Black Label has green focus

When you’re trying to grow organically, it can take some time.

That’s the case with Spokane’s newest brewery, Black Label – committed to sustainability, from the ingredients it uses to its energy practices – which opened at the end of January.

Dan Dvorak and Steve Wells, pals since junior high and brewing partners since 2007, decided to go commercial more than two years ago. They ran a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2013, but their original location fell through.

Then another old school chum, Santé restaurant owner Jeremy Hansen, told them about a planned small business complex where he was opening a bakery: Saranac Commons, from the ecologically minded owners of the neighboring Saranac and Community buildings on Main Avenue west of Division Street.

Wells and Dvorak signed on, but construction delays repeatedly pushed back last summer’s scheduled launch. Now that’s all behind them, and they couldn’t be happier.

“There isn’t a better situation we could have been in to start up,” Wells said. “It’s going to be fun. Just the energy of all these different businesses in here is going to be surreal.”

Hansen’s bakery, Common Crumb, opened a few days before the brewery. He’s looking into using some spent brewing grain in baked goods, while Wells and Dvorak would like to try kilning specialty malts in his oven.

Still to come are a Mediterranean eatery, an espresso bar and Sun People Bed & Bath (relocated from the former Spokane Public Market).

The layout is open, with common seating areas beneath a high wooden ceiling dotted with skylights. Black Label’s space is done up in repurposed brick. The central focus is a large wooden cable spool refashioned into a table, while Wells and Dvorak made the bar top from a cedar post along with fir, redwood and Peruvian maple. A stained-glass Black Label logo, done by Dvorak’s mother, hangs to one side.

Offerings from the four-barrel brewhouse tend to be malt-forward and toward the sessionable side strengthwise.

The signature, Irish-style Rees’ Red (6.4 percent alcohol by volume, 54 International Bitterness Units) – named after Wells’ young son, who liked to hang out during brew days – has deep flavors from darker caramel malt and roasted barley, and an earthy, spicy-floral hop character from Nugget, Kent Golding and Mount Hood.

A brown ale (5.3, 18) is mild but rich-tasting with a finishing accent from molasses-maple syrup. The espresso stout (6.2, 40), smooth from flaked oats, gets its well-integrated flavor from cold-pressed Evans Brothers coffee out of Sandpoint.

A hoppy India pale ale (6, 65) and mellow amber (4.9, 19) are works in progress, with new versions of each on the way.

The easy-drinking honey blonde (5.1, 22) features both honey malt and actual honey. The first batch was made from hives at the brewery farm in Garden Springs.

Wells and Dvorak also grow hops, nine varieties and counting. They didn’t have much of a yield this year because of parasite problems, though an upcoming single-hop, single-malt pale uses homegrown Chinook along with Maris Otter.

Most of the malts they buy are organic, though organic hops are harder to come by, Dvorak said. The goal is to someday produce a beer using entirely homegrown ingredients. A gluten-free offering also is planned, as well as a root beer.

Along with their own beers, several of Black Label’s 20 taps (including two nitro) will be filled with guest offerings from other area brewers. And in a nod to their pioneering predecessors, they’re preparing to hang historic photos of local pre-Prohibition breweries.

“A lot of people don’t know that Spokane was a big beer town,” Dvorak said. “It will be cool to show them what used to be here.”

Freshly tapped

• For Valentine’s Day, Hopped Up is pouring a variation on its High Performance Porter (6 percent alcohol by volume, 34 International Bitterness Units) infused with raspberries and chocolate.

• River City celebrates its second anniversary with Congratulator Doppelbock (8.3, 33), a big, malty German-style lager with dark fruit notes.

• Ramblin’ Road’s Plowed (6, 12) is a tart, funky farmhouse ale fermented with both Brettanomyces and regular saison yeasts.

• Trickster’s has issued the latest in its series of Hipster Juice pale ales, version 3.2 (5.7, 45), full of fruity Citra, El Dorado and Zeus hops.

• Twelve String today taps its Double Drop D Stout (9, 49), a thicker, richer, creamier version of its standard stout.

• Also being released on draft today is No-Li’s Poser (4.8, 25), brewed with oatmeal, rye and caramel malt and starring pungent Comet hops for a citrusy, tropical fruit character. It will become the brewery’s first six-pack bottled beer at the end of February.

Save the date

• River City launches this year’s Riverkeeper IPA, featuring a slew of new hops, on Wednesday at the Lantern Tap House. A portion of proceeds benefits the Spokane Riverkeeper water protection program.

• This year’s Washington Beer Open House is Feb. 21 from noon to 5 p.m. at participating breweries across the state. Plans were developing at press time; keep an eye on http://wash ingtonbeer.com/open-house/.

• Central Food in Kendall Yards is hosting a five-course brewer’s dinner Feb. 22 featuring six beers by Twelve String, including a pair of barrel-aged offerings. Tickets are $75, through https://squareup.com/ market/central-food/ string-brewing-beer-dinner.