Our Fifth of seven posts in honor of Tacoma Drinks WA Beer Week hosted by The Red Hot and The Parkway Tavern
Stouts are the vegetable soup of the beer kingdom: you throw a ton of crap in the kettle and out pops something that is usually delicious. The more stuff, the better. For this WA Beer Week offering I take a closer look at the Black Frog Oatmeal Stout from Snoqualmie Brewery, had on NITRO at The Red Hot.
First off, this post is not only installation 4 for Washington Beer Week, but it is also in honor of the Oscars tonight. Elegance, fashion, winners and losers will be discussed.
Our third of seven posts in honor of Tacoma Tastes Washington Beers Week hosted by The Red Hot and The Parkway Tavern
I’d kick this thing off with an allusion to Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Animal Sanctuary, but any reference to South Park would just be too low brow for our audience. C’mon, what kind of digital rag mag is this? Big Al is actually Alejandro “Big Al” Brown, the president and head brewer of Big Al Brewing, and he is most definitely not wearing a neckerchief in the photos I’ve seen of him. Though someone should really bring the neckerchief back.
Growing up in Bothell, driving to, through or around Lynnwood was on the same list as having my toenails removed. Unfortunately in order to visit one great Washington brewer – Diamond Knot - you’ll have to do it… unless you take the ferry to Mukilteo, which might be the better choice.
Our first of seven posts in celebration of Tacoma Drinks Washington Beer Week, hosted by The Red Hot and the Parkway Tavern.
While the rest of America celebrates National Margarita Day over salted rims and brightly colored straws, we raise a frothy mug of Washington beer in celebration of the fantastic breweries that call the Evergreen State home. The Red Hot and The Parkway Tavern are hosting a fantastic event this week designed to showcase the incredible offerings from our neighboring beer producers.
Usually Derrick does the writing around here, but sometimes I get a wild hair and decide to put a few words together. After a recent GCF outing, we decided to head over to our beloved Red Hot and as I gazed at the chalkboard of liquid delights, I was excited to see the Wingman ACE IPA on tap. I’ve had many of their beers- starting back in the September Tacoma Craft Beer Festival, a few around town and also up at the Hale’s Winter Beer Festival (Not Tacoma? Oh no!) – my impression has always been good but sometimes the flavors weren’t quite right. I’m an IPA guy, but one of my biggest complaints to some pints is the syrupy after taste that coats the mouth (i.e. 7seas Balls Deep). Not here with the Wingman. The ACE IPA seemed hold on to the light characteristic that I’ve had before but this time an explosion of hoppy flavors danced across my tongue. I am excited to have another great Tacoma start up making a name for themselves. Keep your eyes out for the Wingman beers across Tacoma. We’d love to sit down with the guys over at Wingman, so reply to a tweet sometime! (Hint Hint)
A Recap of our joint birthday extravaganza on 6th Ave
Adam’s and my birthday are the 20th and 21st of November, respectively. This is perfect fodder for all sort of sordid and exciting joint birthdays in the future, but our first foray into this – celebrated a couple weeks ago across much of 6th Ave – was relatively tame all things considered. We convinced nearly 30 friends and relatives to join us on a crawl which started at Masa and ended in disarray, with 8 different restaurants visited in between. Each location had a “required” drink and food purchase. Whoever crossed the most items off their to-do list was crowned the unofficial GCF badass of the night. This write up is a recap of that evening with highlights, lowlights, and hopefully a few words of wisdom from one blogger who’s twenties are officially behind him.
Adam’s got a couple more year of irresponsibility and debauchery ahead of him however.
We hit up the Red Hot, one of the top beer spots in the Northwest, and that’s not even taking into account their amazing wieners.
I remember when the Red Hot first pulled up the U-Haul and became everybody’s favorite neighbor on 6th Ave. It seemed a bit comical at the time – we were excited about the prospect of a hot dog bar, but had some serious concerns about the viability of such a place. Hot Dogs are a cheap consumable that all too often taste like crap. An entire business built around such a product struck me as risky at best. That must have been around five years now. At the time there was an ever-empty and appropriately sketchy teriyaki joint across the street, and O’Reilly Auto Parts still bore the name Schucks. The Red Hot, a watering hole relying heavily on processed meat tubes not only outlived both those incarnations, but flourished. If you walk into the Red Hot today you’ll doubtlessly find tables full of smiling patrons, good music on the stereo or funky movie on the big screen, and hot dogs all around. The secret here isn’t the quality of the dog – although these all-beef dogs are a far cry from the Oscar Meyer Soylent Beige things you find vacuum sealed in the deli isle – it’s the creative ways in which they are served.
And the place has a rotating selection of damn fine beer.
