Tag Archives: beer

Bringing its ‘Beeriodic Table’ to Broadway and Union, Stoup taking over Capitol Hill’s Optimism Brewing

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(Image: Optimism Brewing)

(Image: Stoup Brewing)

Two Seattle breweries born just under 10 years ago are combining, bringing an end to Capitol Hill’s Optimism Brewing. But the woman-owned, scientifically-minded beer makingĀ will continue and the taps will still flow at Optimism’s auto row-era showroom transformed into a modern Capitol Hill beer hall.

Ballard-born Stoup Brewing and Optimism announced the planned acquisition and were busy telling employees and customers about the plans over the holiday weekend.

“We love that it is continuing. We built it as a place that we wanted to go to and it’s going to stay exactly as it is,” Optimism co-founder Troy Hakala said Monday. “And Capitol Hill is getting great Stoup beer.”

At Union and Broadway, new signs and a few changes will go up over the summer as the tap lines fill with Stoup’s creations and the production vats shift, but Stoup’s Lara Zahaba says the hope is for Optimism’s spirit to continue in the 16,000-square-foot brewery that has been lauded for its aesthetics and community-friendly design including spacious open seating and an impressively vast all-gender restroom.

ā€œI hope the feelings will be very similar,” Zahaba said. “Really Stoup and Optimism have a lot in common. Locally owned, neighborhood breweries. Inclusive.”

“My hope is people will have that feeling of Optimism when drinking Stoup beers,” she said.

New beer, new signage, and a new color scheme are coming but the rest of the changes will be minimal — ā€œWe will Stoup-ify the space to a certain degree,” Zahaba quipped — for what has been a working recipe.

Craft beer looked very different, and had some misogynist and angry streaks when they started the brewery a decade ago, Optimism’s Gay Gilmore said.

“We tried to make it super approachable. I think a lot of craft is doing the same now. They figured it out.”

Gilmore says Stoup is part of that craft beer change. “Their values are just as inclusive as Optimism,” Gilmore said.

Under the planned deal, Stoup will take over the brewery and beer hall while Optimism founders Gilmore and Hakala will retain ownership of the 1920-era Maker Building they purchased after the Polyclinic shifted plans and put the property up for sale for expected redevelopment. Continue reading →

Eldest of Capitol Hill and Central District’s modern crop of beer makers, Standard Brewing turns 10

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(Image: Standard Brewing)

(Image: Standard Brewing)

This weekend, Standard Brewing turns 10 making the S Jackson brewery the eldest of the modern class of Central District and Capitol Hill beer makers.

Standard is celebrating with a “10 year banger” —

How did this happen?! Most of you never got to see us incubate in the back corner of our building. It seems pretty wild now to think about how we got our start, with a bunch of ramshackle equipment and duct tape. For those of you that remember our building being yellow and purple, with double deep parking spaces and a bar with space for 8, it seems like a lifetime ago. For all of you, and for everyone that has been a supporter over this hectic decade, March 18th and 19th is for you!

The weekend will include live music and special releases including a bourbon barrel-aged stout with Broadcast Coffee, a “Bee’s Wine” ginger beer, and a special “fermented pineapple” tepache beverage, along with guest bartenders and more surprises. Continue reading →

New pairing at Capitol Hill’s Redhook Brewlab as Chef Shota brings Kōbo and its Detroit+Osaka pizzas to E Pike

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The Flat Earther (Image: Kōbo)

(Image: Redhook Brewlab)

Shota Nakajima is ready to help out his neighbor, bringing pizza with Detroit and Osaka roots to the kitchen of Capitol Hill’s Redhook Brewlab.

KōboĀ will debut this weekend, taking over the menu of the E Pike microbrewery with Nakajima’s take on pizza pie and providing new energy that could help fill the beer maker’s tables and big street-side patio.

