Since my trip to Redhook was cut short by a power outage, the only thing to do was head back into town and try to find another brewery that offered food and good beer.  I don’t know how or why but both my husband and I had heard of Bushnell Craft Brewery in Redmond. It was right on the way home so it seemed a no-brainer to stop there for lunch and to try their beers.

What a surprising little place that was sitting in the middle of a strip mall! The food here was very reasonably priced and the sandwiches are huge and stuffed with fresh ingredients. I recommend this place for the food.  The beer here is average but it is still craft and local so it is worth giving it a try. If you don’t like their beers, they offer a few guest taps from good, well-established craft breweries.

On our visit, they only offered four of their beers. We filled out the sampler with some of the guest taps. Not being from the area, we generally haven’t tried most of the other available craft beers. One craft was Victory Summer Love which is quite common but overall a good beer.

We started with the Crack Back IPA which did not have much nose and was very bitter on the finish. This was a disappointing beer, as it has potential, but isn’t well balanced.

The Bofuss Amber Ale was the opposite– nicely balanced. This amber had a nice nose with a hint of caramel and flavors of good, toasted malt.

Dunkadelic had a good stout nose. The flavor was, however, a bit heavy on the coffee. Even for this flaw, the beer was good.

The Crack Back Session IPA had a slight hop nose and was much more balanced than the regular Crack Back. This had a good finish of grass in the hops without being so bitter.

This is another place on my list to revisit since I only got to try four of their beers.

My main goal of going to Woodinville was to  go to Chateau Ste. Michelle winery, as they make my favorite Dry Riesling. However, located almost directly across the street is Redhook Brewery and that seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. Well, I kind of did miss it as there was a big windstorm and a tree fell on the power line. The lights went out and weren’t coming back anytime soon, so I go to taste a few beers but didn’t get to experience the place. I was given two passes for free tours so I guess I will have to go back (not during a windstorm) to give the place another go. It is just about 40 minutes from my house so not a big deal.

I did get a chance to do a flight which contained all of their standard beers plus a couple of in-brewery only releases.

The flight, of course, started with Redhook ESB.  I know that many people only know this ESB but I find it a bit lacking in flavor and not quite true to style. It doesn’t have much nose and the taste is very weak to me.

The Pumpkin Porter was the second beer in the flight and a good representative of a porter that was not overwhelmed by the pumpkin flavors.  It had slight pumpkin spice on the nose and good tastes of coffee with just undertones of nutmeg and cinnamon. I will probably stick to Warlock, if I can find it around here, but this is still a good seasonal beer.

Long Hammer IPA is always a good go to IPA. It has very solid flavors that are not overwhelmingly bitter.

Wisecracker Wit did not have much nose and was very mildly herbal. The flavor was mostly of malt with a slight taste of grass at the end. I didn’t find this beer true to style or very well-balanced.

The Black Hook Porter on nitro was a good porter with a nose of coffee and a very good light coffee flavor. Along with the silky mouth feel from the nitro, this was an easy drinking porter.

The Raspberry Kolsch was another one of those fruit beers that was fruit with beer. It is very raspberry on the nose, letting you know that it is bound to have strong fruit flavors. It was raspberry in flavor but not as sweet as I expected. It was drinkable but still too fruity for my tastes.

Since I couldn’t stay and try anything else, I guess it is another trip to Redhook for me in the near future.

I had to make my way over to Lynnwood so I thought I would check out any breweries in that area. Again, I had to eat lunch so I figured a brew pub was just as good of a place to grab a bit as anywhere else.

I found Big E Ales located in an industrial area next to an auto repair place and near the interstate.  The location could definitely be better but the beers were decent and the place was very reasonably priced– a rarity I am finding in Seattle.

I did a sampler with six beers and tried to vary styles.  I wasn’t overall impressed, but I didn’t leave disappointed either.

The first beer I tried was the Blackberry Ale.  As everyone probably knows, I am always on the lookout for a great fruit beer, as they are so far and few.  Generally, there is either too much fruit, making the beer syrupy and unrecognizable as beer, or too little, leaving the question of why add the fruit at all.  This beer was a little on the too much side but was not as bad as many out there. There was not a huge amount of blackberry on the nose. This was unusual considering the amount of blackberry on the flavor– dial it down a little and you would have a good mix of beer and fruit.

