About one year ago we first told you about Reuben’s Brews, when home brewer Adam Robbings’ Roasted Rye IPA took the 2010 PNA Winter Beer Taste by storm (read it) and won first place. Fast-forward. About one week ago someone forwarded to me a curious email from Adam Robbings, who was apparently looking for a metal fabricator and/or a contractor to help build a brewery. About one day ago I received a press release from Adam officially announcing that he is in the process of going pro.

From the brewery’s website: “We are a small, family owned and operated brewery located in Ballard in Seattle, WA.  We plan to have our brilliantly tasty artisan ales available for your consumption in June 2012!  We will have a kid-friendly taproom where you can meet with friends, sample and learn about our beers, and pick up a growler to enjoy elsewhere!  As a small, craft brewery operating on an artisan scale, we can’t guarantee broad distribution of our truly seasonal brews.  We hope you make the trip often to imbibe our frequently changing brews and become a part of the Reuben’s Brews Family.”

Here’s the press release.

REUBEN’S BREWS TO OPEN NEW ARTISAN BREWERY FOR THE LIQUID ENJOYMENT OF ALL BEER LOVERS

Ballard, Seattle WA. December 5, 2011.

Reuben’s Brews is delighted to announce that we have found the perfect location, signed the lease, and are set to open a new artisan brewery in Ballard, Seattle next year! Our family owned and operated microbrewery, named after our son, will open its doors in the summer of 2012.

We are committed to using truly artisan techniques with the finest ingredients to provide you delicious, unique beers. We fully understand that discerning beer drinkers have numerous options when deciding what to imbibe, and we will work our tails off to provide you with brilliantly tasty brews to fill your growler.

You may have already tried our beers. As homebrewers, we were the People’s Choice First Place recipient in the PNA Winter Beer Taste in 2010 with our Roasted Rye PA. Our Best of Show American Brown was brewed by Anacortes Brewery in the fall of 2011, and served in a number of Seattle locations. Our co-founder and brewer Adam Robbings is an award-winning homebrewer with a vast collection of brews he can’t wait for you to enjoy.

Our location will feature a small taproom and brewery, located at 1406 NW 53rd St. in Seattle.  We will craft truly seasonal rotating ales, and we look forward to getting your direct feedback on our creations when you visit our family-friendly taproom.

Please follow our progress and look for ways to get involved in our journey at www.facebook.com/ReubensBrews and www.ReubensBrews.com.

We will be privileged to serve you our brilliantly tasty artisan ales in 2012!

Cheers!

Adam and Grace Robbings

So forgive me in advance if these posts are infrequent or lapsing. But my intention is good. I really dig this new trend of pairing food with beer at fine restaurants so I want to have some fun pairing different beers (and sometimes hard ciders), with any food that I come across, and share what I think are the best of the best pairings we try.

Elliott Bay Beers lined up for the food pairings

For the first outing, Kendall and I were lucky enough to have dinner plans with our friends Dan and Nancy at the Elliott Bay Brewery and Pub in West Seattle. This being our local brewpub, it was an easy target because we’ve already tried most everything on the menu. But we haven’t tried the dishes with multiple beers for the sole purpose of finding the best pairing for each plate.

Being that Dan and Nancy are also foodies and beer geeks, we had a good foursome with which to start.  So we ordered a variety of beers, a couple extra beer samplers and a good variety of food that includes some of what we consider to be Elliott Bay’s signature dishes.

We ate:  Ahi Tacos, Seared Goat Cheese Salad, Shroomer hamburger with a side Caesar, and Salami Sliders with a quinoa salad on the side.

We drank:

• Luna Weizen (a hefeweizen)
• Alembic Pale Ale (a Pale Ale hopped exclusively with Cascades)
• Hop Von Boorian (a hoppy, Belgian-style Pale Ale)
• Dry Hop IPA (a dry-hopped version of their IPA)
• Demolition Ale (Imperial Pale Ale)

We liked these pairings:
Ahi Tacos + Alembic Pale Ale

Ahi Tacos with a side of Salsa and Chipotle Aioli

The tacos come with a garlicky salsa, a creamy cole slaw and a hot chipotle aioli. It’s the heat of the aioli that screams for some hops like those offered by the Alembic Pale Ale. Since the aioli comes on the side, if you don’t put much of it on your tacos you could also go with the Luna Weizen here.

Seared Goat Cheese Salad + Demolition Ale

Seared Goat Cheese Salad

Sure the Demolition Ale packs a mighty punch to pair with a salad, but this salad has two huge slider-patty-sized mounds of fried goat cheese. When you pair the Demo with the cheese, or smear the cheese all over the salad (as you really should), then it makes perfect sense on the palette. The strength of the cheese, it’s rich and creamy aggressiveness, is tamed by a big beer like Demolition. A lesser beer would be invisible on your palate.

