I’ve got the answer. One word: sausage. And what goes better with a good sausage than a good beer?

I recently read an article at SFGate.com regarding beer and sausage pairings (read it here). While I found the article informative and entertaining, the beers mentioned were either world beers or California beers. I decided that we needed a similar list up here in Washington, fashioned to fit our local palate.

Here is our guide to Washington sausage and beer pairing.

Where to get your sausages

The grocery store: It’s easy to pick up a national brand of sausage like Johnsonville at any grocery store, but there are compelling reasons for you to consider choosing locally produced sausages. Because they must travel across the country, national brand sausages are usually frozen and thawed by the time you get them. Local sausages are fresher and likely have never been exposed to taste-sapping, subzero temperatures. In my experience, they usually contain considerably less salt and they simply taste better.

Isernio’s is a widely recognized local brand that is available in most grocery stores. The Seattle-based company is located in Georgetown and its products are delicious.

Some of the area’s better grocers carry a wider variety of local choices. At finer grocery stores, look for:

• Uli’s Famous Sausage. They also have a shop near Pike Street Market.
• Fischer Meats. They also have a shop in Issaquah (since 1910).
• Hempler’s. Award winning meats and sausages from Ferndale.

Your butcher: Looking for something as fresh and handmade as the Washington beers you love? Consider getting sausages from your local butcher shop, like Bill the Butcher, the Swinery, B & E Meats, or Don & Joe’s Meats. There are a number of other fine meat purveyors around the Seattle area. Also, some of the better grocery stores, such as the Metropolitan Market, actually make their own sausages.

Recommended Pairings

Sausage type: Light, cream-colored, veal-based weisswurst and bockwurst; mild chicken sausage and turkey sausage.
Washington beer suggestions: Haystack Hefeweizen from Snoqualmie Falls Brewing, High Five Hefe from Iron Horse Brewing, 20:20 Blond Ale from Two Beers Brewing.

Sausage type: Frankfurters and hot dogs (assuming you don’t doctor them up with  too much spicy mustard, relish, and so on).
Washington beer suggestions: Rope Swing Summer Pilsner from Redhook, Chuckanut Pilsner from Chuckanut Brewery, Roger’s Pilsner from Georgetown Brewing, delrio Light Lager from Skagit River Brewing, Gateway Golden Ale from Schooner Exact Brewing.

Sausage type: Medium intensity sausage—kielbasa, knockwurst, bratwurst, sweet Italian sausage.
Washington beer suggestions: Avatar IPA from Elysian Brewing, Hop Diggity from Port Townsend Brewing, Alemic Pale Ale from Elliott Bay Brewing.

Sausage type: Smoked sausage.
Washington beer suggestions: Smoked Porter from Big Al Brewing, Twin Stag Scottish Ale from Yakima Craft Brewing, Alpine Marzen from Alpine Brewing.

Sausage type: Full-flavored sausage. Hearty, full-flavored duck, lamb and boar sausages
Washington beer suggestions: Tandem Double Ale from Pike Brewery, Malaprop 8 Abbey-style from Big Time Brewing, Wisdom Seeker Double IPA from Black Raven Brewing,

Sausage type: Hot and spicy. Chorizo, linguisa, merguez, hot Italian sausage, Louisiana/Cajun andouille.
Washington beer suggestions: Saison Elysee from Elysian Brewing, Bad Monkey from Yakima Craft Brewing, Lazy Boy IPA from Lazy Boy Brewing, Point Defiance IPA from Harmon Brewing, Country Boy IPA from Everybody’s Brewing.

Where to get the beer

Our beer suggestions should be used as a guide to help you select the right style. A few of the beers we suggest can be found at any grocery store that features a good beer selection. Many of the beers we suggest can be found at your local bottle shop (see our listing of bottle shops to find one near you). Some of the beers we suggest must come from the brewery (see our listing of Washington breweries).

In this story, we’ll explore the beer scene in Palm Springs and head west to one of California’s brightest, newest brewing stars: an up-and-coming brewery in Redlands.