The Hoppy Redhead was the best beer here. The Red IPA is really growing on me as a style. I am beginning to really like the toasty malt upfront with the stronger bitter end.  This beer had a good nose of grapefruit and grass. It started with good toasted malt up front and finishes with a good grassy hop taste. This was well done and well balanced.

The 12 1/2 Man IPA (this has something to do with football and I am still trying to figure out this 12th man thing) is sweet on the nose with an almost vanilla aroma.  It is very bitter with mint undertones and not well balanced.

The 2 Pint IPA has the opposite problem of the 12 1/2 Man. This has a lot of toasted malty flavors and not much bitterness. Overall, the flavor is more toasty than anything else although there is a lingering hint of bitter.

The Pau Hana Porter is a nice style porter with coffee undertones and good chocolate flavors up front. However, it is a bit too sweet drinking more like a chocolate milk than a coffee.

I would recommend if you are in the area stopping by, if for nothing else, to try the Hoppy Redhead. If I find myself in the area, I will definitely give a try to the beers I didn’t get on this round and maybe I can find another winner.

I didn’t go downtown with the intention of going to a brewery, but there it was and I was hungry. It seemed like a good idea to check out The Pike Brewing Company. I had a bowl of crab chowder, which was excellent, and a salad with an amazing tomato vinaigrette. I recommend the food here probably more so than the beers.  It is a bit pricey– probably because of location– they are located just up the street from the famous Pike Market.

I did the sampler of their regular year-round beers.  I figure I will be back and can try some of the more unusual ones then.  A friend told me that some of their beers were occasionally available in Florida, but I had never had any of them so I also wanted to get a feel for their overall style. The beers here were good but nothing stood out as exceptional.

The first beer was Naught Nellie, a golden ale.  This beer didn’t have much nose and was very malty in taste with an underlying bitter flavor.  Although light, it had a bit more flavor than many other golden ales.

The Pike Pale was another weak beer with not much nose and not much flavor. Although touted as an amber, I didn’t get much toasted malt flavor.

The Pike IPA had a nose with a hint of citrus and grass but was way too bitter in taste. The beer was not well-balanced, giving it almost a sour flavor.

The Pike Kilt Lifter was probably the best of their beers.  It had a nice, sweet, malty flavor with just a hint of smoke. It was well-balanced and overall very good, even for someone who generally doesn’t like a Scotch Ale. I have to wonder if Four Peaks knows they are using the same name for this Scotch Ale though. Someone should have points deducted for lack of originality.

The Pike XXXXX had a good coffee nose and nice stout flavors with a bit of stale coffee that lingered at the end. This beer was overall a well done stout.

PIke Monk’s Uncle was a great Belgian style beer with herbal nose and flavors. A very good tripel that is very true to style.

I will definitely find myself back at Pike, as I will be working right up the street and the beers are good. The food is, however, exceptional and a reason to visit this brewery.

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Well day 4 didn’t start out quite as bad as day 2, but it was up there. I decided to take it easy and just walk around downtown prior to my 4 pm flight. I found lots of cool stores and bought a few little souvenirs to take home. I did try one brewery– basically because I was hungry and it seemed like I could squeeze one more in.

Lexington Ave Brewery was conveniently located downtown and had pretty diverse menu– so I said why not? The beer list was pretty dismal after the weekend so I only got to try 6 beers.

All of the beers here were pretty good but I was very impressed with the 1st Gear Cream Ale.  I am not generally a fan of cream ales as many taste like Budweiser but watered down. This one was fantastic with lots of malt flavor.

I also tried Waves of Grain (a red ale), Hop Burst (pale ale), Eleanor Rye, Big Country (double IPA), and The Knuckle (oatmeal stout). After a few days of drinking some of the best beers imaginable, they didn’t seem anything special. Maybe I will get a chance one day to go back and try them on their own merit.

Hope to see you again sometime– Asheville!

Day 3 turned out to be another really great day and my first real opportunity to explore the beer scene in Asheville. After a morning of lectures, including a panel entitled  “From Blog to X” where I was a panelist speaking about how I used my blog to leverage a weekly newspaper article, I headed out on the Asheville excursion.

