previous Anniversary beers from us and Bottleworks, don’t ask us exactly what right now, we are still readying ourselves for Hardliver this weekend.  We are also pleased to be pouring a beer that we brewed with Elysian, to be exact we brewed it with Steve Luke at Elysian Fields.  Steve makes great beer and was gracious enough to invite us down to brew a low abv hoppy ale that we have named Hopped to the 9’s and are thinking of calling an All Day Everyday IPA.  In the above photo you can see us in front of the kettle steeping 50 lbs of whole cone Cascade hops, just imagine the aroma therapy that we received while taking this photo!  We hope that you plan on join us in turning 9 years old on March, 28th at 3pm. 

We are very excited to announce that on Thursday, April 10th @6pm we will become Scotch Malt Whisky Society spot.  This is a great honor.  For more information on the Society here’s a link to their website.  We will be starting with about 20 single malts from the Society collection that have in the past only been available to their members, and are now going to be available to you the general public through us.   On Thursday, April 10th there will be representatives from the Society on hand to sample you on some of our offerings as well as answer any of your questions about all things Scotch related. This is quite exciting. We hope all of you come out and join us in sampling some great Single Malt Scotch.

and after that Seattle Beer Week is upon us… we have 3 large events planned:
Back in Black Stout Fest on Friday, May 9th.
Beer and Burger Battle on Tuesday, May 13th.
Sour Fest on Thursday, May 15th.

We can’t believe that it is already that time of year again.  What happened?  Hardliver is here!  Its March 15th and 16th.  We used to joke that the way to prepare for this event is to drink an entire 22oz of barleywine each day leading up to the festival.  We have been working diligently to get the Hardliver Draftlist complete, and it is just about there.  We will put this disclaimer out to all of you, the list that follows is subject to change, most of what you see posted here will be on draft, however I’ll say it again: This list is subject to change. You all know how it all goes, sometimes things happen and beers don’t make it on time, or get lost in translation, or a warehouse.  Please don’t get upset if one beer happens not to be here but is listed, we are not intentionally misleading you.
Contrary to previous years there will not be a closed door judging this year.  We have decided to let the winner be decided by popular vote.  Without further ramblings here you go, feast your eyes on the list: 
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Soooo…we usually start events during the week at 6pm, and initially we were going to start the Hop Mob Triple Ipa event at 6pm too.  After more than a few of you expressed interest in the event starting earlier we reassessed and are now going to start the event at 3pm.  There will be no happy hour pricing on the Triple Ipa’s, there will not be flights available however in the interest of all of our livers we will be offering 6oz and 12oz pours of all 14 beers.  What follows is a list of the Breweries that are part of the event:
 -Airways
– Bainbridge
-Big Time
– Black Raven
– Elysian
– Georgetown
– Naked City
– Pike
– Populuxe
– Reuben’s
– Stoup
– Spinaker Bay
– Strong Arm
-Two Beers
We are really excited about this event we hope you join us in celebrating Washington Triple Ipas.

We are super excited about our upcoming Hop Mob Triple Ipa event on Monday, February 17th.  We are up to a total of 14 locally brewed Triple Ipas lined up and ready for the event.  We can’t thank Adam from Reuben’s enough for setting up this event. Who needs Pliny the Younger, Washington brewers are here to fill the void.  We have heard that a few of you are concerned about the 6pm start time, we are discussing the idea of starting the event at 3pm.  Details to any change will come soon. 

We are pleased to announce that we will be hosting an event with Virtue Cider on Thursday, February 20th at 6pm.  Its a launch for their Mitten, we thought it would be cool to do a Stone Fence event. A Stone Fence is a drink consisting of a mixture of cider and a spirituous liquor, we will have 3 different Stone Fence cocktails for you to try.  Greg Hall, their brewer will be in town to drink with and he will also be judging his favorite cocktail offering.  We are also doing a Winter Coat Drive, please bring your clean, gently used or new coat to donate if you are so inclined.

Saturday, March 15th and Sunday, March 16th is the 12th annual Hardliver Barleywine Festival.  For those of you that know, show up early, get in line and wait for the doors to open at 11am.  We will be filling most of our 57 taps with this delicious beverage.  We are working on having the list available for you sooner than later.  We are just putting the final touches on it.

