Earth Day Sustainability Fair

On Tuesday April 22^nd from 4-8pm were hosting our 6^th annual Earth Day Sustainability Fair in the Beer Garden! This fun, informative community affair aims to raise awareness about the numerous resources available to us locally in Bellingham. Several Whatcom businesses will have booths staged in the Beer Garden with representatives on hand to answer questions and showcase samples of their products and services. From CSA’s, and human powered machines, to recycled art — this year, this year we’ve  assembled an eclectic assortment of ‘green’ innovativeness from the community. 17 local organizations have been confirmed so far and include:

Plantas Nativa
Sustainable Connections
Cloud Mt. Farms
Common Threads Farm
Whatcom Farm to School
Ralf’s Pretzels
Smart Trips
Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association
Lia’s Vertical Garden Tower
Whatcom Museum
Northwest Rain Solutions
Community Food CoOp
Whatcom Farm to School 
Transition Whatcom
Standup Whatcom 
American Rivers 
WWU Students for Renewable Energy

 “We want to make this an afternoon of raising awareness of what great local options we have for making sustainable choices”, states Janet Lightner General Manager of Boundary Bay. This year, Boundary Bay is especially encouraging families with children to attend this free, educational and informative event. Outdoor BBQ and Bar Service will be available starting at 4PM. There will be live music by Hot Cotton, face painters from Chelle Beautiful for the kiddos and demonstrations by The Real Food Show! We even heard a baby lamb was stopping by for a visit — how can you resist that!?

We are lucky to live in a community that places importance on recycling, alternative energy and sustainable life choices…discover the different ways you can get involved too!

Sponsored by:

EAT LOCAL MONTH

Bellingham retailers are joining together in support of Sustainable Connection’s Eat Local First program, with a month long, flavorful and festive celebration of local food and farms. 17 Farm-To-Table restaurants are included in Eat Local Month, along with 20+ edible events — including the Whatcom Harvest Dinner.  Boundary Bay Brewing Co. is one of many Bellingham restaurants, that has made a pledge to provide fresh, natural and local food products to its customers.

Locally owned, family friendly and community driven, we work with over 25 local farmers and suppliers to bring fresh NW pub food to our menu. We adopted the farm to fork slogan and exemplify it’s notion with menu items like the Full Circle Burger: a motto coined from our partnership with local beef supplier, Squaw Creek Cattle Co. in Everson, WA. The cattle at Squaw Creek are grass fed and supplemented with spent grain from the brewery. It’s a simple idea really, it all goes fill circle at Boundary Bay, local business supporting local businesses. In the past year, we’ve made even more changes to our menu, forming  contracts with Anderson Family Ranch, Carlton Farms and Draper Valley Farms; all of whom raise free-range, non-additive, fresh and natural, organic meat products. (click to learn about these menu changes and products).

EAT LOCAL MONTH illustrates how local businesses are working to bring the Bellingham community fresher, healthier food products. In the month of September, Boundary Bay and 16 additional local restaurants have pledged to offer distinctive EAT LOCAL FIRST dishes, made of 50% of more farm-sourced ingredients.

Patrons can win prizes just by eating local food and filling out their EAT LOCAL PASSPORTS. Don’t have one? Just ask your server!  Items on our menu that qualify you for a passport stamp include our Pan Fried Oysters, Full Circle Beef Burger, Harvest Salad, Steamers, Salmon entree and our special of the month; Sabih Sandwich (A classic Mediterranean sandwich with roasted eggplant, Tahiti sauce, hard boiled egg and pickled mango, piled on a cucumber, tomato and onion chopped salad and served on flatbread. (ingredients from Cloud Mt. Farm and Bellingham Flatbread & Bakery).

Sustainable Connections and the participating retailers invite you to eat at their tables, get your eat local month passport stamped, and proudly display your “I ate local today” stickers. To find out more about Eat Local Month, check out the Sustainable Connections webpage.

