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

Your weekly roundup

Rick Bonino

Some odds and ends from the past week in craft beer:

– Iron Goat, No-Li, Orlison, Paradise Creek, Riverport, the Steam Plant and Twelve String will represent the Inland Northwest at this year’s Washington Brewers Festival.

A total of 111 breweries from around the state will congregate in Redmond’s Marymoor Park over Father’s Day weekend, June 17-19. Several area breweries also are participating in the fourth annual Washington Beer Awards, which will be announced at the event.

– On the Idaho side, the big Mountain Brewers' Beer Fest is in Idaho Falls next Saturday (advance tickets required), with its accompanying North American Beer Awards

– No-Li’s newest bottled barrel-aged beer, OMFG – Rise & Grind coffee milk stout with vanilla, chocolate and orange peel – starts rolling out in 22-ounce bombers this coming week (6.3 percent alcohol by volume, 22 International Bitterness Units).

It debuted at the Winter Beer Fest in Seattle last November, and poured at last weekend’s small-batch festival at the brewery. It follows Blackfill imperial stout, Van Lambert sour cherry ale and Defacto imperial black IPA in No-Li’s bottled line of barrel beers.    

– Little Spokane today brewed its first full seven-barrel batch at the soon-to-open downtown brewery incubator, owner Joe Potter’s signature multigrain porter.

– Iron Goat has started expanding production at its larger new downtown location, ordering two more 30- barrel fermenters and a brite tank of the same size. That will boost the brewery’s capacity by 40 percent, to about 2,000 barrels per year.

– Finally, you may have noticed folks snickering over the news that an Australian brewery is making a “whale vomit” beer. Amusement value aside, that’s about as accurate as saying honey is bee vomit (though Bee Puke Porter does have a nice ring to it). It’s much more appetizing when called by its actual name – Ambergris Ale, anyone?