Adam from Reuben’s brews sent us an email, asking us if we would be interested in hosting this  event. 12 local breweries are coming together to celebrate Triple Ipa’s.  We quickly responded with a resounding, yes!
 We think it all started with the Russian River Pliny the Younger craze, a few years back.  Drew from Big Time and Don from Naked City wanted to have a little fun so,  Whiny the Complainer and Cry Me a River were born, and for the first year poured along side Younger.  I actually think that Whiny the Complainer started with Bill Jenkins the former Head Brewer at Big Time.  Details, Details.  Drew has been brewing the beer for the last 3 years.  This event has obviously blossumed,  more and more folks experimenting with higher and higher gravity hoppy beers.  A few more emails were sent back and forth and we agreed upon a date.  That date is Monday, February 17th at 6pm.  Kendall, of the Washington Beer Blog,  did a write up on the whole event.  Here are the breweries that you can expect to see pouring at our event:
– Airways
– Bainbridge
– Black Raven
– Elysian
– Georgetown
– Naked City
– Pike
– Populuxe
– Reuben’s
– Stoup
– Spinaker Bay
– Strong Arm
We will also be pouring Whiny the Complainer from the Big Time.  We hope that you mark your calenders for this great Washington Beer Event.

This Thursday, January 16th at 6pm we are pleased to be hosting an evening with Breakside Brewing out of Portland.  We will be pouring 5 delicious options:
Woodlawn Pale Ale
Big Country Winter Ale
Bourbon Woody
Noble Belgian Blonde
Outlander IPA
 Scott and Ben from the Brewery will be here to answer questions, just hang out with or admire from afar.  Please join us.

We hope that you didn’t make too many New Year’s Resolutions, we have an event every Thursday for the next few weeks.

This Thursday, January 9th at 6pm we welcome Telegraph Brewing to the market.  We will be pouring 7 draft options from them.

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The following Thursday, January 16th at 6pm we are pleased to be hosting an evening with Breakside Brewing out of Portland.  We will be pouring 5 delicious options:
Woodlawn Pale Ale
Big Country Winter Ale
Bourbon Woody
Noble Belgian Blonde
Outlander IPA
 Scott and Ben from the Brewery will be here to answer questions, just hang out with or admire from afar.  Please join us.

On Thursday, January 23rd at 6pm we are pleased to be hosting an event that we have dubbed “Not your Father’s Boilermaker!” Dr. Bill Stone’s in house Certified Cicerone loves Scotch and Beer and wanted to do an event here in Seattle.  He went in to the Stone cellar and pulled out some rare beers, and paired them with some of his favorite Scotches.  What follows is a list of what will be offered, we will be pouring 6oz pours of the beers and 3/4 oz pours of the Scotches.  We will also be offering food specials.
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We hope that the Holiday’s are treating you well!  Thanks for all your support over the past year, we are looking forward to serving you in the new year.  We will be pulling a few goodies from the cellar for New Year’s eve, we are currently deciding on just which beers we will pour.  We will be opening a large bottle from Reuben’s Brews and one from Outlander (our neighbor)  to ring in the New Year with a proper beer toast.  Please come down and join us.

Just a heads up we will be closed both December 24th and 25th so our employees can enjoy the holiday.  We hope you enjoy yours.  While we are talking about being closed we will also be closed January 1st ( again for the holidays), Sunday, January 12th (for our employee holiday party) and will reopen January 13th at 3pm.

We are in the process of planning events for the New Year, we have a couple of events scheduled:
Thursday, January 9th @ 6pm Telegraph Brewing Launch Party, we will be posting more details about exactly what they are bringing soon.

We have tentatively scheduled a Breakside Brewers Event on Thursday, January 16th @ 6pm.  More details are being worked out for this event as well.

We are planning a great Scotch and Beer event with Stone Brewing hosted by Dr. Bill Sysak on Thursday, January 23rd @ 6pm.  We are picking 6 beers and pairing them with Scotch, we are also working on some food specials to go along with these pairings.  We have a tentative list that is subject to change that will follow below.  This is going to be a fun event with some rare Stone beers on draft.

