Cooking up interest

A reminder: Tomorrow marks the public debuts of Little Spokane and Young Buck at Chef’s Week PNW .

The area’s two latest licensees are among at least 11 breweries scheduled to serve in a tasting session from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Washington Cracker Co. building, 304 W. Pacific.

Young Buck’s Cameron Johnson is bringing a pair of goses – a Mimosa version with orange juice and zest, and a Gose de Rosa with raspberries and mint – along with an unblended sour and an English-style Codswallop IPA.

Little Spokane’s Joe Potter will pour a cashew pear wheat beer and one of his specialties, a multigrain porter.

The two breweries are the first tenants in the downtown brewery incubator , which is shooting for a May opening.

Also making its debut at Chef’s Week will be lager specialist Orlison’s first full-production ale, the Bloomsday-themed Shin Splints IPA (5 percent alcohol by volume, 75 International Bitterness Units). Based on previous pilot test batches, it’s brewed with bready Munich and Vienna malts, hopped with Perle and Amarillo and dry-hopped with Cascade.

Shin Splints, which also starts pouring at Orlison’s downtown taproom Friday at 2 p.m., is the first in the brewery’s “Adventure Ale” series, with the next set for release in August.  It will be joined at Chef’s Week by the brewery’s returning spring seasonal, Toasted Dragon, an Asian-inspired lager with lime, Thai basil, Szechuan peppercorns and ginger.

And the elusive Whistle Punk , which is distributing on a limited basis out of the Spokane Valley while nailing down a taproom location, will be on hand with a new IPA of its own – Spring Time (6.7, 55), hopped with Simcoe, Mosaic and Cascade – as well as a Mosaic dry-hopped saison.

Other participating breweries include locals Iron Goat, Black Label and Steam Plant, Chewelah’s Quartzite, Western Washington’s Wander and Propolis, and California’s Lagunitas. There also will be ciders from Spokane’s Liberty and the Olympic Peninsula’s Finnriver.

For $10, you get 10 sample tokens. The Couple of Chefs and Taco Camargo food trucks will be on hand serving lunch.

A Q&A panel discussion with area brewers is scheduled to start around 12:30 p.m., followed by a homebrew competition judging of seven IPAs and seven stouts. The winners in each category receive a $100 cash prize and will have their beers poured at the eight-course tasting dinner that closes the activities Saturday night.