This was a bargain at just $15 for a tour/sampling at 5 breweries and a lunch.

The first stop was Asheville Brewing Company. I actually thought this was the worst stop on the trip as they didn’t really seem to know that we were coming. Eventually, they provided us with two samples– Shiva IPA and Ninja Porter.  Both beers were quite good and very representative to style.

Following Asheville was Burial Beer Company. We got a first hand tour from the brewer and tried some really great beers. The Pollination Honey Saison was a nice refreshing sweet beer. The Scythe Rye IPA was very true to style (hard to find in a rye) and reminded me a lot of Ryeght Angle from Fat Point. I am a big fan of the ryes if they are done correctly. We also tried the Winnower which was a chocolate raspberry porter. I wanted more from this beer, although it was quite tasty. I was hoping for the illusive one from DuClaw.

After Burial, we headed to Catawba Brewing. My understanding is that the main brewery is somewhere near Salem, NC, and that this is kind of a satellite tasting room. If it was or not, it had some pretty great beers. We were given a full flight with the REDiculous Red IPA, Sour and Sexxxy Saison, Brewtal Double IPA, and the Barrel Aged Black Dome Stout. The stout is a do not miss– fantastic with great bourbon flavors.

Next stop was Twin Leaf Brewery.  Here we tried the Uproot ESB and 144 (Code Name: Juicy Fruit). Yes it did taste like juicy fruit gum.

Off to the next stop– Wicked Weed’s Funkatorium where we had a fantastic selection of sours–White Angel, Gold Angel, and Red Angel. I really am learning to love this style of beer.

That officially ended the tour but none of us were done. I had to head over to the famous Wicked Weed to try some of their other styles of beer. I found some friends and split a flight that contained– Coolcumber, Currant Raspberry IPA, Tropic Most Gose, XLVII Pineapple Guava Saison, Black Angel Cherry Sour, and XLVI Salted Chocolate Black Saison.

After the flight it was back up the street to find Green Man Brewery. Another flight awaited me there of Wayfarer, IPPA, Oakey Lafarge, and Paint it Black IPA. I also got to taste a guest tap from Pisgah Brewing, Pisgah Pale Ale.

After that everyone had to grab some dinner and I found myself at Farmhouse Burger where I had the #2, a seitan burger with beets. I would have thought it would be horrible but it was actually great.

We headed around the corner to the Thirsty Monk but at this point, I had to cut myself off or I would have been way to drunk to function! And there was still almost a full day tomorrow…

So day 1 had so much beer I took it easy the second day.  I needed a bit of aspirin to get through the morning but was better by the afternoon.  This day started a bit late for me too.

The afternoon started with session by Budweiser talking about how they make their beer. The interesting part of this was that they had some real wort flown in overnight from their Williamsburg brewer. However, I really didn’t think a Budweiser presentation fit with the rest of the agenda.

The keynote speaker followed, Kim Jordan, CEO of New Belgium, which is opening a new brewery in Asheville. She gave a great speech with some really funny moments. In addition, she brought beer, including Eric’s Ale, a peach sour that hasn’t been made in a couple of years. Great beer– I am really starting to like sours more than I used to.

For the speed blogging session, brewers from several local breweries (part of the NC Brewer’s Alliance) brought beer to sample and told us about the different brews.  The idea was to do one beer from each brewery in 50 minutes and blog about them in real time.

Well, most of the breweries brought more than one beer and there were about 10 breweries so it turned more into 30 beers in that short period of time. I actually am a sipper and I like to savor the taste of my beer and in this instance I could not do that. Basically, all I was able to do was put a score and picture into Untapped for each beer. This really wasn’t my style of beer appreciation. I would loved to have been able to savor some of the beers, not rush through them. For many of the beers, I wasn’t able to take more than one or two sips.  Here are just a few that we tasted.

The evening ended with an event at the Millroom in downtown Asheville. I decided to sit this one out. I wanted to be able to enjoy my beer tour the next afternoon and I needed some healthy detox food. I found myself enjoying a delicious vegetarian meal at the Laughing Seed instead.

I also got to see a bit of Saturday night in Asheville, including a woman who was walking her goat on a leash

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