Schroomer Burger + Alembic Pale Ale

Shroomer with side Caesar

A good balance, where the IPAs were maybe a little heavy and the Luna Weizen was too citrusy, the Pale is once again a good match. It also went well with the side Caesar, which is an optional alternative to the excellent fries at EBB.

Salami Sliders + Alembic Pale Ale

Salami Sliders with quinoa side salad

Seriously, we like all the beers at EBB and tend to order either the Dry Hop IPA or Hop Von Boorian, but after trying different beers with each course we may have to order Alembic with dinner from now on. The sliders were great with the pale, which accentuated the vinegar-based Italian-style dressing.

A little about Elliott Bay Brewery:  it’s a family-friendly neighborhood pub located in the Alaska Junction, on California Ave SW just south of SW Alaska. They are open for lunch and dinner seven days, and usually have five regular beers plus six, seven, eight or more other of the Elliott Bay beers on tap, plus a couple guest taps and a nitro.

Elliott Bay - where everybody knows your name

“The pub” is our once-a-week kind of place, and it’s the place that West Seattle locals swear by. The food is amazingly consistent given how busy their kitchen is, and the portions are so generous that if you can finish your meal you were really hungry, then really stuffed. The menu at Elliott Bay is updated just frequently enough, with monthly dinner, appetizer and dessert specials. The service is among the best I’ve ever experienced, it’s hard to explain how efficient and friendly the service is without sounding like a homer, but they make you feel like their best customer every time.

Elliott Bay has a second location in Downtown Burien and just announced a third location coming in 2011 in little old Lake City. The northenders are lucky, they are going to love it too.

A couple months ago we paid a visit to Odin Brewing Company in South Seattle’s South Park neighborhood (read that story). Today we’ve gotten word that they are ready to open their tasting room.

Odin Brewing Company Invites Public to Tap in and Taste

SEATTLE- March 17, 2010- Odin Brewing Company announces the grand opening of their tasting room located in the Seattle area of South Park. The tasting room will be open to the public March 19, 2010 from 3:00pm to 7:00pm, at 9130 15th Pl. S. Suite F Seattle, WA 98108. (Map)

Come taste Odin’s portfolio of Odin’s Gift and Freya’s Gold. Odin’s Gift is a bold yet balanced filtered ruby colored ale. It is brewed in small hand-crafted batches with just the right amount of hops and juniper berries to deliver a unique and fresh aroma, flavor and finish. Freya’s Gold is a finely balanced kolsch style ale with a delicate fruity aroma and clean, dry finish.

Back by popular demand, Black Raven Brewing‘s Wisdom Seeker Double IPA. The brewery will re-release the beer tomorrow at the brewery’s taproom (the Raven’s Nest) and it is sure to go fast. Quantities are limited: they only brewed 5 barrels. It will be available at the brewery’s taproom (Raven’s Nest) in pints and growlers. Other than that, a very few select accounts might get one of the four or five 1/6 barrel kegs they’ll distribute. Depending on how well the particular publican decides to publicize the event, you can expect a “pliny-like” frenzy whenever they tap into one of those.

NEW BEER RELEASE

Wisdom Seeker Double IPA

Release date: Tuesday 2/23

Back by popular demand (and because the brewers have drank all their secret stash), the Wisdom Seeker Double IPA is the latest seasonal release from Black Raven Brewing. This big and bold IPA is brewed in the American Double IPA style.

Featuring a large cast of hop varieties stitched together to create a big hop flavor and finish … over 37 pounds!

ABV: 9.0%
IBU: 85+

Malt: 100% base ESB malt

Hops: Nugget, Chinook, Centennial, Simcoe, Amarillo, Citra, Summit

WARNING: Based on previous history, this beer will go fast. We will be filling growlers but no kegs to go.

Have you heard about Groupons? Not coupons, but Groupons. Each day Groupon offers something cool at an unbeatable price. You only get the deal if enough people jump on it. That’s the “Group” part of it. Tell your like-minded friends about today’s deal and you will all enjoy the savings. It’s an interesting concept: one that I’ve taken advantage of personally. In short, if it’s something you need or something you are into, the Groupon is a screaming deal. Usually it is some form of a two for one.

Why am I talking about this?

Today’s deal is with Two Beers Brewing and I thought it was worth talking about here on the Washington Beer Blog. The short version is that you get a beer tasting and a T-shirt for $15.  It’s a $30 value for 15 bucks! What’s more, you get to go check out Two Beers’ brewery down in SoDo. (Or is it Georgetown?)

Check it out at http://www.groupon.com/seattle/

This is the kind of new, creative marketing enabled by the fact that we are all so tightly linked together by the Internet. Groupon fits right in line with things like Twitter and Facebook in a hip, young brewery’s marketing arsenal. Who needs billboards or television ads when you’ve got social media. Hundreds of people -more likely thousands of people- are being introduced to Two Beers Brewing today because of Groupon. Cheers to that!

Looks like a lot of people are jumping on this deal. Joel better get some more T-shirts printed.