A horse with no name

We visited two grocery stores in Palm Springs, Alberstons and Ralph’s, where we found a decent selection of craft beer. We immediately stocked the fridge with good beer. If you go to Palm Springs, we advise you do the same.

Firestone Walker was just about the only impressive draft beer we found in Palm Springs. Why Firestone Walker? I do not know for certain why they seem to have a foot in the door that other craft beers do not. I have a hunch, though. After four days in the desert sun, you won’t care if it rolled of the back of a Budweiser truck, you’ll just be glad to drink such good beer. (Speculation based on observation. I won’t pretend to have researched it.)

NYPD Brew

We enjoyed Firestone Walker DPA at a pizza place called NYPD, which stands for New York Pizza Delivery. Clever. It is located in the heart of Palm Springs on South Palm Canyon Drive (the main drag). The beer lineup included a full compliment of Anheuser-Busch beers, plus Firestone Walker DBA, Widmere Hefeweisen, and Kona Longboard Lager. Like I said, I have a hunch the A-B distributor runs the show around here.

The bartender told us Firestone Walker was on tap at a couple other places around town, but otherwise knew nothing about beer. The music was loud and the X Games were on the tube. We would gladly drink at NYPD again, assuming they continue to have at least one solid craft beer option. While there, we were entertained by some hard-drinkin’ retired cops. Perhaps they didn’t get the memo about the Pizza Delivery thing and thought this was a cop bar. Perhaps we didn’t get the memo and it was. Whatever the case, we like this place.

God save the Queen

Quite near NYPD we found Hair of the Dog – the only English pub in Palm Springs. This, we thought, would be a good place to get good draft beer. At Hair of the Dog we found Bass, Boddingtons, Newcastle and Guinness. The craft beer selection included New Belgium Fat Tire, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Widmere Hefeweizen and Widmere Drop Top Amber.

While Hair of the Dog was a perfectly peachy place to tip a pint and watch a rugby match on the tellie, it seemed like it was our duty to Queen and county to move along and continue our noble quest for good beer farther down the road.

The Village Idiot

In most places, pub means beer. Around Seattle, it frequently means lots of beer. With that in mind, we paid a visit to the Village Pub. Like the previous two bars, it’s on the main drag in downtown Palm Springs.

This is a casual place where they play classic rock way too loud, earning them an immediate smiley face in our travel book. After dinner, the crowd turns over and bouncers show up at the door. On this Friday night, the Village Pub was replete with women dressed in clothes that were both age and weight inappropriate, and hootin’-n-hollerin’ local boys who seemed to like it that way. The boys pounded down yellow beers and the girls sucked on tall drinks with long straws. The band –the same band that’s been playing the Village Pub twice a week for 11 years– pretty much rocked the house, cranking out classic rock favorites.

At the Village Pub, we found a house beer called Village Idiot Ale – a perfectly serviceable amber. It was a simple beer and not at all offensive. It was not overly sweet nor was it overly hopped. It was entirely unsucky. It was surprisingly consumable.

I asked, “Who makes this beer for you?” Our server did not know and apparently figured nobody else working at the bar would either. From the look on his face, I’ll assume it was brewed by Deer in Headlights Brewing. Seriously, you’d think I was the first person to ever ask the question. Maybe I was.

Is that a mirage?

Twenty minutes to the east of Palm Springs, in Rancho Mirage, there is a Yard House Restaurant – a national franchise that offers 150 draft beers. Reviews on Ratebeer.com suggested that we should not waste the gas or time. As one reviewer said, “Every imaginable brand of American swill, Euro swill, and a few flagship beers from America’s largest craft breweries.” Been there, done that.

Still farther to the east, in the sprawling suburban metropolis of Indio, you will find Back Street Brewing (Lamp Post Pizza). It is very new. Everything in Indio is very new. Quite by accident, we drove through Indio on our way back from Joshua Tree National Park. I swear, the entire city looks like it dropped from outer space two years ago. It frightened us.

