Pacific NorthWest Trip: Seattle

The 5th edition of our mother-daughter vacation took us to the Pacific Northwest this time around.  Our first stop was Seattle, Washington.  Well, technically, our first stop was Portland, but immediately after flying into PDX, we picked up our rental car and headed north to Seattle.

Our first beer-centric experience brought us to one of the Elysian Brewing Company locations in the Capital Hill neighborhood.  It was a cozy brewpub, which also houses their main production brewery.  Elysian immediately intrigued us not only with a wide variety of beers on tap, but we also learned of their '12 Beers of the Apocalypse' series, and were able to try two of the beers while at the brewpub.  Check out this link for more on the series.

The original Elysian brewpub in Seattle's Capital Hill neighborhood

Our initial taster lineup consisted of the following (in pictures below from left to right): The Immortal IPA, Men's Room Ale (original red), Perseus Porter, The Wise ESB, Avatar Jasmine IPA, Pandora's Bock, White Woods Wit, Bete Blanche (trippel), Loser (pale ale), and Split Shot Espresso Milk Stout.

Finally, we tried the 4th and 5th beers in the 12 Beers of the Apocalypse - the 'Peste,' a chocolate chili ale, and 'Ruin,' a rosemary agave IPA.  Our server even gave us a small sample of one of their collaborations with New Belgium - the Trip XII, a pink peppercorn IPA.

Taster lineup #1 at Elysian

Taster lineup #2 at Elysian

Sampler at the Pike Brewing Co.

Later that night, we made our way to The Pike Brewing Company, located at the famous Pike Place Market.  We heard good things about them from our hotel concierge and were immediately impressed by the enormity of the restaurant/brewery space.  Once again, we shared a sampler of their flagship brews which included Pike Naughty Nellie (Golden Organic ale), Pike Pale Ale, Pike IPA, Pike Kilt Lifter (Scotch ale), Pike XXXXX (extra stout), and Pike Monk's Uncle (Belgian-style tripel).  We also tried the Space Needle IPA

Unfortunately, in both of these beer chicks minds, most of the beers fell flat.  Nothing really jumped out at us as being worthy of trying again or seeking out in the future.

Our last brewery stop while in the Seattle area was to the original Pyramid Brewing alehouse, located across from Safeco Field, home of the Seattle Mariners baseball team.  Most people are familiar with at least two of Pyramid's flagships brews - their Hefeweizen and Apricot Ale. 

Pyramid Brewing Alehouse

We were most interested in finding out if they had more variety in their lineup than these two fruit flavored beers.  To our mouth's delight, they delivered.

Sampler at Pyramid

Taster: Scotch Ale, Outburst Imperial IPA, Summer Grifter IPA, Dunkel, Apricot Ale, Hefeweizen, Cleo's Cream Ale, Curve Ball (kolsch style).  As bad as it may sound, the Apricot Ale remained supreme.  It is just too thirst quenching and makes for one heckuva summer beer.

We also managed to squeeze in one more stop to a bar, Collins Pub, which Megan found in a book called 'The Great American Ale Trail.'  It also happened to be only a block away from from out hotel, how convenient!

Collins Pub in Seattle

They had a pretty good taplist, but the place was empty on a Saturday night.  We had two beers each - Peche Mode by Double Mountain Brewery, Tarte Lychee from the New Belgium Lips of Faith series, Wookey Jack by Firestone Walker, and Vortex IPA by Fort George Brewery.  Overall, we weren't to impressed with this spot, beyond the tap list.  If it hadn't been a mere minute walk from out hotel, we probably wouldn't have sought it out.  The first night in town, we attempted to grab a drink there, only to discover it was closed by the time we arrived, shortly after midnight.  Perhaps because of its downtown location, its a great spot for happy hour or after a football or baseball game, who knows.



And with that, our time in Seattle was complete, and we headed a few hours north to spend the next few days in Vancouver, British Columbia.  Our only experience with Canadian beer has been Labatt's Blue (ick), so we were hoping for something slightly more impressive.