NW Peaks Brewery founder/brewmaster Kevin Klein doesn’t have anything against culinary authorities that are on the lithe side. However, when he was asked by the Four Seasons Hotel Seattle to submit a beer in a blind tasting to find the house ale for the downtown locale’s ART Restaurant & Lounge, Klein slimmed down his options on a style to appease the masses. “There are so many great micro-breweries in our backyard. We wanted to have a beer that is distinctly Seattle and would go well with our ‘market-to-ART’ cuisine and 55 Locals spirits program,” says ART Restaurant Executive Chef Kerry Sear in a press release. “One of our cooks, Christopher Kolakowski, took the lead in finding the right local brewery to partner with us. In our taste-testing panel, Never Trust a Skinny Chef won by a large margin.”
A quintessential pool-pounder for the hotel’s aqueous amenity that overlooks Elliott Bay, the Skinny Chef Ale is a slight departure from Klein’s regular “experimental mountainbeers” produced at his Ballard neighborhood nano-brewery but is none-the-less toothsome. The light-bodied blonde ale (although not defined as anything other than an “ale”) shows aromas of grain, toffee and sunny, golden malts with an inkling of piney hops. The palate brings forth similar tones of caramel malts, a creamy mid-palate and a light, refreshing finish. Get the swimmies ready—time to show how skinny of a chef you are.
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