We learned that Back Street is a chain of breweries in Southern California that recently took over a place called Lamp Post Pizza. We read some less-than-favorable reviews of the place and the beer – overpriced, uninspired beers. Still, they say there is a brewery in Indio. Someone braver than I will have to confirm it.

At last, an oasis

There was still hope. We’d heard fables of a brewery beyond the San Jacinto Mountains. Seeking nothing more than a meaningful beer experience in what was beginning to seem like a barren badlands of beerlessness, we pointed our rental car west on Interstate 10 and headed out for Redlands, just 40 minutes from Palm Springs. Ah, Redlands, CA. “Where the beer flows like wine and beautiful women flock instinctively like the salmon of Capistrano.” (From the movie Dumb and Dumber)

We found a great brewery in Redlands – Hangar 24 Brewing. (Pictures below.) As the name might suggest, they’re out at the airport. Hangar 24 was founded by Ben Cook, a graduate of the UC-Davis Master Brewers Program, a pilot, and an impressive entrepreneur. The brewery is growing. They opened in March 2008 and produced 1,100 barrels that year. In 2009, they more than quadrupled that number.

The person brewing the beer at Hangar 24 is Kevin Wright. When we visited, neither Kevin or Ben were available. Apparently they were on their way to England to accept an award. Kevin won the J.S. Ford Award, given annually to the earner of the top score in the London-based Institute of Brewing and Distilling’s general certificate in brewing exam. Cheers to that!

We arrived at about 3:00 on a Saturday afternoon and found their taproom overflowing into the parking lot. This place was rockin. Hangar 24 was the place to be in Redlands, CA. The endless stream of locals coming in to fill growlers was amazing. They sell bottles, growlers and kegs to go. And they sell a lot of them. We must have seen them fill 30-50 growlers in the time we were there.  A pick-up truck backed up to the garage and loaded 10 cases of bottles.

Hanger 24 offers a full compliment of beers. We were particularly impressed by the Porter, which was robust and full-bodied. Not quite an imperial, but big. Their Pale Ale and their IPA did not disappoint. My favorite was the Helles Lager. Kim’s favorite was the IPA.

Get out of your comfort zone

Renowned travel author Rick Steves says that in order to have a truly great travel experience you need to get out of your comfort zone. While he might be talking about eating strange foreign foods and trying to communicate without the luxury of a common language, for me getting out of my comfort zone involves fruited beer.

You literally drive through orange groves getting to Hangar 24. This is the Inland Empire, after all. To pay homage to the agricultural history of the area, Hangar 24 produces an Orange Wheat ale. I believe they consider it their flagship. It’s good. I mean, it’s really good. It was perfectly balanced, with just enough orange to make the point. It was refreshing and effervescent.  Because an Orange Wheat ale is so far from my comfort zone, and is something I would usually choose to avoid, I might need to revisit this one to make sure it is as good as I remember.

The grass is always greener

We met some really nice people at Hangar 24. Some local guys, who seemed to know a little bit about beer, were quite interested to learn that we were from Washington. They raved on and on about their great California beer. They were fans of Stone, Firestone Walker, Port Brewing and Lost Abbey, and some other breweries with which we were less familiar.

We told them that we drank those great California beers in Seattle. We also told them that there were plenty of people in Seattle who thought California beer was better than Washington beer.  That’s when one of the guys began to tell us about an amazing beer that he drinks every time he’s in Seattle. He claimed that it is better than any beer he’d had in California. He raved about this magnificent, mysterious beer from a distant land. He lit up when he talked about it like he was talking about his first real girlfriend.

We quizzed him.

He didn’t remember the name of the beer. All he could remember is that he drank it in a couple of different bars and that his buddy had to bring it home in growlers because you can’t get it in bottles. The only other thing he remembered about this amazing beer was something about Africa and a lion.

We never did figure out what beer he was talking about.

In the end

Our advice? Don’t worry too terribly much about beer when you visit Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley. Stock the fridge so you have something to drink at day’s end. If you’ve got a car, go find a brewery somwhere. Obviously we recommend Hangar 24. Go to Joshua Tree National Park. It’s amazing. Hike Palm Canyon. Take the tram to the top of the mountain. Ride bikes. Swim. Lay in the sun. Eat breakfast on the patio at 8:30 a.m. in January. Do all those things that you cannot do here in Washington.