 

New Coffee, New Beer, Same Old Local Love!

We’re switching things up here at Boundary Bay Brewery!  For years now we’ve been serving Tony’s Coffee and we decided that we’d rather work with a local coffee roaster since our community and local economy are so important to us.  We are very pleased to announce that we are now serving delicious coffee locally roasted by Bellingham Bay Coffee Roasters.  Especially because, just like us, they’re family owned and operated!  They’ve even created a special blend just for us – the Boundary Bay blend.

The blend they created for us here at Boundary is comprised of coffees coming from South and Central America, as well as Africa. It’s a medium-dark roast and it is hand roasted by Fernando & Emma Torres (who run Bellingham Bay Coffee Roasters) using a drum-roaster with no computers, or profiling equipment. The entire roasting process is checked using their senses (smell, touch, and visual characteristics of the bean), along with years of experience roasting coffee.  The blend itself offers a nice, dense body, with pleasant, well-balanced acidity, and slight blueberry notes on the finish.

Now, we’re even using their coffee in a new beer of ours: Nitro Header Stout.  This stout is a lighter, dry style blended with their Morning Header Blend and served from a Nitro tap. Their Morning Header is a Dark Roast blend of coffees from South And Central America and is 100% certified Organic.  It has a nice, heavy body with smoky tones and very light acidity.  We’ll have this new beer of ours on tap here at the brewery as of Monday, April 23rd.  You can also find it on tap at the Copper Hog (eventually) and on tap at Civic Field during the Bellingham United soccer team home games.

Appliance Art?

At the end of this month, you’re gonna see some unexpected art gracing the walls of our Bistro here at Boundary Bay Brewery!

On April 29th, the Appliance Depot will be hanging up Appliance Art from local artists which will be on display through May.  All art included in the show must be made from at least 75% appliance parts (any appliances used in kitchen and/or laundry room are accepted) and the artists are encouraged to use as much recycled materials for the non-appliance portion of their pieces as well.

If you see a piece of art you love, you can buy it right off the wall or take your chances and wait for the silent auction at the end of the show!  For all art pieces sold, the artist gets 75% of the final sale price and the remaining 25% goes to Appliance Depot to help fund a nonprofit job training program that salvages, reparis and sells used appliances.  Any art pieces that haven’t been sold beforehand will go into a silent auction at the Appliance Art Revival which takes place in our Beer Garden on June 2nd!

Appliance Depot is a community owned nonprofit training business that salvages and sells re-conditioned appliances. Your support helps protect the environment, supports local jobs, and promotes a sustainable local economy.  This is one of Bellingham’s more unique events and is a celebration of creative reuse for appliances and parts. This year marks the fourth revival and it’s taking place right here at Boundary Bay Brewery.  Join the fun!

On April 29th, after the artists hang their work, the public is invited to an informal art reception party.  Come down, be the first check out the art and chat with the artists and organizers. There will be some light brunch snacks on hand and, of course, 11am is a great time to start a pint o’ beer.  This is also your chance to snap up any art pieces you love!

Let There Be (New) Light!

We’re all very excited here at Boundary Bay Brewery because we’re finally changing over all of our lights our Tap Room to energy efficient LED lighting!  Our Bistro lights were already LED spots, but we hadn’t found dimmable alternatives for our Tap Room that we were happy with.  Until now!

We are actively participating in Bellingham’s Community Energy Challenge and this is just one step in our journey to continue becoming as sustainable as possible.  We’ve been working with Martin Selch – the Commercial Conservations Specialist – and all the great folks at Sustainable Connections.

The Community Energy Challenge (a program of two local non-profit organizations: Sustainable Connections and the Opportunity Council) is working with more than 110 small businesses and has performed assessments at over 650 homes around Whatcom County to cut energy costs while reducing pollution.  The program is paid by grants through the government and utility providers, so they aren’t trying to sell any specific product or equipment.

