Reuben's Brews

After building them up I hope I'm able to express what a great find Reuben's Brews was. Even if I can't, the next time you're in Seattle I highly encourage you to pay them a visit. Here's why.

Reuben's was not on our radar in any way until we ran across the sandwich board sign along our path. Even then we couldn't be sure that it was a brewery as opposed to a beer bar but we figured we'd take our chances. As soon as we saw the exterior we knew we'd stumbled upon a brewery and were excited about what might be waiting inside.

The compact brewery and taproom boasted a list of 12 beers available and we wasted no time ordering up a sampler to ensure we were able to try all of them. In the process of making our way through the beers we were able to chat with owner/brewer Adam Robbings and found out the likely reason why we hadn't heard of them - they'd only been open since August.

Of the 12 beers on tap not one was a stinker and although my favorite was, predictably, the Imperial IPA, there were a number I quite enjoyed. Mag's favorite was one of the two beers on nitro, the Dry Stout. The other nitro offering was the Imperial IPA and while I preferred the non-nitro version it was interesting to compare the two side-by-side. My take was that the nitro version not only provided smoothness in texture but also tempered the hop bite and therefore became less appealing to this hop head.

In talking to Adam we learned that the breadth of the brews offered was intentional. He is more interested in offering a lot of different styles rather than offering a greater quantity of a fewer number of beers. For an operation of this size that's always a factor that must be considered and in most cases I think a brewery would do better to start off with a small number of offerings and increase as they grew their market. After tasting Reuben's beers, however, I think he's made the right decision. He's making good beer across the board and as beer geeks know, we're always looking for "the next thing." We're a fickle bunch that will have core favorites we return to but trying something new is always of interest.

As we drank and talked we noticed two barrels and inquired about them. We found out that they came from Hair of the Dog and contained part of a batch of Russian Imperial Stout. The non-barrel-aged RIS will be released toward the end of 2012 with the barrel-aged version hanging out for a few more months, possibly being released in the first quarter of 2013.

Toward the end of our visit a group of 30+ home brewers filed in, filling the small space. They were on a quarterly club outing and we decided to hang out for a bit, getting in on additional information about the brewery as Adam gave a short talk. Here's a bit of that.

I suspect it will be quite some time before Reuben's Brews make their way south to Portland. In the meantime, if you're in Seattle check them out and if you're so inclined you could even bring back a growler for me. If you're interested in my thoughts on their beers, keep reading.

Balsch - A Kolsch-style beer, this is a light, easy drinker.
California Lager - With a surprising caramel color and light woody flavor, this is one of the few lagers I can say I have enjoyed, primarily because the typical lager characteristics that turn me off were too subtle to be off putting.
Roggenbier - The aroma is that of a rauchbier with pronounced clove and banana flavor that is somewhat tempered by the rye spice. This was my least favorite due to the clove and banana.
Belgian Pale Ale - Although there were banana flavors in this offering as well, I found this to be more enjoyable. There was none of the smokiness of the Roggenbier and it was lighter and fruitier.
Red - With a nutty aroma and flavor the maltiness was kept in check so as not to weigh it down past my tolerance for a malty brew.
American Brown - A brown to be sure, but dryer that most and with more hop aroma than one would typically expect from a brown.
Robust Porter - Porters vary widely and this is one that is roasty and full-bodied, just the way I like a porter to be.
Pumpkin Rye - Pumpkin beers vary widely as well and again this is a nicely made beer. The aroma is wonderfully pumpkin spice while the flavor is less intense, not the over-the-top spice sometimes found in pumpkin beers, making it enjoyable.
Roasted Rye PA - The 100+ IBUs touted aren't present in the flavor or aroma and instead I found a roasty and smooth rye brew.
Dry Stout on Nitro - While this was Mag's favorite, I found it to be thinner in body than I prefer my stouts to be. It would have been interesting to try a non-nitro version of it.
Imperial IPA - As mentioned above, this was my favorite hands down. The grapefruit on the nose and in the flavor is bold and delicious.
Imperial IPA on Nitro - The nitro predictably gave the beer smoothness, tempering the hop bite. Additionally, the aroma had more stank than the non-nitro version.

