Today’s beer blog extends a gesture of comraderie to rain-soaked Seattle, whose football team this year made it to the big game for the first time ever. Specifically we raise a glass to underappreciated Rainier lager:
You can read an interesting early history of the Rainier brand here. Production was started in 1873 by the Hemrich family, who in 1887 produced the first lager on the Puget Sound. In 1903 their plant consolidated with two other brewing companies to form the Seattle Brewing & Malting Company, which has an interesting history of its own:
[I]n less that ten years this firm would grow to be the world’s sixth largest brewery and the largest on the west coast (as can be seen in the 1913 letterhead below). For a time, before Washington State introduced prohibition in 1916, the Georgetown brewery was the largest industrial establishment in the state of Washington.In 1904, Georgetown incorporated — a “company town” safeguarding the business interests of its brewery. Company superintendent John Mueller was soon elected both mayor and fire chief. The number of taverns and roadhouses doubled, and by 1905 it required 25 horse teams to daily fill the Seattle appetite for Rainier Beer, the flagship label of the brewery. Production by then had reached 300,000 barrels per annum. The company now employed more than 300 men, and there was room to build worker homes beside the Duwamish River that then still curved through Georgetown.
The brand was licensed following prohibition and passed from family interests to the Strohs megalith and most recently to Pabst, which produces the other Seattle stalwart Olympia, and sadly its iconic freeway-side brewery with the giant red ‘R’ was lost when the plant closed in 2000 (more here). Fittingly, the plant now roasts coffee.
Here in Pittsburgh we don’t get many chances to try Seattle’s storied beer. Opinions vary among the pinky-lifters refined tastes at Beer Advocate, no doubt boosted by nostalgia, but who needs them when you can score a review like this:
When state Fish and Wildlife agents recently found a black bear passed out on the lawn of Baker Lake Resort, there were some clues scattered nearby — dozens of empty cans of Rainier Beer.
The bear apparently got into campers’ coolers and used his claws and teeth to puncture the cans.
…Fish and Wildlife enforcement Sgt. Bill Heinck said the bear did try one can of Busch, but ignored the rest.
“He didn’t like that (Busch) and consumed, as near as we can tell, about 36 cans of Rainier.”
A wildlife agent tried to chase the bear from the campground, but the animal just climbed a tree to sleep it off for four hours. Agents finally herded the bear away, but it returned the next morning.
Agents then used a large, humane trap to capture it for relocation, baiting the trap with the usual: doughnuts, honey and, in this case, two open cans of Rainier. That did the trick.
More recent Seattle startups include the Redhook brewery, which I have found brews some quality stuff. No word yet on what bears think of it.
Dave Straub
“Pinky-lifters”?
I think that Red Hook has taken a hit in quality over the past few years, and I really wish that they wouldn’t market the Ballard Bitter as an IPA. That’s no IPA. What do you think of Pyramid beers?
Tim F.
The few times I’ve had a pyramid I recall enjoying it, although what I remember best from those guys is a dizzying variety of styles. It’s very likely that I’ve missed their best work.
Blackhook stout always won points for its coffee finish, which seemed unique and regionally appropriate, but otherwise I usually didn’t seek out redhook when I lived in New Belgium’s backyard.
BarneyG2000
Tim,
Thanks for the posts, I have used some of your links. I will be bottling an I.P.A. tonight.
Rex
That plant no longer roasts coffee either. The interior of the building is not especially accommodating to any industrial use, being demised like a rabbit’s warren. Last I knew it was going to be converted into artist’s workspaces.
Nice job extending an olive branch (or perhaps a hops branch) to the Puget Sound. Cheers.
Geoduck
I’m not a beer-drinker, but Olympia beer was originally made here in the Washington state capitol, Olympia.. well, actually the neighboring town of Tumwater.. using artisian water. Its brewery (and its distincive smell) was also an I-5 landmark on the road south of Seattle. Sadly, production was moved elsewhere, and this brewery has been shut down as well. A new company was going to start bottling water there, but they ran into financing problems, and the place still sits empty. It’s sad.
zzyzx
You forgot the best thing about the brewery. Seattle’s PCL baseball team was named the Seattle Rainiers since they owned the team. I used to have a cool Rainiers jacket before the lining fell out.
As for Seattle beer, I don’t drink but my gf swears by Henry Weinhard’s as a decent local mid-range brew.
MAX HATS
Oly beer was my school’s unoficial mascot. Everyone hated it, everyone had half racks scattered throughout their dorm. Thank god Evergreen doesn’t have grades, or they would have really suffered. After I moved to Seattle senior year, nostalgia would periodically compel me to buy more of the stuff. Then I’d take my first sip and remember just how bad it is, and wonder what I was supposed to do with the 11 unopened cans.
Rainier is a whole other story. Well, okay, the same story, but more so. One of the worst experiences in my life was trying to finish a Rainier 40 (gaaaaangsta). Take that either as an indictment of the beer or as a testimony to how awesome my life is as you will.
MAX HATS
I’d even take Miller High Life over a Weinhards.
But then again, one cannot have champaign every day.
Rex
Eve Babitz wrote a great short story in tribute to “the Green Death” which was a local colloquial for Rainier Ale. It is published in the book “Drinking, Smoking and Screwing” which is a collection of stories about vices and the joys we derive from them.
stickler
Seattle??? Please, people.
Henry Weinhard began brewing beer in Portland, Oregon in 1856. Similar story arc as Rainier, except that Blitz-Weinhard introduced Henry’s Private Reserve in 1978, which was an actually pretty-good lager. It helped start the craftbrewing revolution.
Megamergers and buyouts ensued, the brewery in Portland was shut in 2000 (2001?) and turned into condominiums. But production has been returned to Oregon: Henry’s is now produced under contract by the good folks at Full Sail, in Hood River.
Andrew
Actually the brewery is no longer going to be used for artists lofts. It’s going to be some sort of administration building for sound transit’s light rail. They actually recently repurchased the giant red R (which was at the Museum of History and Industry, MOHI) and are going to resurrect it on top of the building. Now it will be the R in either the word Transit or Rail (I forget which).
DaveL
I graduated from Olympia High School, which meant not only that we got a good dose of malt-stink from the brewery every so often but also that the school band used tunes from Olympia commercials at football games and the like (“It’s the water/And a lot more,” etc.). But the beer was fit mostly for killing slugs. There was a short while when Rainier had absolutely the best 15-second beer commercials ever made, but that ended with one of their buyouts.
But mostly what we drank was a beer I can’t even remember the name of right now that had animals on the cans (ducks, bass, etc.) that was just as bad but cheaper.
demimondian
Hey, Tim — I’ve been trying to get in touch with you to settle our bet.
zzyzx
Eh, like I’m going to give Portland credit for anything.
Nat
It’s going to be some sort of administration building for sound transit’s light rail. They actually recently repurchased the giant red R (which was at the Museum of History and Industry, MOHI) and are going to resurrect it on top of the building.
I’d normally be delighted at the return of the R – when I saw it had been removed on the way to my parents’ house from the airport one Christmas, it felt like the final death blow to my childhood. (Well, that, and my brother getting my old bedroom.) The big Tully’s Coffee logo felt like a desecration, although perhaps more in synch with the shiny new football stadium that replaced the Kingdome nearby.
But SOUND TRANSIT? Those ass-clowns will probably take another decade and $20 million to re-install the R. For a city that’s supposed to be on the cutting edge of American civilization, Seattle has a supernatural talent for wasting tax dollars and failing to build decent mass transit. (Don’t get me started on the public schools.)