Mr. and I had a few days off in April, so we decided to head down to Seattle for a quick getaway. It’s been a couple of years now since we last headed south of the border thanks to the weak Canadian Dollar.
Instead of hanging out in the downtown area, we chose to stay in the Ballard district, which is known for its ever growing share of breweries. Where we stayed was within walking distance to a cluster of craft breweries, so we did a self-guided brewery tour.
And that means we just hit the street and started walking towards the first stop from our temporary home. When I was looking up the breweries, Lucky Envelope caught my eyes because its logo is the red envelope 利是 we hand out during Chinese New Year and to no surprise, looks like it’s Asian owned. LE it is.
Stop #1 – Lucky Envelope
Lucky for us, it was the release day of their sours. And we are big sour fans!! There were 6 on the menu, so we opted for the lighter ones (it’s only our first stop!) plus a couple of other brews:
- Raspberry Sour
- Mango Sour
- Lychee Sour
- Blackberry Shake Sour
- Beardless Brewer Red Ale
- Error 404: El Dorado Haze IPA
Mr.‘s favourite was the Lychee Sour. To him, the other sours tasted exactly what he’d imagined, whereas lychee doesn’t really strike you as a tart fruit, but LE managed to make the beer sour while allowing you to identify the lychee flavour. For me, I was torn to pick my favourite. My vote would go to Raspberry Sour because the fruit was the most prominent in this one, but Mango and Lychee are my all-time favourite beverage flavours. The Mango one reminded me of unripe mangoes; the Blackberry Shake Sour was good, too, quite juicy.
The other two beers were also delicious. I probably liked the Haze IPA more. It was creamy, not overly bitter, and with lots of tropical fruit note.
Lucky Envelope Brewing
907 NW 50th St, Seattle
luckyenvelopebrewing.com
Stop #2 – Populuxe Brewing
Next, we made our way to Populuxe Brewing. They had a lot of IPAs on tap! Here’s what we ordered:
- Beach Bum Pale
- Pineapple Blonde
- Beer Snob Brown
- Nitro Summer Mild
I must say, the beers at Populuxe weren’t our favourite. Hop forward, not a lot of other notes. We were hoping to enjoy Pineapple Blonde more but the pineapple wasn’t as noticeable as we expected. The Nitro was smooth and light. Beer Snob Brown had some nutty flavour but not much. Beach Bum Pale was standard affair.
Populuxe Brewing
826 NW 49th St, Seattle
populuxebrewing.com
Stop #3 – Stoup Brewing
3rd stop was a couple of blocks away from Populuxe, over at Stoup. It’s our host’s favourite brewery, and afterwards I also learned that my coworker EB also likes Stoup.
Gosh it’s a huge space, a two-storey building with two taprooms. And their beer list is huge too! Close to 20 kinds on tap — a number of IPAs — and just one was a guest tap, a cider.
We had:
- “How” 60 Schilling Scottish Export
- Loral Dry-Hopped Sour
- Northwest Red
- Frank the Tank Triple IPA
- Robust Porter
- 1000 Brews of Gratitude Baltic Porter
Beers here are solid. We are not huge IPA people, but still enjoyed the Frank the Tank Triple IPA. It was actually quite fruity. Loral Dry-Hopped Sour was nice, reminded me of As If by Twin Sails. I can see why this place was so busy. Overall their beers were on the heavier side, and packed quite a punch.
Stoup Brewing
1108 NW 52nd St, Seattle
stoupbrewing.com
Stop #4 – Reuben’s Brews
Last stop on this walking tour was Reuben’s. They too have a big tap list – 24 items on the list!
We ordered:
- Soursop Gose
- Citra Mosaic Crush Hazy IPA
- Pink Elephant White Stout
- Nitro Dry Stout
- Game Over Wee Heavy
The most surprising was the Pink Elephant White Stout. It hit all the stout notes, rich and sweet, but it looked like a hazy IPA! Definitely messed with our heads. The Wee Heavy was at a whopping 9%, which made the perfect ending to our drinking tour.
I must add that I really like Reuben’s bar tables. They must be custom-made because it’s the shape of its r symbol. Oh and they have self-served pretzels for you.
Reuben’s Brews
5010 14th Ave NW, Seattle
reubensbrews.com
What’s a Beer Flight here?
Made an interesting observation here – none of these breweries sells a flight of beers. In Vancouver, you always see beer flights on the taproom menus, for a flight of 4 or 5. Here, there is a price for Tasters, and you just pay for the total number of tasters you want. And the pedals can accommodate more than 4 or 5 tasters. At Lucky Envelope, theirs can hold 8. Stoup’s holds 6. I almost like this system better, since we are not bound to choose just 4 or 5 beers to try. But I also noticed how quickly our bills added up once we knew we could order more to try more.
Final Thoughts
Of the 4 breweries, I think I most enjoyed Lucky Envelope for its sours, then Stoup and Reuben’s are close 2nd and 3rd. Walking around the Ballard brewery district definitely reminds me of the various brewery areas in Vancouver, but bigger and busier; lots of people, lots of beer flowing, food trucks parked outside (they all have a bring your own food policy) – so much energy on a rainy Saturday afternoon.
Lastly, there are a few more breweries in the area, including Obec, Maritime Pacific Brewing, Peddler, NW Peaks Brewery, and Lagunitas Brewing. If you have more time in the area, you should check them out too, and let us know how they are!
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