Last week you saw your favorite brewers’ favorite Northwest coffees. Inspired by this weekend’s inaugural Northwest Coffee Beer Invitational, with a fantastic array of beer styles featuring some very fine coffees, I turned the question around to coffee professionals. What beers are your favorite Northwest baristas, roasters and café managers drinking right now? Here’s what they said.
Jonathan Wright, Zoka: “My favorite brewery and I think one of the best in Washington is Black Raven Brewery in Redmond,” Wright replies. “They continually are trying new things and every Wednesday they tap a cask of something different.” Wright particularly recommends the Scotch Ale.
Ike Bubna, Indaba: “I love Orlison Brewing Company out of Airway Heights, Washington,” Bubna chooses. Orlison brews lagers exclusively, which Bubna appreciates in a world of microbrewed ales. His favorite is the India pale lager—“crafted with more hops than one bottle should be able to contain.”
Aric Miller, Sterling Coffee Roasters: “From the farmhouse ale to the blonde IPA, there exists a nuanced elegance so often lacking in many of the beers ’round these parts.” Miller, on behalf of the Sterling team, is referring to the work of pFriem Family Brewers of Hood River, Ore. “The pilsner is clearly crafted in the sun, crisp and lively, bracingly refreshing and again, refreshingly complex without ever foregoing its delicacy. Goddamn if it doesn’t make me wish I had a lawn to mow!”
Doug Graf, Vintage Coffee/East Van Roasters: “I would say that R&B Brewing is my favorite brewery in the Lower Mainland,” says Graf of the Vancouver microbrewery. With experience in both coffee and cacao, it’s no surprise that Graf prefers the chocolatey Raven Cream Ale and coffee-tasting Dark Star Oatmeal Stout.
Charlie Holloway, Caffe Vita: “Ecliptic Brewing is absolutely my favorite craft brewery in Portland. I consider it the brightest star in what sometimes seems like a galaxy of good breweries in Portland.” Ecliptic was founded in October 2013 by craft beer icon John Harris, who wrote the recipes for Deschutes classics including Mirror Pond Pale Ale and Black Butte Porter. The new brewery is built around Harris’s passion for astronomy: its menu changes on an old world calendar and features cosmically-named beers like Spica Hefepils and Filament Winter IPA (Holloway’s favorite).
