E-Malt.com News article: US, WA: Small brewers flourishing in Poulsbo

Last year, Poulsbo had no breweries. By April of this year, it had four, The Seattle Times reported on June, 1.

"Beer is in the air, I guess," said Steve Roerig, brewer and owner of Battenkill, the newest of Poulsbo's small-batch breweries.

The other three brewers can offer no better explanation of how a town of just 9,000 people could produce four breweries in the span of four months.

Tammy Mattson, co-owner of Tizley's Europub in downtown Poulsbo, is surprised it didn't happen sooner. The area has a passionate homebrewers club. Some of the big names in Northwest microbrewery history - like Hales Ales and Thomas Kemper - got their start in Kitsap, and the rapidly-growing Silver City Brewery is testament that the local market has a powerful thirst for a carefully crafted beer.

"There's been a movement growing here toward a real beer culture, with people turning away from beers like Coors Light and more toward the smaller, craft breweries," Mattson said.

Her patrons have been lapping up small-batch, strong-tasting brews from Seattle and Portland for years. When small breweries recently popped up in Bremerton, Gig Harbor and other parts of West Sound, Mattson's discerning customers demanded them by name.

"Poulsbo was pretty much an untapped market," she said.

The first on the scene was Valholl Brewing. Opened by former prison guard Jeff Holcomb in a converted Front Street sign shop, Valholl is the smallest of the four but probably makes the most robust beers of the bunch. Holcomb dabbles in licorice and sweet potato flavorings, and most of his offerings are made even more potent with a high-alcohol content.

Next up was Sound Brewery, by far the largest of the four. Sound, with its vast Bovela Lane warehouse and two-story brewing tanks, is aiming for a regional market. Sound can produce about 250 gallons of beer at a time, compared with the keg-by-keg production capacity of the other three.

"We're on tap three places in Poulsbo and 30 places in Seattle," said Brad Ginn, Sound's head brewer. "We want to go down to Olympia, up to Bellingham, and beyond."

Sound recently hired its first employee to help the five co-owners, including Ginn, market and distribute Sound's beer.

The brewery has nine beer styles, most of which were inspired by the yeasty beers of Belgium.

Slippery Pig Brewery, which opened a few weeks after Sound in February, specializes in seasonal ingredients grown on owner Dave Lambert's 5-acre Finn Hill Road farm.

"We started this with the farmers market in mind," he said. "If it's not in season, you're not getting it."

Last month, Slippery Pig's main brew was one made from a bountiful patch of young stinging nettles.

This month's special is a rhubarb pale ale. Demand for it at Poulsbo's Hare & Hounds pub is outpacing supply.

Lambert and his wife, Shawna, used to sell produce at the Poulsbo Farmers Market under the name Red Rooster Farms.

"It's amazingly easy to sell beer," she said, contrasting a typical customers' hard-nosed approach to buying a head of lettuce - turning it over and over and peeking at every leaf - with the glee customers exhibit when getting a 2-liter growler at the farm.

"They just say fill'er up," she said. "That's pretty cool."

Roerig's two-month-old Battenkill Brewing Co. is housed in a Clear Creek Road barn built in the style of upstate New York's Battenkill Valley.

Roerig said his beers may be the most approachable of the new Poulsbo brews, especially for those who have not yet developed a palate for powerfully-flavored beers.

"That's my goal," he said. "These are all familiar beers. Very drinkable."

With the exception of Holcomb, who was a brewer at Silverdale's now defunct Heads Up brewery, Poulsbo's new crop of brewers are self-taught. A couple of the brewers have been swapping their trade secrets for years in the West Sound Brewers home-brew club.
Following that brew buddy tradition, Poulsbo's four commercial beer makers have - so far - eschewed competition for cooperation.

"We've all been really supportive of each other," Roerig said, noting that all four are teaming up on a beer garden at the Poulsbo Americana Music Festival in September.

"Brewers tend to be laid back guys," Ginn said. "It's not a real cutthroat business."

Lambert said he wasn't sure how welcoming the suddenly burgeoning Poulsbo beer market would be until he stopped by Valholl's tasting room.

"Jeff (Holcomb) was there wearing one of my Slippery Pig T-shirts," Lambert said. "And he saw I was wearing a Valholl T-shirt."

The brewers have been known to lend each other kegs and other beer-making gear, and a few of them carpooled to Seattle for a showcase of West Sound brewers last week.

Rather than see each other as rivals, Lambert said, the breweries are creating a critical mass that could make Poulsbo a craft beer destination.

"If Poulsbo just had one brewery, no one's going to make the trip over - but it does make sense to make the trip if you can hit four in one day," he said. "We all benefit."

All four breweries say they haven't had trouble selling just about everything they produce. It may seem odd that four new businesses would be doing well in a sluggish economy, but Ginn says most people look at beer as an affordable luxury."Beer is recession-proof," he said. "It's an extravagance you can still afford it every once in a while."

None of the breweries is bottling, but Sound and Slippery Pig are considering it. Sound and Valholl have tasting rooms, and Slippery Pig is working on an outdoor tasting area.

The easiest way to find Poulsbo's beers is on tap. Tizley's and Hare & Hounds always have something local to offer, and Bremerton's Toad House restaurant and Der Blokken brewpub frequently feature Poulsbo beers.

Having supportive bars that are willing to give coveted tap real estate to untested, unknown beers has been a key facet of the Poulsbo microbrew renaissance, the brewers say. The breweries can almost immediately build a following long before they have the capacity or financing to bottle their beer or sell in stores.

It also means the brewers can keep their day jobs as they build up something that could one day produce some real pay from what is now mostly fueled by passion.

Holcomb still works in law enforcement, Lambert still farms and delivers propane, and Roerig still commutes down to the shipyard.

Ginn recently gave up his job as an engineer at the city of Bremerton. It was the best career move of his life.

"No way to compare it," he said. "I'm doing something I love, and I get to see people enjoy the fruits of my labor. Heck, I'm making beer. I'm everybody's best friend."


08 June, 2011