USA, WA: Sovereign Brewing Company now open in Seattle

Sovereign Brewing Company is a new brewery in Seattle’s Central District. It’s kind of new and it’s kind of in the Central District. Sovereign Brewing is a companion brewery to Standard Brewing Company, which has been around for more than seven years, so it’s not exactly new. It’s located on Rainier Avenue South, near Interstate 90, so it kind of in the Central District. Some would say it is located in the Rainer Valley neighborhood, the Washington Beer Blog reported on December 7.

Whatever the case, as of November 29, Sovereign Brewing is now open in Seattle.

The location at 851 Rainier Ave. South is in the old Recycling Depot building at the corner of Charles Street. A couple blocks north of I-90, a block south of Dearborn Street. At the time of publishing, Sovereign Brewing is open Wednesday through Sunday from 12:00 – 7:00.

So why did Standard Brewing open a “sister brewery” instead of just opening another brewery? The short answer, because the focus at Sovereign Brewing is a bit different.

“For the last 7 years, we’ve been constantly evolving,” explained a post on Standard Brewing’s website. “As our processes have grown, it’s become apparent that we’ve really been operating two separate breweries.”

“One is modern, producing IPAs, stouts, and lagers using strict guidelines for processes. It’s playful but pretty well tied to science and a tight methodology. The other is a wild playground. It’s a hodge-podge of traditional, old-world methods and new frontiers using wild yeast and bacteria, fruit, and oak. It’s slow, patient, and very complex. It’s more black magic than rigid and scientific. It blurs the lines between brewery and winery. All of these beers are naturally carbonated and go through long conditioning periods, and almost all of them sit in oak for a time. This is one of the reasons our bottles have always had their own branding.”

One of the breweries will focus on clean, mainstream-type beers while the other will focus on the wild and funky stuff. Standard Brewing on Jackson Street will focus on the former while Sovereign Brewing on Rainier Avenue will focus on the latter. You will still find some of the wild and crazy Sovereign beers at Standard Brewing up the hill on Jackson Street. Likewise, you will find some of the more-mainstream beers at Sovereign Brewing down on Rainier Avenue. However, each brewery maintains its own focus.

“[At Sovereign Brewing] we have a couple side-pull tap faucets and we will always have a lager around, as well as a couple IPAs, but the rest of our 12 taps at Sovereign will be keg-conditioned wild ales, fruited, bretted beers, aged beers, and eventually, when our spontaneous coolship beers have fully matured, lambic inspired beers. That said, Sovereign is also where we store Standard’s back stock, so you can pick up any Standard cans that we still have on hand at Sovereign.”

While they’re still putting some final touches on the place, the taproom is now open at Sovereign Brewing. More exactly, the outdoor part of the taproom is open. The patio out front offers 1,500 square feet of space for appropriate social distancing.

06 December, 2020