The beer will be waiting for you at home.

An astounding number of out-of-state breweries entered the Washington market last year alone. Firestone Walker, Russian River, Southern Tier, 21st Amendment, Double Mountain and a number of others appeared on the local beer scene in 2009. Some other relative newcomers, like Victory and Ninkasi, have become rather ubiquitous around Seattle over the last couple of years. By all indications, the trend will continue in 2010.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that it is a good thing or a bad thing. I’m just pointing out that it is happening.

In the USA, craft beer sales account for 4% of all beer sales (according to the Brewers Association). In Washington, we greatly exceed that number. It’s purely anecdotal, and I have not been able to find anything official, but I hear local brewers, distributors and sales guys throwing around numbers like 15% and 18% as if they know it to be a fact. Whatever the case, we consume a lot of craft beer compared to the national average.

I’ve talked to a number of people in the Washington beer industry about the increasing number of out-of-state breweries entering the local market. Their opinions are all over the map. Some industry insiders think that out-of-state breweries contribute to the overall richness of the beer landscape. It seems to be a “beer begets beer” attitude. How can more craft beer, local or not, be a bad thing? As more craft handles replace the “big boys” down at the strip-mall sports bar, a local brewer’s chance of getting one of those handles increases. They argue that increasing the overall presence of craft beer helps everyone.

As a craft beer drinker it is hard to disagree. More beer is better. I must admit, my personal beer drinking life is much richer because of Russian River’s Pliny the Elder and 21st Amendment’s Monk’s Blood.

I’ve talked to other people in the Washington beer industry who are not so welcoming. They feel that the influx of out-of-state breweries threatens to take handles away from our local brewers. They feel that our local industry is under attack and that out-of-state breweries are taking advantage of a vibrant craft beer market that they have worked hard to build. What’s more, they feel that the playing field is not level and out-of-state breweries enjoy competitive advantages because of how the Washington State Liquor Control Board does, or does not, enforce certain laws. I know one person who will tell you, “Certain breweries get away with murder because they know that the LCB won’t bother going after them the way they would a Washington brewery.” (I am not crediting him directly, although I’m sure he’d say I should.) Because I am not in the industry, I won’t pretend to fully understand the depth and details of their position. I just know that they have it.

Whether that is all sour grapes or not, I don’t know. Regardless, there is a great deal of validity to the “drink local” argument.

As a crow flies, there are about a dozen breweries within five miles of my house. Those businesses contribute to the local economy. My neighbors work at those breweries. They shop at the stores and eat at the restaurants where my other neighbors work. And then there is the whole carbon footprint argument. While New Belgium’s brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado stands as a fantastic monument to the power of green technology, the trucks and trains they use to transport the beer from Colorado to Washington are not powered by wind.

Here is a depressing fact that many people don’t know. In Washington, Washington-brewed craft beer is not the leader in terms of sales. According to Heather McClung (President of the Washington Brewers Guild), California, Colorado, Oregon and Alaska all sell more beer in Washington than our local producers. (I admit, I’m not sure of the order.)  How, you may ask, can that be? Instead of thinking of it as four states, think of it as four beers: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, New Belgium Fat Tire, Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale, and Alaskan Amber.  We certainly are not as provincial as Oregon, where 11% of all beer consumed is produced in Oregon, but it is sad that Washington beer is in fourth place. In itself, that is not a simple issue. Packaging and distribution, for instance, have as much to do with it as anything else.

Regardless of the merits of the drink local argument, I go back to the fact that more beer is better. I get excited when I hear that there’s going to be something new on tap down at the pub: it thrills me to finally get to sample an out-of-state beer that I’ve only read about. When I learned that I was actually going to get to drink Firestone Walker Union Jack at my local pub, I was giddy. It was stupid and a little bit embarrassing.

And then I feel guilty.

