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

Your weekly roundup

Rick Bonino

Catching up with more news from the past week in local craft beer:

– The inaugural Spokane Brewers Festival has added 17 more breweries – 238, Big Barn, Black Label, Hopped Up, Iron Goat, Laht Neppur, Little Spokane, New Boundary, Perry Street, Post Falls, Rants & Raves, Slate Creek, St. Brigid's, Steam Plant, Ten Pin, Top Frog and Young Buck – plus D’s Wicked Cider, bringing the total number of participants to 30.

The Aug. 12-13 event in the Spokane Arena parking lot also has been trimmed to two days, Friday and Saturday, dropping the previously planned Sunday (some breweries expressed concerns about staffing all three days).   

Volunteers are being sought to help in various ways both days in return for T-shirts and beer tasting tokens (to be used off-duty); sign up here.

– Perry Street today released a single keg of its Tart Saison aged on fresh blackberries, while Iron Goat has brought its gin barrel-aged Head Butt IPA back under a secret password ("precisionishness").

– Young Buck has brewed its first full batch on the downtown brewery incubator’s seven-barrel system, a Cascadia IPA that’s lightly oaked with large late additions of Cascade hops. Look for it at the Steel Barrel Taproom around the beginning of August.

– It’s official: Home-based Badass Backyard Brewing has signed a lease for its new offsite taproom in the Argonne Mission Center in Spokane Valley, next to Chan’s Bistro. Renovations will begin once permits are approved.

– Elsewhere in the Valley, Twelve String next week will begin bottling five of its beers in 22-ounce bottles – Mango Mambo, Red Guitar Red, Batch 201 IPA, Electric Slide imperial IPA and Drop D Stout – with product expected in area stores the following week.

– Finally, Laughing Dog has decided to discontinue the food service it started at its Sandpoint-area pub in March and is selling the wood-fired pizza oven it was using for flatbreads. The silver lining: With food gone, dogs will again be allowed inside the previously canine-friendly taproom.

And the taproom will be moving from its original location into the larger new production facility Laughing Dog built nearby, where brewing operations began last week.