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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

SCBW: The day after

Rick Bonino

While they’re still recovering from seven slammed days, the people who put on the first Spokane Craft Beer Week are ready to do it all again.

“For the first year, it was pretty much a home run,” says Perry Street’s Ben Lukes. “I think next year we’ll have a better handle on just how big it can be.”

Twelve String’s Terry Hackler, who like Lukes did events every day, says his taproom ran close to capacity all week long.

“I’m excited,” he says. “I’m trying to figure out how we can make it like that around here every week.

“We had tons of new people in here – that’s the big thing to me, seeing people that we’ve never seen before.”

River City’s Emily Schwartz says there were lots of new faces at the bars and restaurants where the brewery did tap takeovers – including the Checkerboard, which poured pints at the can’t-refuse price of $1.25 last Wednesday.

“So many people who never had our beer before got to try it,” she says. “They might be usually drinking Budweiser, but they were trying craft beer.”

No-Li’s John Bryant reports that people from as far away as Seattle, Portland and Bend came to town for the brewery’s small-batch festival  on Saturday, another step toward his often-stated goal of making Spokane a craft beer destination.

“As the whole thing grows, we all succeed together,” he says. “It’s one thing to talk about collaboration (among breweries), scratching each others’ backs, but to actually see it happening is something else. There’s room here for a number of people to do very well.”

Everyone already has ideas for ways to improve the event next year. Lukes would like to get the word out to more craft beer-oriented restaurants, to get them involved. Schwartz says a big end-of-the-week party would be a nice way to wrap things up. Hackler is hoping for more promotional efforts throughout the year, as a group or by individual breweries.

The bottom line, says Bryant: “We created a pretty cool vibe here for seven days. I think that’s going to carry on and help everybody in the months to come.”