ā€œI was fascinated the first time I saw Detroit-style pizza. Having trained in Osaka, which is known as the ‘starch city’ of Japan, I was inspired by things like Okonomiyaki and Takoyaki, which employ a starch base that is generally cooked over high heat in cast iron or black steel, with a signature crispy exterior and chewy interior,” Nakajima said in a press release on the new link-up.

“It was a natural step to utilize this similar ideology, and staying true to my culinary roots and training, employ the use of koji, nori, and mochiko flour to achieve both umami and a heavenly texture for our dough.” Continue reading →

More Black ownership — and more Black-made beer — in the CD as 23rd Ave Brewery takes shape

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The 23rd Ave Brewery guys in R&D mode (Image: 23rd Ave Brewery)

(Image: 23rd Ave Brewery)

There will be more Black ownership — and more Black-made beer — in the Central District. 23rd Ave Brewery is on its way to opening later this year with a small production and filling shop at 23rd and Jackson.

“It’s really dope that we are kinda back home,” Mario Savage tells CHS. “We grew up on that block.”

Savage and his three brothers — “it’s a family affair,” he says — now have a place to take their beer making to the next level, selling bottles and cans, filling kegs, and keeping fans supplied with 23rd Ave merch from the new brew shop being set up as part of the retail spaces added to the Jackson Apartments outside the neighborhood’s Amazon Fresh.

For now, the new space will be a grab and go operation with no seating or bar service. Future growth is hoped to eventually add elements like a taproom and increased production in the neighborhood.

CHS reported here on the smaller, more affordable commercial spaces and efforts to include small businesses in the new development as part of a ripple of new Black ownership including Simply Soulful and Catfish Corner in this core of the Central District.

Savage said in about three weeks, new brewing equipment will arrive and be installed as 23rd Ave Brewery ramps up its small-scale production with more trials and testing. Continue reading →

MĆ©tier Brewing Company will bring Black-owned beer — and Japanese street food — to new Central District taproom in 2022

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A 20-year resident of the Central District will open a new flagship taproom for one of the few Black-owned beer breweries in the nation early next year on E Cherry.

Rodney Hines calls MĆ©tier Brewing Company “purpose-driven” and said he chose expanding the brewery with a taproom and Japanese street food in the Central Area with the intent of recognizing the history of the communities there while also being present as a Black business owner in the neighborhood.

“A moment of tension for me is when I walk around my neighborhood and when I think of whether new people who see the street signs honoring Rev. McKinney at Mt. Zion Baptist have taken a moment to know who he was. I fear that thereā€™s a lot of new energy, a lot of new people… that can be good. It can be better if people can pause and look at history of who was here and give some respect for that.ā€

MĆ©tier debuted in 2018 in a business partnership with Hines and Todd Herriott, owner of E Union’s bike shop/cafe/training facility Metier Seattle. It shares a name with the bike venture and has based its production at a bike-friendly spot along the riding trail in Woodinville but MĆ©tier Brewing is all about Hines and the beer.

2022 will be a massive year for the company. By the end of next summer, MĆ©tier and the Seattle Mariners will open the former stadium district Pyramid Alehouse as Steelheadā€™s Alley, a new beer-focused pre-game hangout honoring the Seattle Steelheads Negro League team that once played its games at Sick’s Stadium on Rainier Ave.

But before it looks back with nostalgia, MĆ©tier will push forward with the new E Cherry taproom and microbrewery slated to open in early 2022. CHS first reported here in October on early plans for the E Cherry property formerly used as an auto garage and blacksmith studio.

Now the project is taking shape as a 2,000-square-foot “community gathering space featuring rotating taps of the breweryā€™s award-winning brews” in the new commercial development from Capitol Hill-based developer Liz Dunn. Continue reading →

Two ‘mystery’ projects take shape with planned beer-y future in the Central District, new basement restaurant on Capitol Hill

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Construction underway this summer at the Heath Printers building on Capitol Hill (Image: CHS)

Sometimes it’s a secret. Sometimes nobody knows. And sometimes you just haven’t asked the right person.