The CEC helps local homes and businesses save energy and money with personalized recommendations, connections to vetted local contractors, financial incentives, exclusive low-interest financing and quality assurance.  The lighting replacement here at our brewery was thanks to a new addition to the CEC’s business program that provides free efficient lighting to qualifying businesses.

Best of all, these new LED lamps that we’re installing last over 10 years, are dimmable and use 80% less energy than the ones that were replaced!  So, next time you’re in our Tap Room, look up and check out our brand new Endura bulbs by Phillips.

Christmas Tree RENTAL?

The Adopt A Stream Foundation (AASF) is having a Christmas Tree Rental and Holiday Extravaganza this Saturday Dec. 17, 10am to 3pm at the Northwest Stream Center (600 128th St SE. Everett, WA ).

200 live trees will be available to rent for $25 to $35 and you have your choice of  3’ to 4’ high Sitka Spruce, Western Red Cedar, and Douglas fir.  Any trees returned in good shape will be planted in 2012 by the AASF “Stream Team” of staff and volunteers!  The trees will be relocated next to local streams to provide shade that keeps water cool for our salmon runs – a great way to enjoy the holidays and to bring in the new year!!

In addition to the Christmas tree rentals there will be art and gifts for sale. Adopt-A-Stream Foundation members receive a 10% discount off all items.  Boundary  Bay Brewery‘s own Graphic Designer, Tammy Findlay, will have 4 or 5 pieces of new artwork featured during the Holiday Extravaganza art show!  30% of the proceeds of her art sales will go to the NW Stream Center. Here’s a sneak peek of her work!

     

Local Connections – K & M Red River Farm

We had the pleasure of spending one of Fall’s last beautiful, sunny days out at K & M Red River Farm with Mike who gave us a farm tour, talked with us about sustainability and told us how he and Boundary Bay Brewery became connected.

K & M Red River Farm was one of our first local suppliers and we’ve been getting our salad greens from him for many years now. His small farm in the Lummi Flats is organic, uses no fertilizer at all and is farmed by just Mike and his single assistant.

Check out our newest Local Connections video to find out more about the products we get from this great local farm:

Local Connections: Cloud Mountain Farm

Nestled at the foot of Sumas Mountain in the far Northwest corner of Washington State, Cloud Mountain Farm is situated on 20 acres of orchards, vineyards, nursery fields, greenhouses and trial gardens.  They propagate and grow fruit trees, nut trees, berry plants and ornamental plants.  You’ll also find they sell a large variety of dwarf conifers and Japanese maples, hard-to-find orchard and garden supplies, quality tools, and garden books.

They’ve been growing apples commercially since their beginnings in 1978. They supply a number of restaurants in town and we are lucky enough to be one of them!  The menu here at Boundary Bay Brewery regularly features produce grown locally for us at Cloud Mountain Farm and we even serve up their hot apple cider on chilly Winter days.

Education has always been hugely important to the staff at Cloud Mountain Farm.  They have extensive trial gardens to test out crop development and which varieties work best in our climate.  For consumers, their goal is to make sure that when your leave their nursery, you have the right plants, tools and information to be successful in all your gardening endeavors. Their focus on education will certainly grow now that they’ve become a non-profit!  The farm will become an educational/training center for market farmers and consumers.  They will continue to grow and sell to the public through the farm stand, the Bellingham Farmers Market, local restaurants and CSA shares.  But now they will also expand their educational opportunities to include training programs for people wanting to learn the business of farming for market and providing consumer education for food production and ornamental gardening.

We were lucky enough to get to tour Cloud Mountain Farm in September and meet the incredible staff who run the farm.  We spent a lovely morning wandering through the fields with Cheryl, learning about farming for food and snacking on delicious tomatoes, grapes and apples.  Check out this video to find out more about Cloud Mountain Farm, the people behind it and their incredible produce that we use in our menu here at the brewery.

