The Great American Ale Trail - Christian DeBenedetti [22]
Tacoma
PARKWAY TAVERN
313 N. I St. • Tacoma, WA 98403 (253) 383-8748 • No website • Established: 1936
SCENE & STORY
Sometimes little old bars open since the 1930s with no website translate as: cool spot/bad beer. Not so with the Parkway. Its home of Tacoma (located down I-5 a bit between Seattle and Olympia) has a proud beer history, with no fewer than eight breweries up and running between 1888 and Prohibition. Built upon the restoration of lawful beer drinking in what appears to be a converted old shingled house in a quiet residential neighborhood, the Parkway Tavern is a retro gem with a beer list very much of the moment.
As for the bar itself, I’m sure you’ve heard those stories that begin “there used to be a beat-up old drop ceiling in here. We pulled it down and found this . . .” Which, when you look up, turns out to be acres of gorgeous stained wood. That’s the Parkway’s thirty-plus tap front room, with mahogany paneling, cherry wood tables, and polished bar. There’s also a working fireplace and a game room of sorts in the back where guests play pool, darts, shuffleboard, and pinball (yes!). And don’t leave without a visit to the Zebra Room. You’ll know it when you see it.
PHILOSOPHY
There’s an old bar sign that reads “THE LIVER IS EVIL . . . IT MUST BE PUNISHED,” but with the excellent beers on tap here, you’re more likely treating yourself with kid gloves. There are multiple festivals and tasting events here year-round for barrel-aged beers, barley wines, and IPAs.
KEY BEER
This would be the perfect place for the roasty but unpunishing Moylan’s Dragoons Dry Irish Stout (5% ABV), or perhaps a fresh Russian River tap, as they’re frequent.
Bellingham
CHUCKANUT BREWERY & KITCHEN
601 W. Holly St. • Bellingham, WA 98225 • (360) 752-3377 chuckanutbreweryandkitchen.com • Established: 2008
SCENE & STORY
Founder Will Kemper tells the story of walking into the old Rainier brewery (now shuttered) in Seattle to ask the brewmaster how he might get started in the trade. The brewer told him he’d have to have been born into it. Wrong answer. Kemper armed himself with the top degrees in brewing (which would lead to eventual teaching appointments in California and London) before going on to found the influential Thomas Kemper brewery (a venture which was later sold to Pyramid). He became a globetrotting consultant, setting up or running scores of breweries in Mexico, Europe, and in Turkey before making his most recent move, to Bellingham, where he set up this technically advanced brewery with an off-kilter name. Today the little seventy-five-seat Chuckanut brewery (built in a converted waterfront warehouse) is a sunny affair with six rotating taps, buttery walls and a gleaming, fully automated brewhouse. Kemper’s latest venture was honored with best brewer and small brewpub of the year in 2009 at the Great American Beer Festival, which just goes to show: You can’t keep a good brewer down.
PHILOSOPHY
Clean, controlled, and mostly true to established styles, Kemper’s operation is one of a variety executed with a true perfectionist’s eye for detail. There’s an open kitchen with a wood-burning oven for preparing pizzas and tasty, healthy food to pair with his beers.
KEY BEER
Try the pale golden Kolsch, with a refreshingly light, herbal, hay-like taste and crisp finish (5% ABV).
DETOUR
THE ULTIMATE ALE SAIL
SCHOONER ZODIAC • 1221 Harris Ave., PNB 2 • Bellingham, WA 98225 (206) 719-7622 • schoonerzodiac.com
Washington’s Puget Sound is known for roving pods of killer whales and soaring bald eagles, craggy remote islets with sleepy sea lions, bobbing otters, barking harbor seals, and the occasional humpback. It’s also home to a handful of breweries accessible by sea. What better way to tour them than on a majestic 127-foot topsail schooner built in 1924? Three times each summer, Schooner Zodiac sets sail from Bellingham