We've been following Stemma Brewing for just under a year as they make their dreams of a family-owned and operated local brewery come true. As they've passed milestones like finally finding a location, ending the long wait for their licensing to go through in the midst of a government shutdown & [...]
Walking from Dean Avenue into Wander Brewing, you likely notice the food truck out front, the high warehouse ceilings and the shiny, well-maintained brewing equipment that serves as a background for dozens of cheers’ a day. While on a stroll downtown, your attention may be caught by what Boundary Bay [...]
For the last six months, we've been checking in on Jason and Kim Harper, owners of what has become Bellingham's newest brewery, Stemma Brewing Co. Since our first story, the amount of progress made, obstacles overcome and work that the Harper family have put into this project are hard to ignore. [...]
Dave Morales has worn a lot of hats in the Bellingham beer community. If you're a brewer, you've probably made a beer with him or learned a thing or two from him. If you're a beertender, you've more than likely served him a cold one at one point or another. If [...]
While the snow-pacalypse is close to over, or at least turned into slush-pacalypse, that doesn't mean Bellingham is warming up anytime soon. While school is finally back in session and your favorite local businesses open regular hours again, it seems like a great time to escape the cold and duck into [...]
Getting your first few stamps on your Tap Trail passport right off the bat can be easy when you have a handful of places where you’re a regular. For instance, the Cornwall neighborhood has Wander, Kulshan, Twin Sisters and more right at their fingertips, easily walkable for a pint. But half [...]
Over the last few months, Jason and Kim Harper have been working hard to make their dreams of owning and operating a brewery, a reality. We've been with them since they nailed down a space late this last summer, and as they've had a brewhouse delivered (previously owned by Photo [...]
Why do you drink? I mean that neither as an accusation nor as a rhetorical question, but in all sincerity, and with the emphasis on ‘you’. What are your reasons? The simplest answer is just: beer tastes good. I wholeheartedly agree. But that’s not the end of it, right? Also: [...]
It's Thursday night and you randomly scored a babysitter. Wondering what to do with your spouse with the few hours of free time that you have, you naturally decide to get a few stamps on your Tap Trail passport, right? Soon enough, the number of breweries on the passport will grow [...]
**Yummy pie header image courtesy of Boundary Bay Brewery The holidays are upon us, and in Bellingham that means the days get much shorter, the weather gets much wetter and for some, the beer gets much darker. Along with the hustle of the holidays, comes the stress of figuring out what [...]
*We've mentioned Stemma in other stories and Tap Roundups in their beginning stages, but referred to them as Hoppa Brewing. After some decisions were made and copyright issues were smoothed over, Hoppa recently became Stemma* There's no doubt that Bellingham has shown endless support to breweries new to the local scene. Lucky [...]
As the craft beer industry in Bellingham grows, smaller communities within craft beer grow as well. Whether it be the camaraderie among local brewers or the bond shared by beertenders around town, the love of craft beer seemingly brings people together unlike any other industry. Blame it on the pints we [...]
In craft beer towns across the United States, not only have the brews become a point of tourism, but an integral part of the community. In fact, some of us probably see our beertenders more than we see some of our family members. While it’s easy to get lost in [...]
With all the challenges of opening a brewery these days, coming up with names for beers is usually low on a brewer’s priority list. If anything, it may be viewed as one of the “fun” tasks. But it shouldn’t be taken lightly, as it’s an important part of a brewery’s brand. [...]
It’s hard to believe, but when Rachel Wood and Brandon Fralic came up with the idea to write a guidebook on hiking and beer just five years ago, Bellingham – as well as the entire state of Washington – only had half as many breweries as it does today. Incredulously, hiking [...]
What has been noticed by many Bellingham residents as a small, colorful, local produce stand in the Fountain neighborhood has now made the most of their space on Northwest Avenue. Expanded toward the street and newly renovated on the inside, Goods Local Brews has seen success in recent weeks after serving [...]
Tim Alexander, Owner of Herb's Cider In the last six months, the cider scene in Bellingham has been growing rapidly, resembling the craft beer boom we saw years ago. With the recent success of Bellingham Cider Company, Lost Giants Cider Co. opening in a matter of weeks (joining Bellingham's [...]
For many local beer drinkers, the most anticipated day of the year (everyone’s birthday and Christmas combined into one amazing holiday) is this Saturday, April 28. The Depot Market Square opens to a flood of people lined up around the block for April Brews Day, an event benefitting local charity, Max [...]
In principle, beer is incredibly simple: use hot water to coax sugars out of malted barley, spice with hops, and then let some microorganisms gorge themselves. But in practice, the wide variety of available malts, hops, and yeast strains means that brewers have nearly limitless opportunities for creativity and innovation. [...]
