Stoup Brewing has made its first Capitol Hill beer.. The decade-old Seattle microbrewery that expanded onto the Hill last year with its acquisition of the neighborhood’s Optimism Brewing held a party Thursday marking the release of its new Capitol Hill Magic Hazy IPA.
“We went through a whole lot of it last night which we must say felt pretty damn good,” Stoup posted about the fun. Continue reading
(Image: The Last Drop)
The Maple Leaf original (Image: The Last Drop)
With plans for a preservation minded redevelopment of the block now fully paused, Seattle bottle shop and beer hall The Last Drop is growing onto Capitol Hill after years serving the Roosevelt, Ravenna, and Maple Leaf neighborhoods.
The new Last Drop expansion from Seattle beer and pub entrepreneur Seth Howard is set to open soon in the 500 block of E Pike taking over the two-level cafe space left empty by Kaladi Brothers Coffee’s 2023 exit.
The Last Drop opened in the Maple Leaf neighborhood in 2011 and features beer on tap as well as a bottle shop featuring local craft brewers and imports. Howard is also part of ownership behind 2nd Ave’s Collins Pub and the College Inn Pub in the U District. Continue reading
(Image: Stoup)
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Meanwhile, another important milestone for the Stoup Capitol Hill brewing facility and beer hall will come in November. Continue reading
(Image: Stoup Brewing)
(Image: Stoup Brewing)
Stoup Brewing Capitol Hill is now open and pouring its beers in the former Optimism beer hall and brewery at the corner of Broadway and Union.
The Ballard-born brewery completed its move-in last week and has been getting comfortable in its new location. It isn’t yet putting the 20-barrel brewing facility to work pending license updates but Stoup beers created on NW 52nd St are on tap, the food truck schedule is back in motion, and the 16,000-square-foot has new signage and a few Stoup touches in place.
“We are proud to also note that Optimism’s taproom crew is moving forward with us so familiar faces will be pouring our pints,” Stoup’s Lara Zahaba tells CHS.
The brewery also remains a cashless venue.
CHS reported in June on the plan for Stoup to take over Optimism Brewing and create its third taproom along with adding the new production capacity to its science-based approach to beer brewing. Owners Troy Hakala and Gay Gilmore debuted Optimism in November 2015 as a one of a kind, full-powered beer brewery built on the bones of the neighborhood’s auto row history in the heart of Capitol Hill. Hakala and Gilmore have retained ownership of the building and now count Stoup as tenants — and shepherd’s of the urban brewery and its space in the community. Continue reading
The Redhook Brewlab is the last physical vestige of Seattle’s “first microbrewery” (Image: Redhook)
In a summer of beer-soaked merger and acquisition on Capitol Hill, a deal with much larger implications than a neighborhood brewery is also going down.
Anheuser-Busch In-Bev is shedding a batch of its lesser “craft” beer brands including Capitol Hill’s Redhook Brewery in the wake of plummeting sales at the global beer giant amidst an ongoing anti-transgender backlash against its top-selling Bud Light.
“Leading global cannabis-lifestyle and consumer packaged goods company” Tilray announced it is acquiring Redhook along with a collection of other AB In-Bev craft brands — Shock Top, Breckenridge Brewery, Blue Point Brewing Company, 10 Barrel Brewing Company, Widmer Brothers Brewing, Square Mile Cider Company, and HiBall Energy.
Analysts says the transaction is an $85 million deal and includes all of the companies’ existing employees and facilities.
It’s not clear what the future will be for Redhook and its small Capitol Hill brewery at the center of the Pike Motorworks mixed-use development but its new owner has shown a penchant for experimentation when it comes to cannabis and beverages.
(Image: Optimism Brewing)
(Image: Stoup Brewing)
Two Seattle breweries born just under 10 years ago are combining, bringing an end to Capitol Hill’s Optimism Brewing. But the woman-owned, scientifically-minded beer making will continue and the taps will still flow at Optimism’s auto row-era showroom transformed into a modern Capitol Hill beer hall.
Ballard-born Stoup Brewing and Optimism announced the planned acquisition and were busy telling employees and customers about the plans over the holiday weekend.
“We love that it is continuing. We built it as a place that we wanted to go to and it’s going to stay exactly as it is,” Optimism co-founder Troy Hakala said Monday. “And Capitol Hill is getting great Stoup beer.”
At Union and Broadway, new signs and a few changes will go up over the summer as the tap lines fill with Stoup’s creations and the production vats shift, but Stoup’s Lara Zahaba says the hope is for Optimism’s spirit to continue in the 16,000-square-foot brewery that has been lauded for its aesthetics and community-friendly design including spacious open seating and an impressively vast all-gender restroom.
“I hope the feelings will be very similar,” Zahaba said. “Really Stoup and Optimism have a lot in common. Locally owned, neighborhood breweries. Inclusive.”
“My hope is people will have that feeling of Optimism when drinking Stoup beers,” she said.
New beer, new signage, and a new color scheme are coming but the rest of the changes will be minimal — “We will Stoup-ify the space to a certain degree,” Zahaba quipped — for what has been a working recipe.
Craft beer looked very different, and had some misogynist and angry streaks when they started the brewery a decade ago, Optimism’s Gay Gilmore said.