-Ardbeg Uigeadail  years old paired w/ Southern Charred (ISLAY)
-Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban paired w/ Arrogant Bastard aged in Templeton Rye Barrels (HIGHLAND)
– Balvenie Double Wood 12 year old paired w/ Stone OAKED SMOKED Old Guardian BW (SPEYSIDE)
-Talisker 10 year old paired w/ Stone 11.11.11 Vertical Epic Ale (SKYE)
-Glenlivet Nadurra 16 year old paired w/ 2010 Imperial Russian Stout aged in Bourbon Barrels (SPEYSIDE)
-Highland Park 12 year old paired w/ Double Bastard Ale w/ Dark Toasted Oak (ORKNEY)
-Macallan 15 year old Fine Oak paired w/ Stone Reason be Damned Belgian Style Abbey Ale aged in Red Wine barrels (HIGHLAND)

We are proud to host the first of 5 Triple Ipa events in February, to be exact Monday, February 17th @ 6pm, we will be pouring 10 Locally brewed Triple Ipa’s.  For more information on this event Kendall of the Washington Beer Blog has put together a nice post.  
We will have beers from :

– Airways
– Bainbridge
– Black Raven
– Elysian
– Georgetown
– Naked City
– Pike
– Populuxe
– Reuben’s
– Stoup

Mark your calenders, The 12th Annual Hardliver Barleywine Fest is scheduled for Saturday, March 15th at 11am, this is not for the faint at heart.    This is last years logo, for those of you that don’t know this is one of our biggest festivals.  We replace every tap with a delicious Barleywine.  We have quite a few vintage barleywines hanging out in our cooler already, and are compiling the list as I type this.   Mark your calenders now and start planning.

The Firestone Ugly Sweater Party is this Thursday, December 12th at 6pm.  We have lots and lots of prizes and gifts for you.  At some point in the festivities we will hold a contest for great prizes.  We have some great games planned to add to your Ugly Sweater experience.  What better way to spend your Thursday night, in an ugly sweater drinking delicious malt beverages from Firestone Walker.  Well I could ramble on and on about how awesome this is going to be, why don’t you just show up and see.  We will be pouring: Union Jack, Double Jack, Wookie Jack, Pivo Pilsner, Walker’s Reserve Porter, Velvet Merlin and from our cellar we will be pouring: Abacus ’11, XV Merkin ’11, Dbl DBA ’11 and Hat Trick sour. 

 We will have a great event planned for Wednesday, December 18th with Sound Brewery.  It sounds like the guys at Sound have been working on their barrel project and would like to showcase some of their wares.  We were more than happy to be host them.  There will be Brewery Representatives on hand.  We will be pouring:

Westland Whisky Noel (Westland’s Whiskey barrel)
Ursus Spelaeus Tennessee Whiskey, (Tennessee sippin Whiskey barrel)
MM15 (Quad Pro Quo, Tennessee sippin whiskey barrel)

Monk’s Indiscretion
Mosaic American Pale Ale
Reluctant IPA

Monk’s Indiscretion, Belgian Specialty Ale – 10.0% ABV
Dry hopped, and fermented with an aromatic Belgian yeast strain,
Monk’s Indiscretion has an intense tropical hoppy aroma and flavor,
with balanced bitterness, and is scarily drinkable for such a strong beer.

Mosaic American Pale Ale – 6.4% ABV, 34 IBU
Utilizing one of the newest hops from the Hop Breeding Program, Mosaic
hops give intense fruity, floral and earthy aroma and flavor characteristics
to a crisp, classic Northwest style Pale Ale.

Reluctant IPA, American Style IPA – 6.4% ABV
Clean dry malt balances loads of flavoring hops to create a balanced, light,
highly drinkable American style IPA.

Ursus Spelaeus Belgian Imperial Stout – 10% ABV
Named for a long extinct Russian Cave Bear, Ursus Spelaeus is as deep
and dark as the caves its namesake inhabited. Spelaeus has thick, rich
maltiness with notes of chocolate, coffee, toffee, and subtle licorice in the
nose and on the tongue with just enough hops to keep it balanced. The
Belgian yeast strain adds touches of fruit, herbs, and spices.

Entendez Noel, Belgian Pale Quadrupel – 10.6% ABV, 50 IBU
Like most big Belgian holiday beers, Noel is bursting with subtly complex
flavors and fits no particular beer style. Its explosion of sensations comes
from just Belgian Pilsner malt, cane sugar, Motueka hops, Trappist yeast,
water, and fermentation. Drink warm or cold in various glassware shapes
and sizes to discover all its nuances. Entendez should age extremely well
for years to come.

Quad Pro Quo, Belgian Style Dark Strong Ale – 9.5% ABV, 30 IBU.
A rich treat in a classic abbey style, “Quad Pro Quo” is smooth and easy
to drink with a complex aroma of fruit, light chocolate and caramel.

Here is a reminder that we will be closed on both December 24th and 25th as well as January 1st for the holidays.  We hope that this does not inconvenience you.