It’s 6:30 in the morning on a cold and dreary Wednesday in February. I pull up to the Atwood Ales Farm Brewery, which is a mere 2 miles south of the U.S.-Canada border, and I see owner/brewer Josh Smith quietly laboring away through the fogged-up windows of the old barn. After [...]
If you thought pumpkin beers were polarizing, there’s a new king of love-or-hate on the market: the hazy, juicy, New England-style IPA (NEIPA). For more than a decade, this IPA variant was relatively unknown outside of beer-geek circles. A handful of breweries in the Northeast – Vermont and Massachusetts in particular [...]
Tucked into Mount Vernon, WA is a Skagit Valley brewery that, lucky for us, appears on guest taps all through out Bellingham. Farmstrong Brewing Company, a dog and kid-friendly taproom, has an atmosphere much like a brewery we'd find in our northern neck of the woods, with some extra exciting [...]
Each quarter one of the first things I teach the students in my Critical Thinking class up at Western is that there are two ways to read. On the one hand, there’s the sort of reading I do with my six-year-old daughter before bedtime, where my mouth is pronouncing the right [...]
If you’ve been to a block party at Stones Throw Brewery, not only did you get a chance to catch up with friends and neighbors, you got to enjoy local beer made by co-owner/brewer Tony Luciano, and you may have noticed the drummer in the band that was playing was [...]
The resurrection of craft beer – after its Prohibition-induced death – is still in the fairly recent past. Fritz Maytag bought Anchor Brewing Company in 1965, Jack McAuliffe started New Albion in 1976, and Sierra Nevada brewed its first batch of Pale Ale exactly 37 years ago, in November of 1980. [...]
An increasing number of American breweries are making beers similar to Belgian Lambics using traditional methods, such as spontaneous fermentations, turbid mashes, long boils, barrel aging, etc., along with traditional ingredients such as raw/unmalted wheat and aged hops. Some are even blending one-, two-, and three-year-old batches, similar to Belgian Gueuze [...]
Bellingham bike riders, students and families often times head the direction of the San Juans, whether it be for the change of scenery or a leisurely day enjoying everything else the islands have to offer. Now, lucky for those who take advantage of how close we are to an island escape, [...]
Sitting down for a meal and deconstructing where everything on your plate came from is something many Bellingham residents are guilty of. What can we say? We love buying locally and knowing exactly where our food is from. It’s easy to look at a plate of huevos rancheros and be [...]
If you want to taste a beer in all its glory, you should pour it into a glass before drinking. (There is an iconic brewery that recommends otherwise, but, well, they’re wrong.) Your tongue isn’t the only part of your body that contributes to your experience of a beer, and drinking [...]
Stoup Brewing's Upstairs at Stoup taproom Differentiation in the craft world is what drives competition. It's integral to what keeps the industry evolving, shifting and improving. But every once in a while a brewery finds a synergy with another. This leads to collaborations and a strengthening of the [...]
If you’ve been a part of the Bellingham craft beer crowd for more than a year or so, you’ve probably noticed a few new breweries popping up here and there. You’ve probably also noticed that even when a new one opens and becomes the talk of the town, the rest of [...]
Chances are good you know at least something about Oktoberfest. Even the most buzzed among us would be able to deduce that it’s some sort of German party, and of course everyone knows that its mascot is someone raising a liter-sized stein of lager, wearing either a dirndl dress or [...]
When someone tries to insult you by calling you a name, a good defense tactic is just to own the name. When we were kids the word "nerd" was insulting, but then we grew up and realized that smart is sexy, so it’s good to be a nerd. For the same [...]
We've decided that the natural evolution of Tap Trail is audio! The written word is covered with this website. The visual world is covered with our biannual map and passport (the new map hits on 9/15!), so it's time to put the audio world on blast. We've been recording episodes [...]
He has been called “the Johnny Appleseed of the craft brewing movement”. He more or less single-handedly invented the concept of a beer style. He was given a prestigious award by Crown Prince Philippe of Belgium in 1994 for his service to Belgian breweries. (The service in question? He helped [...]
Melvin Brewing opened up with great fanfare a few months ago. Some may not know this, but Melving Brewing Bellingham (aka Melvingham) isn't actually brewing beer yet. Melvin beer is shipped in from their Wyoming brewery and the remaining taps are supplemented by key partner breweries. BUT that's all soon [...]
I can’t agree with those who advocate never drinking alone. (Or, for that matter, with those who advocate never drinking before noon. Elizabeth Station opens at 10am, after all.) But it certainly is a lot more fun to have drinking companions, not least because it allows you to participate in [...]
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