“We tried to make it super approachable. I think a lot of craft is doing the same now. They figured it out.”
Gilmore says Stoup is part of that craft beer change. “Their values are just as inclusive as Optimism,” Gilmore said.
Under the planned deal, Stoup will take over the brewery and beer hall while Optimism founders Gilmore and Hakala will retain ownership of the 1920-era Maker Building they purchased after the Polyclinic shifted plans and put the property up for sale for expected redevelopment. Continue reading
(Image: Standard Brewing)
(Image: Standard Brewing)
This weekend, Standard Brewing turns 10 making the S Jackson brewery the eldest of the modern class of Central District and Capitol Hill beer makers.
Standard is celebrating with a “10 year banger” —
How did this happen?! Most of you never got to see us incubate in the back corner of our building. It seems pretty wild now to think about how we got our start, with a bunch of ramshackle equipment and duct tape. For those of you that remember our building being yellow and purple, with double deep parking spaces and a bar with space for 8, it seems like a lifetime ago. For all of you, and for everyone that has been a supporter over this hectic decade, March 18th and 19th is for you!
The weekend will include live music and special releases including a bourbon barrel-aged stout with Broadcast Coffee, a “Bee’s Wine” ginger beer, and a special “fermented pineapple” tepache beverage, along with guest bartenders and more surprises. Continue reading
The Flat Earther (Image: Kōbo)
(Image: Redhook Brewlab)
Shota Nakajima is ready to help out his neighbor, bringing pizza with Detroit and Osaka roots to the kitchen of Capitol Hill’s Redhook Brewlab.
Kōbo will debut this weekend, taking over the menu of the E Pike microbrewery with Nakajima’s take on pizza pie and providing new energy that could help fill the beer maker’s tables and big street-side patio.
“I was fascinated the first time I saw Detroit-style pizza. Having trained in Osaka, which is known as the ‘starch city’ of Japan, I was inspired by things like Okonomiyaki and Takoyaki, which employ a starch base that is generally cooked over high heat in cast iron or black steel, with a signature crispy exterior and chewy interior,” Nakajima said in a press release on the new link-up.
“It was a natural step to utilize this similar ideology, and staying true to my culinary roots and training, employ the use of koji, nori, and mochiko flour to achieve both umami and a heavenly texture for our dough.” Continue reading
The 23rd Ave Brewery guys in R&D mode (Image: 23rd Ave Brewery)
(Image: 23rd Ave Brewery)
There will be more Black ownership — and more Black-made beer — in the Central District. 23rd Ave Brewery is on its way to opening later this year with a small production and filling shop at 23rd and Jackson.
“It’s really dope that we are kinda back home,” Mario Savage tells CHS. “We grew up on that block.”
Savage and his three brothers — “it’s a family affair,” he says — now have a place to take their beer making to the next level, selling bottles and cans, filling kegs, and keeping fans supplied with 23rd Ave merch from the new brew shop being set up as part of the retail spaces added to the Jackson Apartments outside the neighborhood’s Amazon Fresh.
For now, the new space will be a grab and go operation with no seating or bar service. Future growth is hoped to eventually add elements like a taproom and increased production in the neighborhood.
CHS reported here on the smaller, more affordable commercial spaces and efforts to include small businesses in the new development as part of a ripple of new Black ownership including Simply Soulful and Catfish Corner in this core of the Central District.
Savage said in about three weeks, new brewing equipment will arrive and be installed as 23rd Ave Brewery ramps up its small-scale production with more trials and testing. Continue reading
A 20-year resident of the Central District will open a new flagship taproom for one of the few Black-owned beer breweries in the nation early next year on E Cherry.
Rodney Hines calls Métier Brewing Company “purpose-driven” and said he chose expanding the brewery with a taproom and Japanese street food in the Central Area with the intent of recognizing the history of the communities there while also being present as a Black business owner in the neighborhood.
“A moment of tension for me is when I walk around my neighborhood and when I think of whether new people who see the street signs honoring Rev. McKinney at Mt. Zion Baptist have taken a moment to know who he was. I fear that there’s a lot of new energy, a lot of new people… that can be good. It can be better if people can pause and look at history of who was here and give some respect for that.”
Métier debuted in 2018 in a business partnership with Hines and Todd Herriott, owner of E Union’s bike shop/cafe/training facility Metier Seattle. It shares a name with the bike venture and has based its production at a bike-friendly spot along the riding trail in Woodinville but Métier Brewing is all about Hines and the beer.
2022 will be a massive year for the company. By the end of next summer, Métier and the Seattle Mariners will open the former stadium district Pyramid Alehouse as Steelhead’s Alley, a new beer-focused pre-game hangout honoring the Seattle Steelheads Negro League team that once played its games at Sick’s Stadium on Rainier Ave.
But before it looks back with nostalgia, Métier will push forward with the new E Cherry taproom and microbrewery slated to open in early 2022. CHS first reported here in October on early plans for the E Cherry property formerly used as an auto garage and blacksmith studio.
Now the project is taking shape as a 2,000-square-foot “community gathering space featuring rotating taps of the brewery’s award-winning brews” in the new commercial development from Capitol Hill-based developer Liz Dunn. Continue reading
