The year in beer

Clockwise from top left: Iron Goat has been packing them in at its downtown taproom after moving there in April; Perry Street won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival for its Session IPL; Twelve String began bottling several of its beers in August; the Inland Northwest Craft Beer Festival saw new highs in both breweries and attendance.

Before 2016 slips into well-deserved oblivion, let’s look back on the bright side at some highlights from the local beer scene, plus a few peeks ahead at the coming year:

• Four more breweries opened in Spokane and Kootenai counties (down from nine in 2015): Young Buck and Little Spokane at the downtown incubator (with its Steel Barrel taproom), V Twin in Spokane Valley and Post Falls Brewing . Other regional newcomers were Chewelah’s Quartzite and two in Moscow, Rants & Raves and Hunga Dunga .

Things show no signs of slowing down in 2017, with several more newcomers at various points in the pipeline. Those include TT’s Old Iron , preparing to join in at the incubator this spring; Four-Eyed Guys , a distribution-only nano; Millwood Brewing and Greenacres’ Sun Mountain in the Valley; and in North Idaho, Bombastic in Hayden, Utara in Sandpoint and Bent Tree in Athol.

On the flip side, Budge Brothers became the third area brewery to call it quits over the past three years (following BiPlane and Ramblin’ Road). Zythum closed its Fairfield taproom but still plans to brew for limited distribution.

• Existing breweries continued to grow. Iron Goat moved to an expanded space in downtown Spokane and added food; Laughing Dog is brewing at a larger Sandpoint-area location, with a taproom expected to open in the spring; and Twelve String plans to transfer its taproom next summer to the bigger building it’s refurbishing in the Valley.

Badass Backyard still is brewing at home but opened an offsite taproom nearby on Argonne, while Whistle Punk just signed a lease for a taproom downtown on Monroe. Top Frog also added a taproom to its Newport brewery.

• Spokane’s pioneering craft beer bar, The Viking, closed in August but recently announced plans to reopen in February following renovations. Coeur d’Alene’s Crafted Tap House launched a sister sports bar next door, Victory Sports Hall (also with 50 taps), and Nectar Wine and Beer, which opened last year in Kendall Yards, is set to add a South Perry location next spring. Beloved South Hill hangout The Hop Shop lost its lease as part of the neighboring Remedy Kitchen and Tavern development, but its owners promise a “completely nonconventional” new project (details to be announced).

• On the festival scene, the Inland Northwest Craft Beer Festival again reported record attendance in its third year at Avista Stadium, along with a record 41 breweries. A similar new summer event, the Spokane Brewers Festival , launched at the Spokane Arena with 34 participants.

The second annual Spokane Craft Beer Week in May featured 15 collaboration beers by area brewers, up from six its first year, along with a new local IPA challenge. And No-Li’s occasional small-batch festivals keep selling out earlier each time.

• Perry Street captured a gold medal at the nation’s best-known beer event, the Great American Beer Festival – the third local brewery to do so, following No-Li and the former Coeur d’Alene Brewing. Kootenai River became the area’s first repeat winner, earning its second bronze in three years.

No-Li continued racking up medals in international competitions with wins at Belgium’s Brussels Beer Challenge, Germany’s European Beer Star, the Australian International Beer Awards and the Great International Beer & Cider Competition in Rhode Island, bringing its overall total to 21.

Closer to home, No-Li, River City, Big Barn, Waddell’s and Northern Ales all scored hardware in the Washington Beer Awards – with No-Li being named Large Brewery of the Year – while Slate Creek, MickDuff’s and Wallace were winners at the North American Beer Awards in Idaho Falls.

• Twelve String, Trickster’s and Daft Badger began bottling selected beers in 22-ounce bombers, as did New Boundary with its Lemon Kick hard lemonade. No-Li added the new Red, White & No-Li pale to its canned lineup – to be joined next March by an amber ale – and started canning its flagship Born & Raised IPA at Hale’s in Seattle for West Side distribution.

• More supermarkets got into the growler game. Fred Meyer, which was already filling growlers in Coeur d’Alene, installed stations in its remodeled stores at Wandermere and Spokane Valley (which also got an in-store Cork & Tap wine and beer bar). Yoke’s added a growler station at its Mead store, with others under consideration.

• Sours soared in popularity locally as well as nationally. Twelve String, River City, Iron Goat, Young Buck, Daft Badger and Badass all brewed the tart, salty wheat beer called gose. Iron Goat also did sours with cherries and lemon peel, as well as a tart IPA and a fresh hop version; Hopped Up used apricots, raspberries and lychees in its offerings; Perry Street released tart saisons infused with nectarines, blackberries and pluots; the Steam Plant introduced a strawberry sour that’s scheduled to return in January along with a cranberry Berliner weisse; and Waddell’s made its blackberry a year-round fixture along with another rotating sour, starting with peach kiwi.

While those are quicker kettle sours – made by adding bacteria during the brewing process – some local brewers, including Iron Goat and Young Buck, also are experimenting with traditional longer-term, barrel-aged sours.

• Brewers’ creative efforts didn’t stop with sours. Young Buck’s other releases so far have included the likes of an amber with coffee and chilies, a black IPA with chocolate and orange peel and an IPA using birch bark, juniper berries and fir resin in collaboration with Bellwether – which continued its own exploration of Old World and other innovative styles, including a series of beers brewed with homegrown produce from beets to cucumber to kale. Trickster’s and Perry Street experimented with a new hop product, powdered lupulin .

Downdraft introduced monthly small-batch releases, while Daft Badger continued its weekly series. Badass added a group of rotating specialties to its core lineup, along with guest recipes by local homebrewers; Bellwether, Black Label, Orlison and Waddell’s brewed collaborations with winners of homebrew contests.

• Some brewers pushed boundaries in more familiar directions. Orlison, which launched as a lager brewery, keeps adding ales to its lineup. Selkirk Abbey is moving beyond its Belgian roots with a new Northern Cross label, beginning with a Northwest-style IPA and a recently released stout. Waddell’s debuted a SpoLite designed to compete with domestic light lagers.

• Local craft beer pioneer Mark Irvin, who founded Northern Lights in 1993 and helped build it into the current No-Li before taking a break, returned to brewing with Bennidito’s.

• While the Northwest is known for hops, craft malting operations are starting to sprout around the region – such as Palouse Pint in Spokane Valley, which produces a variety of malts with locally grown grain. Those have been used in specialty offerings from several brewers including Bellwether, Black Label, Steam Plant, Orlison, Perry Street and Hopped Up.

• Brewers and beer sellers stepped up their contributions to the community. No-Li reported $25,000 in donations to local charities and neighborhoods, along with volunteer efforts by employees. Benefit nights for nonprofits were hosted by Bellwether, Orlison, English Setter, Mad Bomber, Steady Flow Growler House and Sandpoint’s Idaho Pour Authority (to be joined in 2017 by the Coeur d’Alene Growler Guys), while River City continued to support the Spokane Riverkeeper environmental program with its Riverkeeper IPA and Perry Street again raised funds for neighborhood Grant Elementary .

• Finally, Spokane was named the nation’s 11th-best beer city by the SmartAsset.com financial website (though the formula seems a bit fuzzy), one spot ahead of Seattle. Maybe the Top 10 in 2017?