We just posted the Bigwood draftlist under the Bigwood sidebar link.  You will notice that the Surly beers are ” subject to  arrival”, we are expecting them to be delivered sometime during the day, and they will be tapped as soon as possible after delivery.  Why might you ask are they not here yet, they got hung up because of a snow storm and the holiday slowed delivery of them down.  We apologize in advance, and appreciate your understanding in advance.

This is also a reminder that we will be closing early tonight to aid with set up for tomorrows event.  We will call last call at 11:30 and lock the doors at midnight.  We also appreciate your understanding with this.

Don’t forget the Brewtal Truth book signing event with Adem Tepedelen and Todd Haug from Surly Brewing on Saturday, December 7th at 4pm.

We hope this allows you to plan in advance.  We look forward to seeing you.

Ladies and Gentlemen… The Elysian Pumpkin Roadshow is tomorrow night, Wednesday, November 27th @6pm.  We will be pouring 16 Pumpkin Beers for your drinking pleasure.  We invite you to join us, what better way to spend the day before Thanksgiving.  Here is a list of what we will be pouring:
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Southern Tier Pumpking 9.1%

Dogfish Head Punk’n 7%

Elysian Dark o the Moon Pumpkin stout 6.5%

Elysian Great Pumpkin 8.1%

Elysian/21 A He Said- 8.2% Belgian Triple with pumpkin, terragon and galangal

Elysian/21 A He Said- 8.2% Baltic Porter with pumpkin, Vietnamese cinnamon, and caraway

Epic Pumpkin Porter 8%

Midnight Sun Treat 7.8%

South Hampton Imperial Pumpkin 5.5%

Elysian Calatrava 6% Habenero Pumpkin Ale

Elysain Great Gherkin 3.94% Cucumber Pumpkin

Elysian Plumpkin 5.2% Plum Pumkin ale

Elysian Kurbitinus 6.65% Pumpkin Dunkelwiesse

Elysian Hopsquash IPA 6% collaboration with Ninkasi

Propolis Pumpkin Dubbel 7%

Jolly Pumpkin La Parcela 6%

One of our favorite festivals, Bigwood is approaching fast.  It starts on Thursday, December 5th when the doors open at 11am and runs through the weekend.  Here is the most of the list:

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My My how time fly’s when your having fun…I used to laugh when my dad talked about how fast life goes…now I know how he feels.  That brings me to event number 1 on the horizon:

The Elysian Pumpkin Roadshow on Wednesday, November 27th at 6pm.  We will be tapping 16 pumpkin beers, what better way to spend the day before Thanksgiving with our without your family.  This is the second year that we have done the Pumpkin Roadshow the day before Thanksgiving and it looks like we will continue.  We here feel that most of the pumpkin beers come out way too early, and that’s why we hold on to some and host this event right when we feel is a perfect time to enjoy them.  We hope that you join us, there will be Elysian representatives in to hoist a pint with.  We will be tapping Elysian beers as well as a few others we have held on to….
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On the heels of the roadshow and Thanksgiving, comes one of our favorite festivals all year, Bigwood.  The event starts Thursday, December 5th at 11am when we open, and runs through the weekend.  We are putting together a great list this year, look for this years list to be fantastic, we are hoping to have some surprises for you.  We will be posting a tentative list in the next week or so, so stay tuned.

On the same weekend we have another event that we are still in the planning stages of, we need a few ducks to fall in line before we can tell you about it.  It will be on either Friday, the 6th or Saturday the 7th.  Stay tuned, as soon as we can release the details we will.

Everybody’s favorite the Firestone Walker Ugly Sweater Party is on December 12th at 6pm.  There will be games, gifts and prizes for the ugliest sweater.  The judging of the sweaters will probably take place at about 9pm.  We suggest you get here eat, drink, play some games all in your ugliest sweater.  We will be tapping a bunch of the regular suspects, such as Pivo Pils, Union Jack Ipa, Wookie Jack Black Rye Ipa to name a few…we will be pulling some vintage beers from the cellar, and Firestone is sending us something special.  Beer geeks find your ugliest sweater and prepare your pallet for flavor country.  This is always a super fun event with lots of ways to walk away with a prize.

Wednesday, November 6th at 6pm Virtue Cider out of Michigan will be joining us.  We will be pouring two of their draft options, Cidre de Nava (a very tart Spanish Style Cider) and Percheron (a French Style Cider that has spent some time in second use Wine Barrels).  There will be a Virtue Representative on site.  We hope to see you on Wednesday.

