School’s out forever for Heather and Matt McClung. When the two former educators got married in 2007, they received the licensing documents from the state for their then nano-brewery, Schooner Exact Brewing, the same day. Today, what was once a homebrew operation turned commercial in a shared space in West Seattle, is now a thriving 15-barrel microbrewery taproom and eatery in Seattle’s SoDo neighborhood—a location and energy that is driving the trend of beverage businesses further south in the Emerald City. The extra space has allowed the brewery to experiment outside of deliciously hop-hefty brews, like with a barrel-aging program and the addition of sour ales.
In the Homegrown Series, Schooner Exact exclusively sources locally grown hops and grain for the beers, like the Hopvine India Pale Ale. Only available through the end of this month (and probably gone sooner), this “post-modern Northwest IPA” receives a healthy dose of Chinook, Columbus and Citra hops that bring out aromas of pine, fresh grapefruit juice and orange peel. The palate offers the light malt sweetness that stays steady alongside pine resin, citrus and moderate bitterness. Vibrant in its hoppiness, this beer could almost (almost) be confused for a juicy fresh hop ale.
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Track on Twitter: @schoonerexact
