Port Townsend Brewery, Port Townsend, WA
I will never walk into a craft brewing store or growler fill shop without asking if they have Port Townsend’s Scotch Ale. Unless you are somewhere on the west side of Puget Sound, you won’t find it—but that’s okay. If word ever got out, it PT’s Scotch Ale would have the same notoriety as Sam Adams Boston Lager or Alaskan Amber. At some point it isn’t craft brew anymore. They would probably also have to stop selling it exclusively in the twenty-two ounce bottles and switch to the twelves. I went into one growler shop in the Tri Cities once and asked for it, I hadn’t been there in about a year, but the guy said that they used to have a guy that came in all the time asking for it so he better check it out.
I considered that a win.
Here is how great I think the Port Townsend Brewery is: I fucking hate the city of Port Townsend with the same passion that I hate dead skunks on the road and the Canadian band Rush. I have a million reasons why I hate Port Townsend but I still go whenever I can, just to post up at the PT Brewery.
One thing that works in its favor is that it is not downtown. It’s in the boat haven. The tasting room is always crowded, and I think that you and I are the only people in there who didn’t just get off of some sort of commercial fishing boat. There might be some sail boat motherfuckers in there but they don’t stay long. Sail boat motherfuckers don’t do well in places that don’t recognize sail boats as anything more than open water traffic jams. Sail boat motherfuckers like to go places that serve sit down, pay after you eat food.
Not to brag, but the weekend of my buddy Clusterfuck’s wedding, I sat in there in the beer garden with Clusterfuck, his old lady, my cousin Lumpy, Boyd, Big Daddy Load-It, and Walt Kaylor and drank beer. Walt Kaylor doesn’t just sit and drink beer, so don’t go thinking like that is no big deal. Some old fish hippy came up to us and informed us that she had been in Seattle at a bar watching Kip Winger (not to name drop or anything), and she told him about the PT Brewery; he apparently agreed to come do a set the following weekend.
Now I am not trying to sit here and convince you that Kip Winger is cool. I don’t even think that people who like Kip Winger are cool. But the fact that Kip Winger showed up (oh yes, he did play there) and tried to become cool by playing there, is worthy of giving this place a nod. If Mick Jagger would have shown up, then the brewery would have been cool because Mick Jagger was there. But that is not as cool as Kip Winger trying to use it to become cool. It’s like when the Down’s syndrome kid catches you staring at him and looks at you and says, “Stare hard retard.”
That is pretty fucking cool.
Lumpy getting Clusterfuck prepped for a wedding
Kip Motherfucking Winger