Visiting Seattle (2019 Edition)

You clearly know more about this than I do, but I thought I had read that the brewer did try to apologize and admit he made some inappropriate comments that he shouldn't have made (after he cooled off a bit).

Not that that excuses his behavior, but it struck me as at least a step in the right direction.

 

Hope you don't mind if I use your post to jump into this discussion.

I spend a considerable amount of time in the Tacoma area, as we have a number of friends there and my wife lived there for a number or years (just up the street from Narrows Brewery in fact). I don't personally feel the beer scene in Tacoma is superior to Seattle's, but I do find it a lot more accessible. Outside of the chronic construction mess going on over at I-5 near the dome, it's usually pretty easy to get around Tacoma, and traffic is pretty manageable. As a result, while I happen to think the beer scene in Seattle is superior to Tacoma's (to be honest, I don't think it's really even close), I prefer the beer scene in Tacoma.

For the most part, I'm in agreement with a lot of the comments and observations made by @imposterzilla, even if I did find some of his observations a bit, ahem, provincial. Calling the pub scene at E9 a knockout restaurant was a bit hard to swallow (no pun intended). I've eaten there a number of times, and it's now reached the point that my wife won't go with me if I want to go over there for a beer and a bite. Most of the problem has been with the service there (which can be anywhere from good to practically non-existent), but I've never found the food there to be anything to write home about (average quality pub grub, with an emphasis on fried food, is how I would describe it).

So that brings me to the Parkway Tavern. I could not agree more with the assessment made by @Structures. In my experience, the Parkway tends to have the best draft selection in Tacoma, and food coming out of the kitchen is quite good and also quite reasonably priced. They even have a half way decent wine by the glass selection, which means my wife has no qualms about heading over to the Parkway with me for a snack and pint, pretty much any time we go up there (like today, for example).

I've been going to beer bars and breweries/brewpubs in Tacoma since pliny the elder was still available in Washington (the last glass I had of PtE in Washington was over at the Parkway), and I've spent a LOT of time at Pint Defiance, the Red Hot, E9 and the Parkway. They're all good, but IMHO, after all these years, the Parkway is still the gold standard when it comes to craft beer tap houses in Tacoma.

But I'm still not convinced the Tacoma beer scene is superior to the Seattle beer scene. That's just crazy talk.

 

Until the post from @66jzmstr the other day, I had not realized that Reuben's was canning triple crush these days. We're starting to see limited distribution of their cans down here in PDX now, and I was wondering if triple crush is part of that distribution (or if it's only available at the brewery).

I'm sure I'll find some place eventually that will do a crowler of it, but it would be great if I could just run over to John's or Belmont Station to pick up a 4 pack.