The Washington State Liquor Control Board announced the tentative selection of ten farmers markets throughout Washington to participate in a pilot program allowing wine and beer tasting at the markets. “This pilot is another avenue for Washington’s breweries and wineries to educate customers about their products,” said Sharon Foster, WSLCB Chair. “Because farmers markets take place in a community setting, there are safeguards in place to ensure tastings are conducted with public safety in mind.”

The pilot program is a result of Substitute House Bill 1172, and is scheduled to run from September 1, 2011 to November 1, 2012. 47 wineries and 4 breweries qualified to participate, though only one brewery, microbrewery or winery may offer samples per day.

The selected farmers markets include:

• West Seattle Farmers Market – 4400 SW Alaska St in Seattle
• Magnolia Farmers Market – 2550 34th Ave W in Seattle
• Vancouver Farmers Market – 605 Esther St in Vancouver
• Everett Farmers Market, Inc. – 1600 W Marine View Drive in Everett
• Vashon Farmers Market – Village Green, 17511 Vashon Hwy S in Vashon
• Liberty Lake Farmers Market – 1421 N Meadowwood Ln in Liberty Lake
• Proctor Farmers Market – N 27th St, between Proctor and Madison in Tacoma
• Pasco Farmers Market – 4th and Columbia in Pasco
• Pike Place Market; Farmers Market – Pike Place, between Pine and Steward St in Seattle
• Wenatchee Valley Farmers Market – Columbia St between 1st and Palouse in Wenatchee

This week’s installment of The Cocktail Spirit with Robert Hess brought to you by the Small Screen Network brings you the Chas Cocktail. According to Robert Hess, “A good bartender inspires patrons with their creativity, skill and service behind the bar. Watching a master at work can do that. It is rare, however, when a patron inspires a bartender. Thus was the case with the Chas Cocktail created by Murray Stenson at Zig Zag Café in Seattle and named after Chuck Talbot, a regular at the bar with a love for Bourbon.”

We chose to highlight this cocktail to honor Murray Stenson, known by many to be one of the best bartenders in America and who was voted “Best Bartender in America” by his peers at the 2010 Tales of the Cocktail festival. We find this cocktail to be most fitting for today’s post as Murray worked his last shit at Zig Zag on May 27th and he is moving to Michael Mina’s RN74, set to open June 13th where he will tend bar. On the move, Murray said “I’d been at Zig Zag for 10 years. I’m looking to simplify. I’m really old, and Zig Zag is a young man’s bar.” He’ll do this at RN74, where the bar is smaller and the focus is a bit more on the food than the cocktails. No worries though as Zig Zag Café is still in very capable hands with bartender Erik Hakkinen who has been working at Zig Zag with Murray for the last three years.

Cheers Murray!

The Chas Cocktail

• 2 1/2 oz Maker’s Mark Bourbon
• 1/4 oz Amaretto
• 1/4 oz Benedictine
• d1/4 oz Cointreau
• 1/4 oz Orange Curaçao

With American Craft Beer Week in full force, why not celebrate Seattle Beer Week at the same time? Well, that’s exactly what they did. Starting yesterday and going through May 29, Seattle will experience some of the most mind blowing beercentric events the city and most likely the state have ever seen. For eleven straight days, Seattleites across the city will see beer releases, beer dinners, rare beer tastings, sensory evaluation classes, meet the brewer events, blending symposiums, cask, stout, and sour beer fests and everything in between. Pure insanity will ensue.

Sadly I will miss Seattle Beer Week 2011 by just a week, but if I was going, these are the events I would for sure not miss:

HotD Crashes Bottleworks May 22
Alan Sprints, owner, founder and brewmaster of Hair of the Dog Brewing Company will be in the house pouring a very special blend.
This may very well be one of the most limited Hair of the Dog beers ever.

This truely will be one of the most rare Hair of the Dog beers you will ever taste.

Firestone Walker ‘v” Homebrew Chef at Brouwer’s Cafe May 23
A closed door beer dinner with the beers of Firestone Walker.
There will be 8 courses / 12 beers prepared by the renowned “Homebrew Chef” Sean Paxton and Brouwer’s Cafe’s own chef.

New Belgium Blending Symposium at The Stumbling Monk May 25
Beer blending is a sensory art that has been relied on for centuries to ensure palatable beverages. Many of today’s specialty beers originated as test blends, or in fact are, themselves, blends of many different beers. In this class created especially for Seattle Beer Week, New Belgium brewer & master blender Eric Salazar will lead a slideshow & discussion on the genesis of Wild Ales such as La Folie, Le Terroir, & Eric’s Ale “from grain to glass”, with a focus on the blender’s art & techniques. This will be followed by a hands-on blending workshop where guests will be led through the process of experimenting & creating their own blended beer using samples of single-barrel unblended beer from New Belgium’s oak cellar, each dispensed from a bar-top gravity-fed cask. Guests will document their blend ratios & will be able to go home with a growler full of their very own Seattle Beer Week blended beer.