Drink local or drink at will? We all have to make our own choices. At the end of the day, you answer to no one but yourself.

Here’s how I deal with it. I drink local the vast majority of the time. If anyone asks, I’ll tell them that my favorite brewery is Elliott Bay Brewery and Pub in West Seattle. It’s the brewery closest to my house and I’m fortunate that they make such good beer. Most of the time I will elect to drink a beer that is more local than not; however, I will not deny myself the pleasure of a beer that came from out-of-state or overseas on occasion.

While that conclusion may seem to contradict my defense of the drink local argument, I did not write this article merely to convince people that they should drink local beer. This is all just food for thought. When trying to do the right thing, we constantly face decisions. Personally, I must weight my love of all beer against my love of local beer. I do the best I can to drink local, probably more than most, but I’m not perfect.

Most importantly, I never let myself forget how lucky I am to live in a place where the notion of “drink local” means that I get to drink some of the best beer in the world. Sure, the last beer I ordered in a pub was from California, but my fridge is stocked with beer from Dick’s Brewing in Centralia.

I’m always curious to hear what other people think about the idea of drinking local. How concerned about it are you?

Just remember, like the guy in the video says, “Beer smells good, and a lot of people like beer, so a lot of people like women.” A quote for the ages. Way to go Eric. Great story!

Just in time for the holidays! Click here to watch the video.

Sam Adams recently released this year’s version of Sam Adams Utopias. The retail price tag on a single bottle is $150. I’ve seen people reselling it for $500 a bottle. Now, I’m all about the free market, and I totally agree that something is worth whatever someone else will pay for it, so the fact that it retails for $150 per bottle doesn’t bother me. I just think it’s stupid.

For $150 you get a very fancy bottle full of a beer that weighs in at 25% ABV. They claim it to be the strongest beer ever made. Some people have compared it to a fine cognac or sherry.

Jim Koch (Sam Adams’ brewmaster and founder) says, “Drinkers have long been familiar with light beers. I wanted to show them the opposite end of the beer spectrum. A beer that is strong, rich and dark.”

For my money, I would rather spend $150 on an entire keg of something strong, rich and dark. I would have plenty of beers to choose from and I wouldn’t even have to tolerate a beer that tastes like cognac or sherry.

I don’t mean to rip on the good folks at Sam Adams, and I’ve got nothing against cognac or sherry, but in my opinion a $150 beer is stupid; however, is a one dollar beer even stupider?

Tonight in Sacramento the Kings play the Washington Wizards in a nationally televised NBA matchup. The Kings have not exactly drawn big crowds this year. In fact, attendance has been dismal–so dismal that the organization fears that they will be embarrassed on national TV when the rest of the world sees a largely empty arena.

The answer? Dollar Beer Night. During the first half of the game, fans will be able to buy beers for a dollar. It is a thinly veiled lure at best. They are expecting a sellout.

There are so many reasons why this is stupid:

• Worried about empty stands? The stands will be empty during the first half. Unless the vendors in the stands are selling dollar beers, and unless there are a lot of them, nobody will be in their seats for the first half. Everyone will be out at the concession stands buying, and very rapidly drinking, dollar beers.
• Is this really the kind of thing that the NBA wants to promote? Can you say, “National Binge Association?”
• Though the stands may be full during the second half, they will be full of very drunk people who care more about dollar beers than they do basketball.  More likely, the bathrooms will be full during the second half.
• This is the stuff of legend. In 1974, the Cleveland Indians had a Ten Cent Beer Night for a game against the Rangers. They couldn’t ferry beer to the concessionaires fast enough. Basically, they ran out of beer. Guess what happened? Naked fans ran on the field. Lit firecrackers were tossed into the Rangers’ bullpen. A jug of wine was thrown at Texas first baseman Mike Hargrove and nearly hit him in the head.

The Sacramento Kings are worried about being embarrassed by lame attendance. That may end up being the least of their worries. Let’s hope nothing stupid happens in Sacramento tonight.

Okay, now that I’ve thought it through, dollar beers are stupider than $150 beers.