Seattle:TOTGA & Disappointments

Our next beer outing took us further afield, taking a cab north over the canal between Salmon Bay and Lake Union into the Ballard/Fremont area. This is where, due to the lack of diligent planning that usually accompanies our trips, we chalked up two TOTGA - aka The Ones That Got Away. The first was Hilliard's, our intended destination, and the second, NW Peaks Brewery, we ran across on the other side of the block. We were disappointed but knowing there was little we could do about it we adjusted and set about to a new destination.

Along the way we ran across another sandwich board, this one proclaiming, "Reuben's Brews ---->." Following the sign had served us well before so we decided to detour from our intended course to see what we would stumble upon. What we found turned out to be great, so great that I'm going to leave you hanging until tomorrow for a post just about Reuben's Brews.

Departing Reuben's with smiles on our faces we went about resuming our intended path and making our way to Maritime Pacific. In order to keep it short and less painful than our time there, let me suffice it to say that if you are ever in Seattle, please don't go there. The beer was nothing worth noting and even worse, the bartender was the worst I've ever encountered at a brewery/brewpub/beer bar.

Leaving that mess behind we forged onward to Hale's Ales. Like Elysian, we'd had some Hale's in the past and looked forward to some great finds. While the beer and the experience were better than at Maritime none of the beers were outstanding and after a long afternoon of drinking we decided to make this our final beer stop. We'd missed out on a couple places, probably could have done without visiting a couple others but were thrilled with the find of Reuben's. Check back tomorrow for more on that. In the meantime, have you had similar experiences at these places and/or visited our TOTGA locations?

Seattle: An Overdue Return

Our recent four-day trip to Seattle was long overdue. Not only hadn't we been there since moving to Portland over two years ago but we hadn't been there since our honeymoon, almost 10 years ago. It's not that we hadn't talked about going, we'd done plenty of that, but it was a matter of finally making plans and going. When a happy collision of scoring a free two-night stay at Hotel Monaco and realizing that the Vikings were playing at Seattle in early November occurred we decided to jump on it.

It wasn't designed to be a beer trip 100%, there was the football game to attend and the King Tut exhibit at the Pacific Science Center to see, but it wouldn't be a vacation for us without including beer, especially in a beer city like Seattle. It was the least planned trip we'd taken meaning there were some places we missed visiting because we hadn't taken into account their open hours but there was one very, very happy surprise we probably would have missed had we been on a completely planned out trip.

We kicked things off right away, walking just a couple blocks from the Amtrak train station over to Elysian. As is usually the case with beer brands we're familiar with there were their standard beers available as well as those limited, found-only-at-the-pub-or-nearby beers. All five we tried were excellent - Krokus, Omen, Humdinger, Maelstrom and Dark 'O The Moon.

After dropping our belongings off it was off to Georgetown Brewing. We made it within the last half an hour they were open and the place was hopping with people picking up growlers. We weren't interested in growlers but trying everything they had on tap which numbered nine. Lucille, the hoppiest of the bunch was the grapefruit hoppy that makes me most happy and DH369, made with last year's experimental hops now called Mosaic, was both fruity and stanky and very, very good. The biggest surprise of our time there came at the end when we tried to pay for the samples. Apparently samples, even all 10 of them, were free.

Venturing back out into the rain we made our way over to Schooner Exact, guided in at the end by the sandwich boards on the street reading, "BEER ----->." (As an aside, whenever you see these signs, follow them!) Bellying up to one of the shared tables we set about to another sampler tray. Again the hoppy one, Hop Vine, most tickled my fancy while Mag favored King Street Brown Ale, which I have to admit is probably the best brown ale I've had, due in large part to the hazelnut aspects.

That brings us to the end of our first of two beer focused outings in Seattle. Check back tomorrow to see what else we drank.