 

Local Connections: Gothberg Farms

Gothberg Farms is situated on 40 acres of flat, fertile, farmland in Bow, WA.  They use only a small portion for the goats and dairy, with the remainder leased out to “the real farmer next door”.  Rhonda got her first goats in April of 2002, a mother and doe kid pair.  This was supposed to just be the family milk, but it was infectious.  The following September, she added two more bred does … and as of February 2009, there were 22 bred does awaiting milk production for Spring.

The scenery surrounding the land is fabulous.  They look directly at Mt. Baker and Chuckanut Mountain and can see the San Juan Islands. On clear days the Olympic Mountains and the Canadian  Coastal range may also be seen.  In fact, the cheese room windows were intentionally placed so the ladies could see Mt. Baker while they work.  They say the sunrises and sunsets are really nice there and that they even have “resident” hawks, blue heron, and seasonal eagles, swans, geese, and ducks.

All of Gothberg Farm’s cheese is totally handcrafted. All moulds are filled by hand, turned by hand, and salted by hand. All wrapping and packaging is by hand, some with hand lettering on the labels. Yes, this is labor intensive but affords quality checks at every turn. The low-tech approach is always favored whenever possible.  Rhonda believes that to make a great product, it has to be done right from beginning to end.

Which is why the feeding program for the goats at Gothberg Farms has been very well thought out.  There is a high emphasis on prevention and health.  Rhonda feeds her goats a recipe which is custom mixed by Conway Feed, the local feed mill.  They are also given alfalfa hay from Eastern Washington as well as grass hay from Skagit Valley and they have full pasture access 24/7/365.

Hear more from Rhonda about her farm and the cheeses she produces for us here at Boundary Bay Brewery and for her local community. Be sure to check out this interactive map too that shows you where YOU can get Gothberg Farms (other than here at our brewery!).

 

 

 

Connecting Customers and Local Food

This September is Eat Local Month for Whatcom County.  To celebrate,  we using the month to cast the spotlight on a few of the local farmers we source their menu ingredients from.

Earlier this year, we began posting video blogs about our Local Connections.  The videos were each short interviews with local restaurants, delis and stores that serve Boundary Bay beer on tap or in bottles.  In each interview, we asked business owners to share why it was important to them to do business locally.

This month, we’re expanding their Local Connections videos to showcase where they get their chevre, apples, potatoes and greens.  We’ll film the video blogs out at the farms and give you a chance to meet the farmers face to face.  We think the videos will play an important role in connecting consumers and local food producers.

Boundary Bay Brewery works with many local suppliers and we it a priority to source at least 25% of their food budget from local producers.  We’ve even clearly marked dishes on our menu that are made with local ingredients  to help inform customers who think it’s important to support local agriculture too.

During September, we’ll be filming interviews with K & M Red River Farm, Cloud Mountain Farm and Gothberg Farms and will post the videos here on our blog and on our Facebook page. Don’t forget to also take advantage of all the Eat Local events happening throughout the month!

Eat Local Month is a project of Sustainable Connection’s Food and Farming Program and includes farm tours, edible events and special locally-sourced menu items featured at various restaurants throughout the month including at Boundary Bay Brewery from September 25 – October 1^st.  All week we’ll be serving up a special all local menu (alongside our usual eats!).  Here’s what we’ve got in store

Salmon Salad Sandwich

Samish Bay Coho salmon from Barleans mixed with capers, lemon juice, onion and mayonnaise topped with cucumbers from Cloud Mountain Farms and alfalfa sprouts from Happy Valley Sprouts and served on toasted ciabatta from Avenue Bread. $10

Spinach Salad

Fresh Alkmene apples from Cloud Mountain Farms on spinach from Red River Farms, with Gothberg Farms chevre cheese, hazelnuts from Holmquist Orchards with a honey-white balsamic-champagne reduction. $10

Caprese Salad

Heirloom tomatoes and basil from Cloud Mountain Farms and goat cheese from Gothberg Farm, drizzled with olive oil and served with Breadfarm‘s Bow Hill baguette.$9