Fremont vs. Black Raven

I see Black Raven as a little more adventurous out of the gate. Good beer, some great, but others are misses for me.

Fremont I think is more of an even keel brewery with a higher floor, as in their base beers are excellent every day drinkers, and it's great that they're so readily available. I also think B-Bomb is the best beer available in WA. Can't wait to see how their wild program develops.

IMO:

1. Fremont
2. Black Raven
3. Everyone else

 

This.
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Why the F wouldn't Black Raven bottle their amazing shit? I.E. Great Grandfather Raven.

Proposed Black Raven Business Plan:

1. Bottle more stuff and get it into stores.
2. ?????
3. Profit.

 

To figure out who rules WA we must first ask a few questions. Does this brewery produce an awesome amber ale? Do they have a wheat, pale, porter and ipa on their regular lineup? Do they produce a "winter warmer" every November? Do they neglect barrel aging big, high quality beers? Do they not believe in experimenting with sours/wilds? Is saison a foreign beer style to them? Do they think dry hopping with cascade is innovative? Once you have these questions answered you will know who the number one WA brewery is.

 

I read this far, laughed, and clicked like

 

I have not yet had Wisdom Seeker, Grandfather Raven, or Old Birdbrain. If you could please bring those over to me so I can compare, that would help. Fremont actually seems to occasionally show the second city some love so that's an advantage to them.

Neither brewery has any African beer so I'm not sure why we're even discussing them.

 

One thing I've noticed is at Fests. Black Raven ALWAYS has the longest lines. The doors open, and people bum rush the BR station. I've poured at fests where the BR line prevented people from getting to our table. I've also poured fests where we were right next to BR, and we went through our beer first, cuz people get awful thirsty waiting in line, and I poached them from BR. I could never choose one over the other, but I tend to drink more Fremont, just because of can availability.

 

Here is my take:

Black Raven:

Strengths: Brew a pretty solid regular lineup, are adventurous (barrel aging, sours, etc), and have a cool tasting room.

Weaknesses: Don't distribute (WTH?), don't bottle GGR (WTF?), and don't offer free pretzels.

Fremont:

Strengths: Brew a fantastically solid regular lineup, are adventurous (barrel aging, sours, etc), ACTUALLY RELEASE AND DISTRO previously mentioned adventurous beers, and offer free pretzels and fruit. Close to Paseo's.

Weaknesses: Don't bottle IIPA's (makes me sad), smaller tasting room (but still awesome), and need some practice with sours (like most WA breweries; Snipes is the exception).

Both breweries are pretty similar in most cases but do have different visions on distro, bottling, growler fills, etc. I think we have some killer breweries in WA and this will hopefully keep growing. As I respect the breweries that want to only offer solid, standard brews, I really love that Fremont, BR, Snipes, etc are offering really killer special beers. Good luck to them all!!!

Cheers,

Ryan

 

What I took from all this: Ryan likes pretzels.

 

Black Raven does randomly decided to distribute their bottled releases (I've picked up Wisdom Seeker, Hochzeit and Beaktweeker at Last Drop in the last 6 months), but like I said, it's very rare.

 

When's this fabled expansion supposed to be completed?

 

No clue. I only go over to the Eastside once or twice a year.

 

There you guys go again calling 15 miles outside of town "the eastside."

 

Redmond is so damn far away it might as well be another country. Those bridges are battlefields in the summer after 7am

 

When you have to pay a toll to get there, it certainly feels like leaving town.

 

Seattle is literally millions of deaths waiting to happen.

 

Is the pretzel charging recent at Black Raven? Because as far as I know the pretzels are free, peanuts are not.

 

It is a different country over there. I don't feel like I belong.