While the pace of new food and drink openings has understandably slowed, two Capitol Hill and Central District “mystery restaurant” projects continue to take shape. As the industry continues its work at recovery, the projects represent bright — and intriguing — lights on the horizon.

On Capitol Hill, work has been underway for months in a full transformation of the interior of Boylston Ave’s Heath Printers building with a planned change of use to “eating & drinking establishment” and construction of “substantial alterations for tenant improvements of restaurant and office spaces throughout existing commercial structure,” according to plans filed with the city. The property just around the corner off E Pine is part of the near block snapped up by developer Asana Partners and was the home to Capitol Hill-born coworking company Office Nomads before that venture went fully virtual during the pandemic.

Asana has brought on Capitol Hill-based Graham Baba Architects, the prolific firm behind many of the neighborhood and city’s most ambitious recent food and drink construction projects,Ā to design the space. Continue reading →

‘Seattle’s first microbrewery’ wasn’t born on Capitol Hill — but it will celebrate 40 years of beer here

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The original Ballard brewery (Image: Redhook)

The Redhook Brewlab is the last physical vestige of Seattle’s “first microbrewery” (Image: Redhook)

Marking 40 years will be a bittersweet journey for a beer maker that helped usher in the microbrewery era but now finds itself seemingly without a home after decades of change in the industry and being swallowed up by “the world’s largest beer company.” But the Redhook Brewery does have a home, surviving right here on Capitol Hill and still part of the Pacific Northwest beer scene thanks to one of the most uniquely densely-packed brewing facilities you’ll find.

This weekend, the Redhook Brewlab — the last brewery and pub in the Redhook line — is setting out to celebrate those 40 years with a party showcasing the beer it brews here on E Pike, favorites from the past, and “Seattle’s first microbrewery” role in the history of Washington and Oregon beer. There will also be baby goats. Continue reading →

Elysian Brewing marks 25 years on Capitol Hill

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Elysian Brewing, a grandfather of the Seattle brewery scene, is beginning the celebration of the 25th anniversary of its Capitol Hill birth with a pack of beer including some of its signature creations over the last quarter century.

ā€œElysian was built from a love of subversive music, artistic rebellion, and great beer,ā€ Elysianā€™s co-founder Joe Bisacca said. ā€œBy staying true to our DNA, being unafraid to experiment, and keeping consumers at the forefront of everything we do, weā€™ve been able to stand the test of time and deliver the beers our fans want for 25 remarkable years.ā€

Bisacca, along with David Buhler,Ā andĀ Dick Cantwell started Elysian in May, 1996 where its E Pike brewery and brewpub still make their home in the overhauled 1919-era Packard storage building. Continue reading →

Miss Little Uncle? Chef Wiley Frank is back in kitchen at Central District’s Standard Brewing

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Crispy Duck Wrap and Dip with 5-Spice Broth now at Standard Brewing (Image: Standard Brewing)

The flavors and spirit of Little Uncle, probably one of the most missed neighborhood food and drink venues to leave us in recent years, are back on the menu with the chef behind the much-missed E Madison restaurant now pairing his work with Central District-crafted beer.

For eight years, the Central District’s Standard Brewing has maintained a far above standard food menu to pair with its S Jackson-made beers. New chef Wiley Frank is continuing that run with some surprises and flavors from the Little Uncle past. Continue reading →

A pandemic habit that could stick: Capitol Hill to-go cocktails and beer delivery until 2023

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The Tipsy Cat at Cook Weaver (Image: Cook Weaver)

Masks in crowded public places. Working on your couch. And cocktails to go.

It’s hard to say what habits of the pandemic will stay with us but Capitol Hill bars, breweries, and restaurants that invested in takeout cocktails and beer delivery will be happy to know they can continue to offer off-premises booze into 2023.

The new law passed in the just completed session in Olympia gives state liquor license holders a two year window to adjust as the new habits set in after months of COVID-19 restrictions reshaped the way we dine out. Continue reading →