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

A fuller Filling Station

Rick Bonino

The Filling Station on 5th is pumping itself up.

The Coeur d’Alene gastropub and growler fill operation is doubling its number of beer and cider taps from 25 to 50. The new handles debut Thursday night for a ‘70s-themed Fill the Funk party featuring special sours from Firestone Walker and Grand Teton.

Those additional taps are up front in the restaurant portion of the building at 5th and Sherman that the Filling Station shares with Collective Kitchen.  All the beers and the full food menu are served both there and in the smaller bar in the back, with the beers also available at the Studio 107 wine bar and art gallery next door.

The extra handles will allow for a wider variety of beers in the lineup, says Filling Station owner Keith Carpenter. (There also are four more taps for kombucha and one for root beer.)

“It will help us have more ambers and browns,” Carpenter says. ”You know me, I’m all about the big beers. Now we’ll have more lower-alcohol options.”

Six taps up front will pour a rotating selection of local beers, with Twelve String and Laughing Dog always available. There will be three cider taps and three or four lines specifically for sours.

Ten sours will pour for Thursday’s party from 8 to 11 p.m. Those include Firestone Walker’s 2016 and 2017 Bretta Weisse and 2016 Krieky Bones cherry-infused Flanders red, Agrestic wild red and Lil Opal saison; and Grand Teton’s barrel-aged Snarling Badger imperial Berliner Weisse and 2015 American Sour – regular, Amarillo dry-hopped and Chardonnay-barreled – and cherry Mahogany Kriek.

“These aren’t kettle sours, these are true (barrel-aged) American sours,” Carpenter says. “We plan to blow every keg that night.”

For $20, you get a souvenir tasting glass and five drink tickets good for four-ounce pours of the sours.

Non-sour offerings will include Firestone’s Pivo Pilsner, Easy Jack session IPA and Fortem unfiltered imperial IPA, and Grand Teton’s sessionable Ale 208, Teton Range IPA and Lost Continent imperial IPA.

A ‘70s costume contest (Carpenter has been working on his) will offer prizes of a Firestone Walker/Grand Teton sours six-pack plus gift baskets from each brewery.

It’s the latest in a series of special events that help keep the Filling Station hopping. Carpenter says he doubled last March’s sales total in the first half of this month.

“We have a really good following,” he says. “What’s really been driving business is the food and the beer together.”

When things slow down over the winter, only half of the beer and cider taps will pour at a time, he adds.

“I won’t keep a keg on more than a month,” Carpenter says. “We don’t want to pour bad beer.”