Naked City Pro-Am Night at Naked City Taphouse May 27
All of your favorite Naked City staff members broke out into teams of 2 and tried their hands at brewing with Brewmaster Don Webb. 6 different styles. You choose the best!

And .. basically every other event.

This year’s 2011 Seattle Beer Week commemorative beer is Decompression by Maritime Pacific Brewing Company, an American Strong Ale brewed exclusively with the Falconer Flight hops in memory of Glen Hay Falconer. According to Head Brewery Corey Blodgett, “since receiving the Glen Hay Falconer Scholarship in 2007 with Jacob Leonard of Widmer, I have felt compelled to show my gratitude to the Falconer Foundation because without them and the scholarship I may not be here in Seattle or at Maritime Pacific. So when HopUnion created a hop pellet in honor of Glen using fourteen of his favorite hops, I knew what I had to do. Little did I know that Decompression, an American Strong Ale brewed exclusively with the Falconer Flight hops, would become a beast.

Much like the Seattle beer scene as well as the Pacific Northwest in general, for me the Fhe Foundation embodies family. I created Decompression to convey this same feeling of community. The color is designed to remind you of the sun setting beyond the Olympics to the west. Thanks to the careful addition of Falconer’s Flight hops, you will have no doubt you are in the Pacific Northwest. Decompression’s strength and complementary malt complexity nudges you on the shoulder and says, “It is spring in Seattle.” I think you get the picture.”

Cheers!

It’s a well-known fact that The Mutineers love absinthe, as we’ve featured it in our magazine on multiple occasions and we even went as far as to have Issue #6 of Mutineer Magazine focus almost solely on the mysterious spirit with the help of our friends at The Wormwood Society. With that said, Mutineer is pleased to announce that the founder of The Wormwood Society, Gwydion Stone, is opening his own distillery in Seattle under the name Gnostalgic Spirits Distillery in the SoDo district, just south of downtown Seattle. Previously, Stone produced his Marteau Absinthe de la Belle Époque, considered to be one of the most well-respected and authentic absinthe brands on the market, in Portland, Oregon. Aside from absinthe, Stone also has plans to add apple brandy, whisky, gin and rum to his portfolio, as well as other limited edition spirits, bitters and cocktail syrups available only for purchase at the distillery itself.

Marteau Absinthe is made from absinthium wormwood grown in Oregon and Montana and a brandy base distilled from Washington wine. Marteau Absinthe and other products are scheduled to be available at the distillery and in liquor stores by summer, 2011.

Stay tuned.

Marteau (and other absinthes) on the cover of Mutineer Magazine Issue #6

This amazingly well done photograph of Elysian’s Mens Room Red by Mutineer Director of Photography Ian Andreae will be the first of many photo blog entries to come here on the Mutineer blog. There won’t be much to read, just some great photos to look at. Continue Reading »

The Mens Room Original Red brewed by Elysian Brewing of Seattle, Washington was recently released and has been flying off the shelves since its debut on August 25th. The frenzy that has been fueled by this beer has the heads of local retailers and bars spinning as they can’t seem to keep it in stock or on tap.

You might be asking – Mens Room? Seriously? What kind of name is that for a beer? To better put this into perspective, The Mens Room is an afternoon drive-time radio show broadcasting on the local rock station 99.9 KISW. Miles Montgomery, Steve “The Thrill” Hill, Ben the Psycho Muppet, and Thee Ted Smith round out the cast who hold court on the radio daily discussing the odd, disturbing, and comical topics that come about in daily life and they don’t hold back on professing their love for so-called sinful activities like drinking and smoking. Every weekday night at 5pm they hold the “Shot of the Day” toasting someone or something that has either done something wonderful, or horribly embarrassing. Continue Reading »

Michael’s Mina’s RN74 San Francisco

Michael Mina, American celebrity Chef of Egyptian origins, plans to bring his RN74 restaurant concept to the Seattle Area. RN74, a French themed restaurant located in San Francisco, will likely be given a slight Northwest twist, featuring local and sustainable ingredients. Michael Mina employs one of America’s most highly regarded Sommeliers, Rajat Parr, as company wine director. With such celebrated talent at the helm, you can be sure RN74 will bring both award winning food and wine to the flourishing Seattle restaurant scene in the Spring of 2011. You can follow Raj Parr tweets about wine via @RN74, as well as their newly established Seattle account @RN74Seattle.

The Northwest Cider Association in conjunction with SBS Imports and the Seattle Beer Collective have announced the First Annual Cider Summit NW, presented by Whole Foods Market. Cider Summit NW benefits The Institute for Myeloma & Bone Cancer Research, one of the world’s leading independent research organizations developing effective therapies to increase the quality of life and longevity of myeloma patients. Continue Reading »