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.