Open house celebrates all things Washington beer

Published 1:30 am Saturday, February 25, 2017

There may be no better time to swing by your local craft brewery than right now.

The seventh annual Washington Beer Open House is today, and the event encourages breweries across the state to fling open their doors and welcome new patrons to explore their brewhouses, taprooms and, more importantly, drink their beers.

From noon to 5 p.m., a number of Snohomish County breweries will be doing just that, so put down your club mug and try out a new haunt.

Start in Snohomish. The Snohomish craft brewery scene has exploded in the past year. At least three new breweries opened in Snohomish and the outlying area in the past year with more set to open their doors in 2017.

Two of those new breweries are collaborating with fellow Snohomish brewer Frank Sandoval, of SnoTown Brewery, to brew three versions of a pale ale to celebrate the open house. Haywire Brewing and Scrappy Punk Brewing, which both opened this past December, along with SnoTown brewed a base pale ale called Par-3 Pale. The three breweries then dry-hopped the pale ale with three different experimental hops to create three unique ales.

Dry hopping a beer is when hops are added to the wort after it’s cooled. Haywire’s brewers Bryant Castle and David Gez added German Hull Melon hops, Scrappy Punk’s Greg Krsak added Denali and Sandoval added Jarrylo hops to the beer after fermentation.

The base pale was brewed at Haywire’s facility, which is located in an old hay barn off Treosti Road in Snohomish. Castle and Gez, Castle’s father-in-law, opened the brewery after a year of hard work getting the 2.5-barrel brew system up and running, and the barn ready for customers. Haywire will have eight of its beers on tap, including the German Hull Melon Par-3 Pale Ale, and will offer tours of the brewhouse during Saturday’s open house.

SnoTown and Scrappy Punk will also have special releases on Saturday, and visitors to all three breweries who order a pint of Par-3 Pale Ale will receive a raffle ticket for a swag bag of brewery gear.

Here’s what else is going on in Snohomish County this weekend:

South Everett brewery crawl: Lazy Boy Brewing, Middleton Brewing and Crucible Brewing are teaming up to brew a New England-style Peach IPA and will be hosting a brewery crawl for a chance to win prizes. New England-style IPAs are known for their cloudy appearance, so the three brewers are using loads of wheat and flaked oats. The beer is made with peach puree and is hopped with Amarillo, Mandarina Bavarian and Hull Melon.

Lazy Boy will also release a red wine barrel-aged version of its Mistletoe Bliss and a Spring IPA made with Citra and Lemondrop hops. Crucible will be tapping limited release barrel-aged beers and will have brewery tours.

5 Rights Brewing: Swing by R.J. Whitlow’s Marysville garage — it’ll be one of the last times you can do it (without looking like a weirdo). With only a few more months until he migrates to the brewery’s new space in Lake Stevens, Whitlow will be on hand to answer questions and pour beers for visitors. There will be 12 beers on tap, including the Full Code Triple IPA and Juice Groove, a New England-style IPA made with Enigma, Vic Secret, Mosaic and Amarillo hops.

Sound to Summit Brewing: The Snohomish brewery will release its newest beer, a California common lager called Spring Mist, and bring back its Imperial Kolsch. Head brewer Grady Warnock will be conducting a homebrewing class from noon to 5 p.m., teaching the process and brewing science as he brews a 10-gallon batch of beer.

Scuttlebutt Brewing: The Everett brewery will offer tours at the top of every hour from noon to 4 p.m. at its location on Cedar Street. There will also be samples of limited-release beers and sales on 22-ounce cases of select beers. The brewery’s award-winning 2009 barleywine (Gold Medal, 2014 World Beer Cup) will also be available for purchase.

Whitewall Brewing: A pair of new beers will highlight the Marysville Brewery’s offering. Whitewall is releasing its seasonal Irish red ale, Sassy Lassie, which won a silver medal at the 2015 Washington Beer Awards. They’re also releasing Oxymoron, a black IPA, that is made with midnight wheat, a debittered wheat malt, and Amarillo and Fuggles hops.

Foggy Noggin Brewing: The Bothell brewery is releasing three versions of its Diablo del Sol English Pale Ale: the control, a dry hopped version and an oak-aged one as well.

Washington Beer Open House

To celebrate all things Washington beer, the Washington Beer Commission is hosting the seventh annual Washington Beer Open House at breweries all around the state from noon to 5 p.m. Feb. 25. For more information, go to www.washingtonbeer.com/washington-craft-beer/washington-beer-open-house.php.