Thursday, March 25, 2010

Call for Artists, Cask Festival, Twestival

We're now participants in the Fremont First Friday Art Walk. This month we featured bike screen prints by Dan Stuckey. Now we need more material to show, most pressingly for Friday, April 2. And we're building up a list of folks to show throughout the year. So if you are -- or know -- an artist looking for exposure and sales, please contact me by email: sara@fremontbrewing.com.

Today, we tapped the first firkin of our brand new cask program! It's an IPA, dry-hopped with Chinook and Amarillo hops. It's delicious and ON TAP tonight at UBG. Tapping it was a rehearsal (it sort of erupted) for the casks we're contributing to the not-to-be-missed Cask Festival this Saturday at Seattle Center Fischer Pavilion:
  • Totonac Bbomb: slow-roasted winter ale aged in 15-year old bourbon barrels from Kentucky with organic vanilla bean pods. It's basically an elaboration of our Bourbon Abominable (B-Bomb) which, sadly, is no longer available at UBG.
  • Wee Little Woody: Universale Pale aged on American white oak and spiced with zest of organic blood orange.
  • Mystere de Mars: As in March. It's a secret -- 3rd in the Mystery Series.
Matt's on his way right now to Emerald City Trapeze to donate the beer for Twestival Seattle. It's a 24-hour-long, world-wide fundraiser for World Concern. Tweeters and other social media geeks will schmooze, party, tweet, and swing (on trapezes) for this non-profit that's raising money for earthquake victims in Haiti and Chile. TONIGHT from 7-10:30.

Hey cyclists: SDOT finally installed a bike rack in front of the brewery! I was getting impatient as folks were locking their bikes up to anything that doesn't move -- the gas meter, garbage cans, trees. Rack space is limited so get here early.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

All Night Long

You gotta know about this: There’s a proposal circulating among Seattle electeds, bar/club owners, and opinion leaders to extend alcohol service hours in Seattle. The Seattle Nightlife and Music Association has been promoting two versions of the idea – the first to stagger closing times (2:00, 3:00, 3:30 or whatever) of venues based on size and other criteria and, more recently, to allow 24-hour service hours and “let the market decide.” Both have received initial support from Mayor McGinn, City Attorney Pete Homes, and several Councilmembers. Many news outlets have run stories, including Publicola, King 5 News, The Stranger, and KUOW here and here (CMs Richard Conlin and Sally Clark applaud the issue about half-way into Weekday).

To name a few of the proposal’s many benefits:

  • Times are tough and this would give a boost to SMALL BUSINESS. Bar, restaurant, and club owners would generate more sales, which would result in increased City revenues.
  • Having more night spots open in the wee hours would invigorate Seattle’s nightlife scene and would result in more “eyes on the street”, making people feel safer than they otherwise would while carousing or returning home from the late shift.
  • Perhaps counter-intuitively, proponents argue that public safety would increase, partly because of the above reason and also because police could better allocate their patrol officers. If they don’t have to be everywhere at 2:00 am when all bars close and patrons flood the streets en masse (after slamming as many drinks as possible come “last call”), they can more strategically deploy cops according to the varying closing times.

Of course, for either version of this proposal to work, the City would have to enact several measures to ensure that venues take responsibility for over-drinking patrons and comply with more stringent safety regulations.

Personally, I love the idea and not primarily for crass business self-interest. Yes, Fremont Brewing could benefit from increased late-night sales of our product – but so would everyone on tap. Rather, I find increasing City revenues and boosting Seattle’s nightlife scene the most compelling reasons to go forward. And I agree that extending alcohol service hours would decrease many of the problems associated with the binge drinking caused by mandatory 2:00 closing times.

All-night/extended drinking is nothing new in many GROWN-UP cities in the US and beyond (see above news sources for examples). But Seattle’s sad legacy of over-the-top blue laws might contribute to resistance to this effort. Leading with the indisputable economic benefits might be the best approach: Seattle needs more sales and B&O tax-generated revenues to fund services we demand, like parks, libraries, and cops & firefighters. Equally important, instead of inhibiting nightlife, Seattle should take full advantage of the rich cultural resources this city has been famous for (namely the performing arts and its resident, thirsty hipsters) and give folks more options for public, communal recreation.

My last word on this is that we’re lucky to have such an engaged, politically savvy group of bar/club owners to guide policy makers on this (esp. The Red Door's Pete Hanning and The 5 Point Cafe's David Meinert). They’re putting in a lot of time and energy to provide the political cover our electeds need to persuade the WA Liquor Control Board to change existing regulations. It’s easy to kvetch about how hard it is to make a buck but the SNMA has a plan that all bar/club/restaurant owners stand to gain from.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Art & Politics

At last Friday's Urban Beer Garden, our landlord, Suzie Burke, brought her beer-loving, home-brewing, off-duty buddies from SPD's North Precinct to enjoy some pints.

In case you missed my last post, we’re now on Twitter (@fremontbrewing) so you can follow new developments in recipe experimentation, upcoming events, and plain old daily life around here.

At this Thursday’s (March 4th) Urban Beer Garden, we’re hosting a big event for Seattle Politicos, a Facebook group I’m involved in. It’s the kick-off event for this year’s campaign season and a good opportunity for new candidates running for state office to meet Seattle’s political cogniscenti (and check-books); for incumbents to shore up support among their base; and for political hacks to play their favorite sport. I mention this because everyone’s welcome as usual but space will be tight – not the best UBG night to bring your PEPS group. Fortunately for those who wearied of my frequent soap-boxing last year, I don’t have a dog in this season’s race so I won’t be blogging as much about politics unless encouraged.

We are now participants in Fremont’s First Friday Art Walk, starting this Friday! We’ll be showcasing Dan Stuckey’s bike screen-prints (the ones that have been up all along, coincidentally). Dan designed our gorgeous logo. He was our next-door neighbor for years before he abandoned us for California because his wife got a sweet job developing gear for Fox Racing. I tell ya, this guy’s gonna be famous someday so you might as well start accumulating his signed, limited-run prints while we’re selling them for a dirt-cheap twenty bucks.