Thursday, November 7th at 6pm we will be hosting a Fade to Black, Left Hand Brewing  event.  They decided to brew all the past Fade to Black series of beers and we are pouring 5 Fade to Black beers and 3 other offerings:  Fade to Black beers are as follows: Foreign Export Stout, Smoked Baltic Porter, Pepper Porter, Rocky Mountain Black Ale(Black IPA) and Black Rye Ale.  We will also be pouring Mother Lode Scotch Ale, Munich Black Lager and Polestar Pilsner.  We hope that you choose to join us. 

Towards the end of the month, on Wednesday, November 27th, we will be hosting Elysian Brewing and their Pumpkin Road Show.  We have saved some pumpkin beers throughout the season, Elysian will be providing some of their limited pumpkin beers, we will be tapping right around 16 different pumpkin beers.  This should be a fun evening, what better way to spend the evening before Thanksgiving, with or with out your family.  All the fun starts at 6pm.

Bigwood our celebration of all beers that have spent in a barrel starts December 5th.  Mark you calenders and plan on joining us.  We are working on a getting a preliminary list up in the next week or so.

Halloween is this Thursday, October 31st, and we will have The Sons of Huns from Portland presented by Gigantic and New Belgium.  The beer from these breweries will start flowing at 6pm, and the band will start at 9:30pm.  There will be a $7 cover charge. There will be a costume contest judged by the brewery representatives around 10:30 while the band takes a short break.  Here is a video so you get an idea of what they will be bringing.

After that we head full steam in to November.  We already have a few events planned.
Wednesday, November 6th we will have an evening with Virtue Cider.  We will be pouring two of their ciders, Percheron (French Style)  and Sidra De Nava(Spanish Style).   Virtue is headed up by Greg Hall, the former Head Brewer at Goose Island. 

Then on Thursday, November 7th at 6pm we will have an evening with Left Hand Brewing and their Fade to Black series. We will be pouring Foreign Export Stout, Smoked Baltic Porter, Pepper Porter, Rocky Mountain Ale(Black IPA) and their Black Rye Ale as well.  There will be brewery reps on hand. 

We know there are a bunch of folks out there that really enjoy Pumpkin beers.  Throughout the fall season we save some pumpkin beers, then right around Thanksgiving we tap between 10 and 16 pumpkin beers for the Elysian Pumpkin Roadshow.  This year this event falls on Wednesday, November 27th and starts at 6pm.  Do you need a better excuse to get away from the family, or celebrate with them? 

Bigwood our celebration of all beers wood aged from Stout to Sour starts on Thursday, December 5th and runs through the weekend.  We are compiling the list and hope to have a rough draft in the next couple of weeks.

On Monday, October 21st at 6pm we will be hosting Pelican Brewing out of Pacific City, OR.  You may have seen some of their bottles and a draft here and there over the last year, but on Monday we will have 8 draft options pouring.  We will be pouring Kiwanda Cream, MacPelican Scottish, Imperial Pelican, Tsunami Stout, Silverspot IPA, Stillwell #1, Life on Marzen, and a Vintage Stormwatchers Winterfest.  A few of the brewers will be in town to chat with if you have questions.  We hope to see you Monday. Monday is also 20% off bottle night, so now you have two reasons to join us this upcoming Monday.

A reminder that we will be closed tomorrow Saturday, October 19th for a Private Event.  We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

On Thursday, October 31st we have  Halloween Party presented by  Gigantic Brewing and New Belgium Brewing featuring Sons Of Huns outta Portland.  Look for 4 or 5 beer options from each brewery.  The cover will be $7 dollars.   What does that $7 dollars get you, it gets you a 12 oz pour of certain beers from each of the presenting breweries.  The Band will start playing around 9:30.  There will be a costume contest of some sort between sets at around 10:30 the winners will be decided by the brewery representatives on hand.

Should be a rocking good time!!  What better way to spend your Halloween!

We have a few smaller events scheduled for November:

Wednesday, November 6th a night with Virtue Cider from Michigan.

Thursday, November 7th Left Hand Fade to Black Brewers night.  We will be tapping 5 beers from their Fade to Black series and a few from their regular line up.  All this will start at 6pm.  More details coming soon.

We are putting the final touches on our Pumpkin Road Show which will be sometime around Thanksgiving.  Look for more details next week as well.  We will be tapping about 16 different pumpkin beers from Elysian and others.

Your palettes have waited long enough!  Hopfest 2013 starts tomorrow, Thursday, September 26th!  Without further adieu here is a list of most of what will be available on draft tomorrow at 11am.  Remember that there might be a few changes or additions but most of what you see will be pouring tomorrow.

                  Almanac Fresh Hop Cluster