For this inaugural Hop Trip I chose the land of hops and one of my former home states: Washington. I also chose it because I was already going for a different reason which we’ll get to in a little bit. As Washington is a large state this Hop Trip focuses on three specific locations and a couple of stops in between. These locations include Seattle, Orcas Island, and Port Townsend.
Seattle
September 15th 2017
Ah Seattle, a beautiful city that I have a rather complicated relationship with. I lived in Seattle for about three years between 2007 and 2010 while obtaining my master’s degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Washington. I had some good times and some not so great times during those years and I learned that while Seattle is great to visit I did not want to live there. Seattle has many downsides (traffic, gloomy weather, expensive as shit) but one if its big upsides is its beer and as such there is not really a better place to begin a Washington Hop Trip. For this trip I focused primarily on northwestern neighborhoods of Seattle, including Magnolia, Ballard, and Greenwood.
Our first stop was Figurehead Brewing in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle. I lived in Magnolia when I lived in Seattle and since I left a couple of craft breweries have popped up in the industrial area of this neighborhood near the Fisherman’s Terminal (where you can sometimes spot the boat from Deadliest Catch). Figurehead is very new on Seattle’s craft scene, founded in 2016 by three homebrewers and utilizes a 7 BBL brewhouse that feed three 7 BBL uni-tanks. Their beers tend to be English and Belgian inspired but there was a least one NW style IPA on tap. The tap room has a fisherman’s wharf vibe and a small patio out front and appears to be both kid and pet friendly (especially since I saw someone’s dog puke all over the concrete floor in front of the bar). Vomit aside, Figurehead has a nice ambiance and good beer. I sampled the Golden Delicious Blonde Ale and the Belgian Bitter, both of which I enjoyed (although the Belgian was better).
The next stop was Urban Family Brewing, just a little down the road. I was excited about this stop as I have wanted to hit this place up ever since I tried once of their bottled offerings about a year ago. While Urban Family doesn’t strictly focus on sour beers (like Cascade Barrel House aka House of Sour in Portland) they are definitely the highlight of their tap list and holy crap are they good. I’m a sour fan in general and Urban Family knows what they are doing when it comes to sour and farmhouse beers. Who’s got the funk? They’ve got the funk. A little bit of farmhouse beer humor for you there. Anyways, we did a flight with the majority of the sour beers they had on tap (all of which were delicious) and then I sampled the Dark Perennial (a sour beer flavored with blackberries, rhubarb, and boysenberries which I also took home a bottle of) while my husband had one of their IPAs (also very tasty). The moral of this story is if you live in Seattle or will be visiting get thee to Urban Family Brewing. You won’t be disappointed (especially if the adorable bulldog with his tongue perpetually hanging out is there-goddammit I wanted to take him home with me).
After buying a bunch of 22’s to take home we made our way to another one of my current favorite Seattle breweries Reuben’s Brews in Ballard. Their small brewery and tap room are located in the industrial part of the Ballard neighborhood and includes a small indoor space looking directly onto the brewery floor (love it) and a large outdoor patio (which probably isn’t super practical a good portion of the year in Seattle but on this lovely night in September is was pretty great). They have an expansive tap list compared to some breweries (24 beers on tap when I last checked) and also have at least one guest cider tap. The brewery, who takes its name from the co-founders’ son, states that their mission is to make “bloody good beer” and I’m inclined to agree that they have succeeded in doing so. I have several favorites from their core lineup (which you can find in cans and 22 oz bottles across the Pacific Northwest) including their Gose and the Crikey IPA. However on this trip I sampled their Fresh Hop IPA (because when its fresh hop season you have fresh hop beers) and the Roasted Rye IPA and both were very tasty.
September 16th 2017
Saturday brought us to the event which brought me to Seattle in the first place: the Punk in Drublic festival. Punk in Drublic? What is that, you ask? Well, I will tell you: it is a craft beer/punk rock festival that was brought to my attention by my awesome sister-in-law (thanks Jessie!). The Punk in Drublic festival was created by NOFX frontman Fat Mike (and named after one of the band’s albums) in partnership with Stone Brewing out of San Diego, CA. The festival which included a lineup of punk favorites (at our location this included NOFX, Bad Religion, Goldfinger, Less Than Jake, and Bad Cop / Bad Cop) also provided a selection of craft beer for purchase, including a Punk in Drublic Hoppy Lager (which I enjoyed but my sister-in-law was less excited about) made in partnership between Fat Mike and Stone Brewing. On tap you could also find several offerings from Stone and a couple of local breweries including Silver City Brewing, Atlas Cider Company, and Dystopian State Brewing (although the downside of the festival was trying to get any of these local beers before the kegs ran dry). On the upside the music was fantastic and the people watching was pretty epic. I love being in a place where I can keep a tally of the mohawks I see around me.
