Saturday the 21st Pike Brewery held it's innaugural event during the Seattle Beerweek Festivities. Over the last decade or more various brewer's have worked and trained at Pike then moved on to create their own style of beer. With the blessing Pike owner Charles Finkel and his wife, these brewer's continue to expand the regions dominance in craft beers. It was a once of a kind event with ten brewers returning to share one of the craft beers with this great crowd. Pike even made Brewer trading cards to go along with the event. Below is a list of the Brewers and their beer.
ZZ Hop IPA has a nice crisp hop flavor with a mild sweet backbone finish. I heard from several fans that Kevin brews a mean chocolate stout.
Colt 45 eat your heart out. This craft Malt liquor is one of several produced here in Seattle. While favoring a more malty sweetness than a the ZZ Hop, this malt Liquor went down smooth and was well balanced. Im not a huge fan of malty beers so it was not my favorite. But I can tell you that I was well appreciated by many fans of this style of beer.
This beer was finished with soaked golden raisins and rum. The initial taste was pale ale while the finish was like a bread pudding sauce. Quite interesting.
This IPA had a great hop flavor for the initial taste but finished a little malty for my palette. Still an excellent beer.
A very traditional pale ale. Crisp flavor with a clean finish. The hops used added a nice citrus quality.
While pale ales are a good beer they are not my first choice. But this pale had a great hop start a well balanced middle with a slight clementine finish. It was fantastic. One of my favorites of the evening.
I was first introduced to the Weiss beers back in the early nineties in Portland. I hwasn't a fan then and only recently have I tasted wheat beers made with depth and character. This was one of them. It had the best floral nose of any of the beers. And had hints of heather on the finish. It was hopped enough to balance the wheat and give a good texturural mouthfeel to the beer.
This bock was the first I tried and was a little cold at the time but when I tried it later the flavors really came through. Balanced malt and hops with slight hints of chocolate and toast. From the comments I heard it was on of the event overall favorites.
This esb was one of the more complex beers with layers of flavor and depth of character. A little on the malty side for my tastes but still rather nice.
Dean is the current brewer at Pike and had a great showing with his firkle of cask conditioned XXIPA. Being an IPA fan I couldn't wait to taste this beer. It was worth the wait in line. Excellent balance, rich color and a medium hop finish made this a very enjoyable beer. (sorry for the dark photo, it was on the end farthest from the light)
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| that's a 13 beer smile (taster's that is) |
Overall this experience was fantastic and added to the great experience that is Seattle.
"If you are going to drink, drink well and drink responsibly."
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