The results above are for "beer bars" based on my location in West Seattle. Oops. Missed a few.

I know that I’m not the only Washington beer lover sporting an iPhone these days, so I thought it was time to talk about some of the beer-related applications available for the iPhone. This article focuses only on those applications that at least claim to be useful. Sorry, I’m not going to review the Beer Pong game.

My reviews are based on each application’s value to the Washington beer lover. All of these applications are either free or priced at .99 cents, so none of them will break your budget. If you know of a beer application that I missed, leave a comment and tell us about it.

Find Craft Beer – This application simply points you to beer places. It has a clean and simple search interface. You use the settings to determine which kind of beer places will be displayed. The options are Brew Pubs, Breweries, Beer Bars, Beer Stores, and Homebrew Stores. The app uses your current location and you can adjust the search radius (10 miles is default). You can also enter other locations by city and state.

At first glance, this seems like a nifty little app that I imagine being useful when you don’t know where to go for craft beer; however, the information is spotty at best. For example, when I searched for a brewery named Pike, it displayed “Pike Brewing and Restaurant” but nothing showed up when I searched for a brew pub named Pike. In fact, according to Find Craft Beer, there are no brew pubs within a 20 mile radius of my house in Seattle. Lordy, am I glad that’s not true! It disturbs me that anyone would even suggest such a thing. I also tried searches for Tacoma and Bellingham with similar incorrect results.

The skinny? Does a very nice job of serving up some very bad information. Useless and kind of disturbing.

Isn't it pretty? Ya, pretty useless.

Beer Cloud (powered by GreatBrewers.com) – This application offers three basic functions: Search, Sommelier, and Beer Styles. The interface is simple enough. It has some nice graphical elements and is easy to understand. The search functionality has the same problem as Find Craft Beer. The information is incomplete at best. Other than Redhook and Elysian, I could not find information about any Washington breweries or beers.

The Sommelier functionality works. I am not sure about the accuracy of the pairing suggestions, but it does work. The Beer Styles functionality works as well. For each style listed, the app provides a description of the style as well as a list of beers that fit into that style. The problem here is that when you look up India Pale Ale, Elysian Immortal IPA is the only result from Washington. Although the app’s other functionality might be considered useful, the lack of Washington beer information is irritating.

The skinny? A nice looking application but sadly lacking data about Washington beers. Useless and irritating.

BeerGuide – Basically, this app does a lot of the same stuff as the previous two apps but does not have any “find local” search option. It does suggest the appropriate glassware, which isn’t a bad thing. Another unique feature, you can search their database for beers based on their ABV%. Why? I don’t know. But you can do it.

The app also features a Beer Combos section that allows you to find out the “official” name for blended beers. In other words, the official name for Guinness plus anything. Fat Black is Guinness with Fat Tire, Arrogant Black is Guinness with Arrogant Bastard, The Noogle is Guinness with PBR, and so on.

The official "Guiness and Anything" guide.

This app suffers from the same basic problem as the previous apps: bad data. For example, if you go to the Local Beers option and navigate to Washington, you might think you entered the wrong state. Is this app trying to insult me? Thank you for reminding me that I’m old enough to remember breweries that went out of business before Lady Gaga was born.

The skinny? Huge amounts of bad data severed up in a clunky application. Useless and insulting.

Gallagher’s Beer Guide. What I like about this application is that it doesn’t try to be too much. It has a very simple description of each beer style and gives you a few textbook examples. For instance, for the Pale Ale category, it lists Bass Pale Ale and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale as the textbook examples. Sure, their list of beers is seriously incomplete, but I get the feeling that the app just wants to help you find a beer you’ll enjoy. It does not pretend to be some encyclopedia of beer information the way the other apps do. It’s like a friendly bartender who is trying to suggest a beer that you’ll like, even though he really doesn’t know anything about beer. He’s just trying to help.

The skinny? Nice interface, predominantly useless, but at least it doesn’t make me mad.

The tap list for Collins Pub. Best of all, I can fix it if it's wrong.

