We woke up Saturday and headed to the U district to get started on our long list of destinations for the trip. First we hit Mighty-O for some donuts and then I was subjected to some clothes shopping. A break was in order, so we stopped by the U of W campus to see the cherry blossoms where an absolutely gorgeous scene awaited us with the trees in bloom and Mount Rainier in the background. Lunch was next on the agenda and we tried Thrive, a restaurant that is almost entirely raw and very tasty.
Finally, it was time to do what I was most excited for: a trip to Bottleworks. There are some decent bottle stores popping up here in Spokane, but I had heard legends about Bottleworks. The sheer amount of bottles was impressive (nearly 1000), but on closer inspection, there weren’t too many rare/odd/special edition beers that I hadn’t seen before on my side of the state. Nonetheless, there was a fine selection and I quickly zeroed in on some beers I have wanted to try. I had budgeted $50 and was able to walk away with nearly a twelve pack of 22s for just over that. I will be stopping by Bottleworks to stock my fridge upon every trip to Seattle in the future.
Next, we headed to Ballard to hit Trader Joe’s, a luxury if you are from Eastern Washington, and then headed down to the public beach where we watched a group of kite surfers. Moving towards downtown, we stopped on Queen Anne again to hit Easy Street Records and then to take a walk in a nice little park as the sun was beginning to set. Then it was off to Sodo to get to the Showbox and see Jónsi, but not before a stop at the Pyramid Ale House.
Located across the street from both Safeco and Qwest fields, Pyramid knows their clientele and caters to them well with a lineup of easy drinking ales. I wanted to try their crystal wheat, which is just the filtered version of the recently renamed flagship Haywire Hefeweizen. Light on the tongue, the crystal wheat was very drinkable but did not make any statements and I felt it lacked the complexity of a hefeweizen. Perhaps I should have gone for the Haywire to let the unfiltered yeast play with my tongue, but I am heavily against having a lemon wedge on my beer glass.
Thirsty Zymurgist Score: 36/50 (5.3% ABV)
Next up was the cask conditioned MacTarnahan’s Amber. I usually avoid ambers like the plague, finding them too syrupy and sweet, but I wanted to force myself to try another one soon so when I was given the opportunity to try one on cask, I went for it. Nutty caramel with just a slight hop presence in the nose and the same could be said for the taste. Mellowed by the low carbonation, the syrupy presence was downplayed and made for a much more quaffable ale. I can not proclaim that I now a fan of ambers, but MacTarnahan’s made me glad I haven’t completely written them off yet.
Thirsty Zymurgist Score: 38/50 (5.1% ABV / 32 IBUs)
To wrap up this long post, I must say that Jónsi was absolutely amazing live. His voice is best described as being “pure” and intensely emotional. The concert was incredibly moving at times due to the tenderness with which it was performed. Also very interesting to see the very electronic sounding album to be brought to life by mostly live acoustic instruments. Their tour just started, so get out and see them if they come to your neck of the woods.
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