You may love to shop at your neighborhood food co-op, but where do you go for a drink? Enter Washington’s first brewery co-op.
Flying Bike Cooperative Brewery is member-owned and-operated, meaning all members own an equal share of the brewery and a true collaborative spirit abounds. Member or not, bring your dog, your kid and the entire block, because neighborly exchange is the name of the game at the Greenwood tasting room.
“Our main philosophy at Flying Bike is echoed by our slogan: Member Driven Beer,” says Kevin Badger, board of directors member, former president and current vice president.
Flying Bike strives to involves members as much as possible, with quarterly homebrew competitions to source new recipes and monthly Brewers’ Tables, where members chat with the brewers. While a portion of the beer brewed and tapped at Flying Bike is selected through member input, head brewer Kevin Forhan (a Great American Beer Festival award winner and former brewer with Pike Brewing, Big Time, Elysian and RAM) and assistant brewer Scott Jensen remain at the helm.
“Kevin and Scott have made a name for Flying Bike by pushing the boundaries of flavor profiles and offering unique variations of standard styles,” Badger says. “Our community and patrons have embraced the creativity wholeheartedly.”
Flying Bike’s collective innovation is most recently demonstrated in its annual “co-hoperative” brew, the Fresh Hop Harvest Ale, made with fresh hops grown and harvested in members’ own backyards. Its commitment to community continues in the tasting room, which hosts regular “Charity Pint Nights” (one of the most recent benefed wildfire relief), a weekend morning yoga club and beer-focused member classes.
Here, Badger shares more about what is at the heart of a co-op (hint: at Flying Bike, it starts with good beer and staff-approved tasting room tunes).
1) Which of your own current offerings are you digging the most?
I absolutely love our RaineMaker IPA, which was a member homebrew competition winner earlier this year, brewed by Raine Lightner. It has become so popular that it is now a regular beer, on tap at all times, and the base for our latest iterations of Zest-A-Peel (grapefruit IPA) and Purple Raine (Lavender IPA). This beer exemplifies the power of our brewing community.
2) Any brewing pipe dreams you’re dying to make a reality?
We would absolutely love to be able to make more beer and sell it to a wider audience. We currently sell nearly almost all of our beer at the tasting room, which is great! Our community tasting room has really become a great place to meet with your friends and neighbors and chat over a delicious new beer. We’ve learned quickly that this community is thirsty. Hopefully we can put together a solid plan to expand our capacity and sell more beer outside of our walls.
3) What non-beer beverage is in your glass most these days? What is your favorite way to enjoy it and where?
I love Fair Trade coffee, which co-ops across the country will be enjoying at National Cooperative Business Association’s Co-op Festival in D.C. for October’s National Co-op Month. I encourage everyone to learn how co-ops strengthen communities, especially our own here in Seattle.
4) Favorite song, album or artist to jam out to while throwing a few down the hatch?
One of the first bartenders we ever hired at Flying Bike connected with me instantly when it came to music. I loved walking in when he was bartending, knowing he’d have some awesome jams going on our speakers. In the evening, we’d blast some great tracks by Andrew McMahon and enjoy the lively spirit of our community tasting room.