Beer Signal (powered by Taplister.com) – This one has promise. It allows you to see what is on tap at a particular bar. Optionally, you can search for a particular beer and it will tell you where to find it on tap. Best of all, the users control the data. It is up to the users to submit beers that are on tap or off tap. For instance, if you’re sitting at Collins Pub and you notice that they just put Winterfish on tap, and it is not on the Beer Signal tap list, you can very easily update the tap list. Likewise, you can report a beer that is on the tap list as now being off tap. Basically, this means that the application becomes better as more people use it.

Another really cool thing about Beer Signal is that it has a social networking component. You can add buddies and then update them by sending a beer signal. “I am drinking beer now at…” or “I will be drinking beer at 4:30 at…” From within the Beer Signal interface, you can quickly and easily send these updates using Twitter or Shizzow.

The skinny. Get it. Use it. The more people who do, the more useful Beer Signal will become. Not likely it will be perfect, or 100% accurate, but it will certainly become very useful.

Here is the list of beer bars  from which people were able to choose in round one.  The list includes the % of votes  received by each.

(the finalists)
Beveridge Place 20%
Brouwer’s 17%
Latona 8%
Dog and Pony 6%
Barking Dog 5%
The Dray 5%
Uber Tavern 5%

(the following did not make it into the finals)
Cooper’s Alehouse 4%
Stumbling Monk 4%
Taphouse Seattle 3%
Malt and Vine 3%
Collins Pub 3%
Fiddler’s Inn 2%
Hopvine Pub 2%
Pub at Pipers Creek 2%
Porterhouse West Seattle 2%
Hudson Public House 1%

The Other Results
“Other” received 12% of the votes. Below, I share the “Other” votes just to show you what I’m up against. NONE of the “Other” votes received more than one vote. That is, each of the following received one and only one vote. When looking at the following list, remember two things – we specifically said “beer bar, not brew pub” and we specifically said “Seattle-area.”

Balefire (is in Everett)
Buckley’s on Queen Anne
Wedgewood Alehouse
The new Hooters in Boulevard Park
College Inn Pub
Naked City Taphouse (is now a brew pub)
Kells Irish Pub
Black Raven Brewing (is a brew pub)
Jolly Roger Taproom (is a brew pub)
The Eastside Club (I assume, the bar in Olympia)
The George and Dragon
Quinn’s
Glacier Brewing Co (is a brew pub in Polson, MT)
Sundown Saloon
Fred’s Rivertown (Snohomish, WA)
Bend Brewing Company Pub (is a brew pub in Bend, OR)
Red Robin in Overlake
Hilltop Ale House
Falcon Pub in Boise (is in Boise, ID)
The Summit Pub

There were also some nonsense votes that I could not interpret. Some people voted for “Other” and then entered their name, email address, or random obscene comment in the text field.

• This year’s festival is the 176th Oktoberfest.
• Approximately 6 million people will attend.
• Approximately 1.5 million gallons of beer will be consumed.
• Cost of a litre of beer at Oktoberfest this year is about $11-$12 U.S. (roughly $5-$6 per pint)
• It is the largest public festival of this kind in the world.
• Historically, the festival is scheduled to end on the first Sunday in October.
• The event officially opens when Munich’s mayor pounds a spigot into a keg and proclaims,”It is tapped.”
• Many people are overserved and pass out. They are referred to as “Bierleichen” (“beer corpses”).
• Approximately 1,800 toilets and urinals are available for festival-goers. Men who only need to urinate are directed to use the “Pissoir” (giant enclosed grate) – a fairly recent addition to the fun.
• Oktoberfest spawns nearly 1,000 tons of garbage each year.

How did Oktoberfest get started? It was October 18th, 1810 when a royal wedding was held uniting Crown Prince Ludwig (later to become King Ludwig I) and Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. The citizens of Munich were invited to attend the festivities which were held on the fields just outside of the city. The event featured, among other amusements, horse races. The decision to repeat the horse races the next year marks the start of what we now call Oktoberfest.

If I got anything wrong, or anyone has other stuff to add, leave a comment.