Seattle brewery recs?

Beer Travel
1

I’m heading to Seattle with my family, and am hoping to hit a few breweries during our week in town. We’re mainly using public transit, and are staying in the Fremont area for a few nights, and the East Queen Anne area for a few nights. Fremont Brewing is on my list…any other recs? I like the “old school” styles of beer, not a huge fan of endless hazies, I enjoy a good West Coast IPA (esp. the old style ones that aren’t afraid of caramel malt), etc. But mostly, I want to see the best of the Seattle brew scene. I have fond memories of the old Pike Brewing outpost at Pike Place Market, but know that is past now…

Any recs for the top 3 or 4 breweries to hit?

2

My wife and I visited a restaurant & brewery next to Pike Place Market a few years back. I think the name is Old Stove Brewing, but not certain, but the food was very good as well as the beer.

1 Like
3

You have to go Machine House if you enjoy cask ale. Best cask beer I have had stateside and rivals a hell of a lot of Brit cask beers.

It’s midway between SEATAC and downtown

take an uber take a bus hitchhike whatever just go there you will not be disappointed

1 Like
4

Reubens Brews is in Ballard, not too far from Fremont. They have a lot of interesting beers using rye. The porter is especially good.

1 Like
5

Thank you, everyone, for the recommendations! Because we were traveling with two kids (and have limited liver capacity, in addition to wanting to do a ton of other things), we couldn’t do every brewery I wanted, but still managed to get a good cross-section across our week in town. (my family is awesome!)
We had lunch at Old Stove Brewing, as recommended–pretty good beers! I was able to get some canned Reubens Brews IPA, but didn’t make it to the taproom. The Fremont Brewing Urban Beer Garden was a fun experience, and we enjoyed sampling their broad selection of beers. Figurehead had a really nice ESB. Urban Family was another quick spot (and just happened to be close to a used bookstore).
I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to Machine House this trip - it was just too far from our base of operations, and we had a ton of other family activities planned! It definitely is on my list.
Probably our favorite place we visited was the joint Bale Breaker / Yonder Cider taproom. Although Bale Breaker leans towards IPAs, all were really nicely done, and there was also a stout I quite enjoyed. They had a superb non-alcoholic ginger ale, which was just the right level of spice. And the ciders were fantastic - my wife enjoys both beer and cider, so we split our flights to maximize our variety. We got takeout from an empanada place down the block, which was also fantastic. The space is just set up really nicely overall, and the whole family had an enjoyable visit. (I’m lucky to have a spouse who enjoys visiting breweries also, and kids who are well behaved and happy to hang out with books and games, while enjoying food and craft sodas).
We did 100% public transportation for this trip, and the $6/day pass worked great to hit a whole ton of attractions (including breweries)…10/10, would visit Seattle breweries again.

1 Like