Bale Breaker's Mount Saint Humulous

Now drinking an imperial pint of Old Rasputin at Capone's in Coeur d'Alene with a ridiculous hot pastrami sandwich. At times like this, I totally get why some people choose to live in Idaho.

Whoops! Meant to post that in WBAYDN.

 

I don't really laugh; not at all, in fact. Eastern Washington and Idaho strike me as great places to live, altogether free from the riff-raff of Western Washington. Unfortunately, I've never seen a whole lot of work out that way...

 

That's the unfortunate thing about the region. It's mostly service industry jobs here, along with all the retirees who seem to gravitate to the area. We're not unlike @beertunes' 'hamsterdam in that regard (though probably a higher degree of redneckism).

 

Aside from these facts, and persistent winter inversions and summer wildfire smoke, it seems a pretty ideal place to make one's home. But those are definitely some big caveats.

Bellingham certainly avoids most of these pitfalls, but not all. I think anyone, including @beertunes, probably feels somewhat lucky to find adequate work there. The quality of living can be very high in these places, but one always just has to figure out how to make a living...

 

God, the wildfires this last year was like nothing I've ever experienced, despite 37 of my 43 years being spent on this side of the Cascades. Most of the time I would happily submit that the business of living ones life is easier here, but that was just nuts.

 

I have a friend in Twisp, whose life and business have been quite upended the past two summers. He's managed fine, considering; but I wish he, and everyone else in these fire-prone regions, had it a little easier. Unfortunately, I think the past couple years will just prove the 'new normal.'

 

Once you get a handful of miles outside of town,Whatcom county is pretty rednecky. And lets not even talk about Skagit county, once ya Upriver from Sedro-Wooley. Yeah, decent jobs are scarce around here. I've spent the last 10 years just stringing together a bunch of little things. I may do 3-5 different gigs a day sometimes. The college and the hospital are the 2 biggest employers, and I don't really have the skill sets for either place. But, there is beer!!!!

 

Ha Ha. My brother told me he and his friends used to joke about people who lived in Skagit Valley, then he found himself living in Mt V and being one of those people.

Speaking of beer in B-ham, I walked into Bottles on Friday and found a bunch of bottles of Global Mutt! Although the young man behind the counter mentioned he was from Bellingham and had brought a case of that for himself, he said that Wander is now being distributed in the Spokane area and I can expect to see it in a few other places as well. I don't know which distributor, or if any other beers will appear besides Global Mutt, but that's a very cool development.

 

I find it hard to resist stopping by whenever I'm in Coeur d'Alene. The other locations always seem pale imitations of the "flagship" Capone's.

 

Thanks again for the heads up. Wish I'd remembered that about an hour ago when I was lured to Bennidito's by cheap growler fills. I'm enjoying the Rye beer that I picked up while there but...Humulus, dammit!

 

Hey, that's one of Gonzaga's holy relics you're talking about!

 

Back to the op, drinking a snifter of Humulus at Blackbird right now, and can report it's great!

 

I wouldn't have guessed you would slay that beast before Bottomcutter. Not bad consolation, though.

 

Well, it helped that @Babbo was kind enough to post where it was in Spokane a few posts up the page!

I really hope BB issues a "take-home" version.

 

Also on at Pints now, for any Spokane North Siders

 

Talked with the folks from Wander last night, and the distributor they're using is Cru, a small, new distro. They're only carrying 3-4 breweries right now. You should be seeing Wander stuff fairly regularly going forward, but specific beers will probably vary.

 

Sounds a bit like back when we would see Boundary Bay bottles years ago. There was no rhyme or reason as to which bottles would pop up, just that a place like Huckleberry's would have something from them, you'd get used to it, and a few weeks later they'd be gone and something else would be in a bottle from them.

 

Well, these days BB should be fairly steady over there, at least the IPA and Scotch. Draft should be steady too.

 

Not so much. I see the IPA sometimes at TW, and there's a couple places in town that have had it on tap FOREVER, but that's about it (edit:now that I think about it, I think I've seen an amber/red ale once in a blue moon on draft, but very rarely). Maybe the Rocket Market might carry it on an every now and then basis, but I rarely go up there.