September 18th 2017
You’ll notice I’m skipping Sunday because I pretty much worked the entire day and I won’t bore you with that. Although the upside of my job is I often work in taprooms when I’m on the road so shout out to The Yard, Naked City Taphouse, and Elysian Tangletown for not getting annoyed at my extended presence in your establishments. Now, that that is out of the way, on Monday we headed northwest to Anacortes to board a ferry boat (yay ferry boats!) to Orcas Island. It was a gorgeous day for a ride out to Orcas Island and we spent most of the ride on the outside deck picking out dream vacation home locations.
I had been to the San Juan Islands once prior to this trip so I already knew that they’re crazy pretty and the pastoral tranquility was the perfect follow-up to being in Seattle (which I lovingly refer to as stink town) for a few days. We spent most of the day there doing non-beer related things (mostly driving around the island and taking in the pretty). We drove to Moran State Park and to the top of Mount Constitution where there’s a cool medieval-looking lookout tower (also ridiculous vistas and you can wave hi to Canada). This was followed by a short hike in Obstruction Pass State Park (which is home to the nicest pit toilet I have ever seen, but I digress) before heading back to the bustling metropolis of Eastsound (population 3,746) to visit Island Hoppin’ Brewery.
Island Hoppin’ Brewery isn’t super easy to find as it is tucked away inside an industrial business park but if you are visiting Orcas Island do not pass up the chance to visit. Their location includes a small taproom and a patio (covered, thankfully, as it did start to rain while we were there) and an excellent lineup of beers (as well as a guest cider tap). The brewery has a serious small town feel (complete with the chatty old men at the bar), does serve some food (although we did not partake), and is kid and dog friendly. Like other isolated breweries I have visited (what up, Terminal Gravity) I was pleasantly surprised by the excellent quality of the beers on offer. We did a flight so got to sample the lot but I was a particular fan of the K Pod Kolsch and the Old Madrona Imperial Red. The moral of the story is that I really liked it there and will go back. They also have some interesting merch that we came home with: a ceramic tumbler made by an artist buddy of the bartender.
After drinking and grabbing dinner at a decent Irish pub on the water we headed to our hotel in the hamlet of Deer Harbor. The town (village, community, tiny ass city, not sure which term to use) is aptly name as one thing I learned about Orcas Island is that it is covered in deer. They are literally everywhere. Also rabbits, including several hippity hops who were frolicking outside of our window.
September 19th 2017
The next day we headed back to Anacortes (ferry boat!) on our way to our final destination of Port Townsend. As we hit Anacortes around lunch time we made a stop at Bastion Brewing Company which was conveniently located near the highway we needed to take to our next ferry boat. I had never heard of Bastion Brewing Company prior to that morning but I was glad to have that remedied despite the brief amount of time we spent there (one beer equals sad face). Bastion’s space is split into two sections: in one area you’ll find the bar and in the other area you can order food. You can eat and drink in both halves and nicely solves the problem of not having to constantly tell an annoyed waiter that you’re just there for beer. Although in this case we were there for food which consisteted of pretty good pub grub.
Another ferry boat (ferry boat!) and several hours later found us in Port Townsend, a small town on the Olympic Peninsula known for its natural beauty and Victorian architecture. While Port Townsend is home to two breweries (Port Townsend Brewing and Propolis Brewing) we happened to be in town during a time when both were closed (bad timing also equals sad face). However, I did grab a bottle of Port Townsend Brewing’s Scotch Ale from a store on our way out of town and it was quite nice. As we were at a loss for breweries to visit we headed to a highly recommended taproom, the Pourhouse. I really, really liked this place. It has a wonderful location overlooking the water, an expansive tap list, as well as a small bottle shop in the back. You can also order from an array of restaurants near the taproom and have them deliver right to your table. Highly recommend!
I will also mention that if you’re into the weird and paranormal and you happen to be visiting Port Townsend try to stay at the Manresa Castle Hotel. I knew nothing about this place before my husband booked it (because it was a good deal) but at the same time he did so I was going through a book I own on haunted places in Washington. He came downstairs to tell me about the hotel he had booked and how cool it looked just as I leafed to the page calling Manresa Castle one of the most haunted places in the country. So cool, right? Manresa has two main spirits haunting it halls. One is said to be the ghost of a young Jesuit (during the castle’s time as a seminary) who hung himself in the building’s attic after violating his order’s code of behavior. The other popular spirit is known as Kate who lived for several months in the castle while her fiancé was on an expedition in the Bering Sea. One day she learned that his ship had sunk in a storm and she committed suicide, throwing herself from the window onto the walk below. However, as the story goes, he survived the shipwreck and returned to the tragic news of his fiance’s death. I am sad to say that I did not experience any otherworldly phenomena during my night at Manresa Castle but it is a beautiful and very cool place to visit so whether you’re into ghosts or not you should at least drive by and check it out.
And so ended our Washington Hop Trip. Hope you enjoyed the stories of my adventures and that they have convinced you to visit a few of these places yourself. And, of course, if you have any suggestions for a future Hop Trip be sure to leave them in the comments below!
