Seattle Beer

http://www.pacificnorthwestcoastbias.com/great-local-beer-mannys/

I think that what all of us craft beer lovers -brewers included- would love to see is more pubs like the Beveridge Place, the Parkway, the Eastside Club, Collins Pub, the Latona, the Dog & Pony, and the many others I’m not mentioning – pubs operated by publicans who really support craft beer. We need more craft handles – more room for our locals to get on tap without pushing another local out of the way. A friend once told me, “I don’t want to replace every Manny’s handle, I want to be right next to every Manny’s handle.” Cheers to that!

Two of the biggest WA brewers (by volume) don’t filter their flagships which makes for a tough product to bottle, and they need to be served fresh. Managing a product in many stores is considerably more difficult than in bars.

Brewery owners are in tough positions because pushing their beer on draft may mean another WA brewer is bumped off. And if not a WA brewer, presumably another craft brewer. There is a double edged sword to growth.

I guess I’m just defending the brewers a little bit, we’re not timid about being available to the consumer, we’re just trying to maintain responsible growth levels. In the end I think we both (beer lovers and beer makers) are looking for the same thing. If we could give you all a tasty WA beer every time you wanted one we’d all be happy right. But please keep pushing for it everywhere you go. It makes all the difference.

a.g. – I realize that Redhook and Widmer are under the same corporate ownership, but please don’t try to claim them as a Washington brewery, all their production takes place in Portland and is one of the oldest craft breweries in the state.

When I go out, I nearly always choose Washington beer. There are such delicious selections on tap nearly everywhere. It’s a nice treat at $4.00 a pint.

The grocery store on the way home from work is another story. Then, it is Full Sail, from Oregon, nearly always on sale, and a tad nicer than the Widmer, from Washington, at the same price. Curiously, it is only a tad more expensive than the Rainier.

Why is that???

And how much would it cost for a six-pack of Manny’s?

Usually I can get a Manny’s Pale or a Mac and Jack’s African Amber at most places that have a decent tap selection, but I would love if more Washington breweries could get into my local bars.

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.

How depressing if true. Sierra Nevada is ok in a pinch. Fat Tire is just bad, IMHO. Deschutes I can understand and Alaskan lacks “oomph” (technical term, that). Of those four none would be a first choice and I’d consider not drinking if Fat Tire was the only option.

Maybe this betrays my level of geekishness over WA beer but it shocks me that WA is fourth in consumption here. I just don’t understand it. Are people really that uninformed about the great options from within our own state?

One possible explanation (and big frustration for me): The thing that hurts what I consider to be some of the better WA beers is that they don’t bottle. Most of my favorites don’t and I go out of my way to fill growlers with them when possible. I believe I’m an exception in this regard, most people are not going to go through so much effort to get beer, they’ll take what’s at the store. Even I am incredibly frustrated by this and I’m pretty dedicated to getting what I want, imagine how many people would likely drink their beer but have long since given up jumping through the extra hoops to attain it.

When are WA breweries going to figure this out? Bottle it, get it in stores and you’ll sell more. They don’t need to be in every 7-Eleven in the state, just start by bottling enough to get into the specialty stores at least.

An example of this is Georgetown Brewery, I love the Choppers Red and Super Chop but only found out they even exist when I stopped by the brewery a few months ago. As far as I know you can only get those beers at the brewery itself (whose hours are not very good) and maybe a pub or two nearby. You aren’t going to sell much that way. Manny’s is easy to find, but once again you have to make the trip to the brewery to get Manny’s to drink at home and then only in growlers. I’m sure it’s no easy task to bottle and distribute but at the same time I think there’s a market they aren’t tapping into.

Or maybe I’m an extreme minority and my favs just wouldn’t sell.

Isnt it really all about distribution? Example – My local sports bar has 10 beers on tap and they say that 6 belong to Columbia and 4 belong to K&L. They are the two big distributors in King County. They call it “sponsorship.” Sounds like payola to me. They tell me that very few local breweries are distributed by either of those companies, so they won’t ever be on tap.

Ha ha, yes. I suppose the whole eat local and drink local movement is a west coast thing. We try to avoid burning coal, also.