Seattle Beer Week 9 kicks off this week! This is one of our favorite times of year. We get to put on fun events, brew some creative beers, and meet even more beer fans from around the state (and country!).
It’s also a celebration of the industry. Over the last few years, the local beer scene has grown at an incredible rate, adding even more breweries to our amazing community. We’re looking forward to getting out to attend some events around the city and hosting some of our colleagues in our taproom.
Last year was such a fun beer week – we introduced Daily Pale as the official beer of SBW8 and hosted events like our annual Rye Fest and the new Coffee Beer & Donuts. This year, will be even better and we’re bringing some of our friends along for the ride!
Rye Fest and Coffee Beer & Donuts will be back and bigger than ever. We’ll tap the winning beer from our inaugural Hop Idol Homebrew Competition, debut a collaboration of historic proportions, welcome some of the best breweries on the West Coast, a couple of bands will rock the taproom, and much more! And if that’s not enough, we’re throwing in a number of special beer releases.
Here’s the list of our taproom events for you to mark your calendars!
THURSDAY MAY 4
We’re kicking off SBW with two great releases:
- Our exclusive Seattle Beer Week t-shirt! We put out the call for you to send us your designs and you did not disappoint! The entire Reuben’s team reviewed and voted on the entries. Limited-edition t-shirts with the winning design will be available from May 4 in the taproom. $2 per shirt will get donated to the winning designer’s charity of choice. Look for the winning announcement on Thursday!
- Lock Solid IPA is a collaboration beer created with our friends Stoup, Lucky Envelope and Populuxe, making this a true neighborhood collaboration. Lock Solid IPA features four hops, four malts and four brewers. Each brewery contributed a raw ingredient used in the first beer the breweries produced professionally, making the Lock Solid IPA a true collaborative effort. The beer will be tapped at opening!
MAY 5: HOP IDOL RELEASE PARTY
Last January, we crowned the winner of our first Hop Idol Homebrew Competition. As part of his prize, homebrewer Jonathan Cooper joined with the Reuben’s team to brew his IPA creation at our brewery. Now you can taste it for yourselves! We’ll officially tap the keg at 5 p.m. It will also be available in a limited 22oz bottle run in the taproom and expect to see it in stores around Washington.
Imperial Mole Stout. But we haven’t forgotten that it’s also Cinco de Mayo. We’re also releasing bottles of Imperial Mole Stout! We took a Russian Imperial Stout and added Peruvian single-origin cocoa nibs, vanilla beans, cinnamon, and a blend of Ancho, Guajillo and Chipotle Morita chilies. This big, rich beer has notes of chocolate spice, roast and a slight sweet heat. It clocks in at 9.8% ABV. We’ll have a limited amount of bottles available for $10 each with a limit of three per person, per day.
MAY 6: 5th ANNUAL RYE FESTIVAL
Celebrate all things rye with more than 17 rye beers on tap! We also have a few other special rye releases up our sleeve:
Rye Crush: Get ready for the latest in our Crush IPA series. We added some flaked rye into the recipe to provide body and spice complexity to the malt profile. This batch is dry hopped with Kohatu, Citra and Ekuanot hops to give this brew a big tropical fruit profile on top of a soft, pillowy body. This tasty brew comes in at 6% ABV, and 50 IBUs. A limited amount of 12oz cans will available at the brewery.
Sauvignon Blanc Saison: We took our Rustic Saison and aged it in Sauvignon Blanc barrels, giving it light notes of stone fruit, delicate oak, white wine, and floral sweetness. This tasty brew comes in at 6.9% ABV. We’ll have a small batch available in 22oz bottles for $10 each. Limit three per person, per day.
Breakside Collaboration: On Rye Fest we’ll also be releasing our brand new collaboration with our friends at Breakside. We brewed a rye imperial porter – a 9.3% ABV porter with lots of rye in the malt profile, and added some cinnamon and 4lbs per barrel of plums. A rich, decadent malt base with subtle Sri Lankan cinnamon and plum notes supporting in the background.
MAY 7: BALLARD BREWERIES PUTT-PUTT & BEER CRAWL
We’re joining our friends at Lucky Envelope Brewing, Populuxe Brewing, and Stoup Brewing to host the Inaugural Ballard Putt Putt & Beer Crawl to benefit Bellwether Housing.
All of the team spots are full, but there’s still plenty of fun to be had! Come grab a pint of Lock Step IPA and watch the foursomes try to navigate the hole we designed. Representatives from Bellwether Housing will be on hand selling raffle tickets for some great prizes! And at 5 p.m., we’ll host the tournament awards ceremony.
MAY 10: r&R PILS PARTY
Rainier is one of the “founding fathers” of the local beer industry. We couldn’t be more honored that they chose us for the first collaboration in their 138-year history. Our little “r” joined their big “R” to create the r&R Pils, a hop-forward version of the classic German-style beer. And every good party needs a band, so we’re thrilled to announce that Deep Sea Diver will be playing live in our taproom! The fun kicks off with the tapping of a one off randall at 6 p.m., and for the first 100 r&R Pils pints bought after 6pm you will receive a free r&R Pils commemorative glass! (Limit one per person.)
MAY 11: PUGET SOUND PRO-AM
This event is near and dear to Adam’s heart. As a homebrewer, he brewed a batch of American Brown at Anacortes Brewery after winning Best of Show at the 2011 Skagit County Fair. Since then, he does whatever he can to give back to the community that supported him and help other brewers get the same opportunities. Join us for a celebration of pro-am beers from brewers around the state!
MAY 13: REUBEN AND FRIENDS INVITATIONAL
We’re super excited to host our first invitational festival! Fifteen of the best breweries on the West Coast will be here and they’re bringing some hard-to- find brews with them. Planet Fly will be here with some soul/funk tunes for your grooving pleasure, and we’ll have a food truck on site as we expand the event into the parking lot behind the brewery. Come meet the brewers and/or owners from our participating breweries:
Alvarado Street Brewing
Bale Breaker
Black Raven
Chuckanut
Cloudburst
Fort George
Firestone Walker
FunkWerks
Great Notion
Iron Goat
Melvin
pFriem
Standard
Three Magnets
Wander
The taplist and other details are still being finalized, so stay tuned for more information!
MAY 14: COFFEE BEER AND DONUTS
We’re closing out SBW with the breakfast of champions! It’s two great things that go great together – our coffee-infused beers paired with mini Mighty O donuts. This event was so popular last year that we’re opening the parking lot behind the brewery so we can accommodate even more!
And we can’t let SBW go without one last special bottle release:
Air of the Night with bourbon barrel aged coffee. We added Columbian coffee beans to a bourbon barrel and aged them for a number of months. The beans picked up notes of bourbon, light oak and stout from the barrel. When we thought they were ready, our friends at Kuma coffee roasted them for us. We took our Baltic porter base and hot brewed coffee brewed from the aged beans, creating a complex beer with notes of black currant, dark fruits, caramel, brown sugar, bourbon and coffee. It comes in at 9.1% ABV. A limited number of 22oz bottles will be available for $10 each. Limit three per person, per day.