Hoptoberfest Hopes

Every year, the Beveridge Place Pub down in Seattle turns October into Hoptoberfest.  They feature around 12 Washington State IPAs that rotate through their taps and customers get a chance to vote on which IPA they want on tap EVERY SINGLE DAY at Beveridge Place Pub in 2012.

At the beginning of the month, you can nominate any Washington-brewed IPA, but by mid-October the voting gets whittled down to the top eight nominees.  To vote, you must head to the Beveridge Place Pub and order a pint of IPA.  You then get a ballot and can vote once a day…repeating throughout month as often as possible!  From October 15th – 24th, customers vote for which three, among the top eight, will advance to the final round.  After that, a general election ballot with the top three will be provided for voters until November 1st.

We’ve won the most customer votes four out of the five years that we’ve been a part of Hoptoberfest and have loved being the house IPA at Beveridge Place Pub!  We’re hoping to retain our title as reigning champ and bring lots of BBAY IPA love to Seattlites through 2012 too.  And we need your help!  If you’re already in the Seattle area, go to the Beveridge Place Pub as often as your spouse or wallet allows (which is no hardship, we’re sure!) and vote for Boundary Bay Brewery when you get your ballot.  However, if you’re not in the neighborhood, why not plan a road tripping to Seattle when we do!?!  We’re planning a Brewers Night at the Beveridge Place Pub on Monday, October 24th…and we’re hoping to have a whole crowd of BBAY fans show up too.

The festivities will start, officially, around 5pm.  But we’ll probably show up a little early to rub elbows with the regulars, so swing by if you manage to wriggle out of work a little early.  There’ll be special treats (like our beloved Mac N Cheese and locally made pretzels from Ralf’s Bavarian Pretzels), raffle prizes and $3 pints during the brewers night, so come join the fun!  If you know anything about last year’s Boundary Bay Brewers Night, you KNOW this is an evening not to be missed.  Cheers!

How Does our IPA Stack Up?

The National IPA Championship (NIPAC) starts this weekend!  Not sure what the NIPAC is?  Here’s how Northwest Brewing News (who hosts the competition) explains it:

Participating IPAs from across the nation will be randomly chosen for a 1:1 single elimination bracket tournament. Winners of the first round will advance to the next. The complete IPA tournament bracket will be published in the February/March issue of Great Lakes Brewing News and posted on-line. The events will be held in several locations, beginning February 13, 2011. The judges will all be brewers.

As with last year, IPA lovers will be able to choose their winners for each round on-line. They will log onto the web and read a brief description of your beer as well as view an image (be sure to fill out the description on the entry form, as well as send an image or logo via email). Prizes will be awarded for readers with correct NIPAC brackets. The top prize will be a free case of the 2011 NIPAC championship IPA.

The Judging Process: All judges will be brewers. They will be organized into panels of 3, and given the task of choosing the best IPA between two beers. The judges will not know what beers they are being served. The majority rules on the voting.

BBAY Cascadian Dark

You still have time to make your predictions, but you’d better hurry because the deadline is tomorrow – February 13th! Visit the on-line Locker Room for full descriptions of each of the IPA competitors: After confirming your age, you will then be able to review the beers and go to our on-line contest . NIPAC winners will be determined by the total points earned from each round…and let us reiterate, you could win a CASE of the CHAMPIONSHIP IPA!  What’s not to love about that?!?

In the first round our Cascadian Dark (black in color, this aggressively hopped ale is smooth with a clean, dry finish. ABV: 7.5%  Hops: Columbus, Simcoe & Tradition) is paired up against Flashpoint IPA from Pumphouse Brewery (an American-style IPA made with Simco, Chinook, Amarillo, Cascade and Centennial hops.  ABV: 6.7%).

And our Boundary Bay IPA (a honey-colored India Pale Ale with good body, fairly strong alcohol content and an aggressive “fresh hop” quality.  ABV: 7.4%  Hops: Centennial, Simcoe, Amarillo, Cascade and Crystal) is going head to head with Dale’s Pale Ale by Oskar Blues Brewery (America’s first hand-canned craft beer is a voluminously hopped mutha that delivers a hoppy nose, assertive-but-balanced flavors of pale malts and hops from start to finish. First canned in 2002, Dale’s Pale Ale is a hearty (6.5% and 65 IBUs), critically acclaimed trailblazer that has changed the way craft beer fiends perceive canned beer.  Hops: Nugget, Cascade, Columbus, Centennial Hops).

Both should be interesting match ups…we’re excited to see how they turn out! Cheers.

Round 1- February 13th @ Buffalo, NY

Round 2 – February 19th @ Syracuse, NY

Round 3 – February 26th @ Grand Rapids, MI

Round 4 – March 2nd @ Cleveland, OH

Final Round – March 5th @ Philadelphia, PA

Boundary Beer at the Maple Leaf

Boundary Bay Brewery is locally owned and run.  We do all our own brewing, bottling and distribution.  We love keeping business local for lots of reasons, but one of the things we love the most is getting to know the cool businesses in our region that choose to have Boundary Bay beer on tap.  Especially the little ones that not everyone knows about!  Michael Nichols, our Seattle area sales and delivery guy, wrote this quick little piece about The Maple Leaf Grill…

Maple Leaf Grill

The Maple Leaf Grill, at 8929 Roosevelt Wy NE in Seattle, is an excellent restaurant with a very cool half-oval bar.

The ML Grill is located in an old 1920’s house on the corner of Roosevelt and 90th – its unique and homey character is further enhanced by the friendly and personable demeanor of its owner and chef, Patrick Paull, and longtime bartender Gwen Tollefson. As of this writing, their beer lineup includes Mac & Jack’s, Hale’s, Bridgeport, Jubelale, and a few others. Their most popular beer, and one handle which is always reliable, is the Boundary Bay IPA. The Maple Leaf Grill also has draft Thomas Kemper Root Beer and all-ages seating outside of the bar area – it is a very appropriate venue for the whole family.

The entire staff is very friendly, and during the late afternoons and early evenings there is a mellow and loyal crowd of regulars. On Wednesdays, the Maple Leaf runs beer specials from 4-close, featuring $2 schooners and $2.50 pints. Tuesday is wine night, with bottle prices ½ off from 4-close. Thursday night well cocktails are just $5, and the ML Grill only serves top shelf liquor. The Maple Grill’s hours are M-F 11:30am-10pm, and Saturdays and Sundays 5-10pm.  And from 3-6pm every weekday, you’ll find Happy Hour with $1 off all draft beer and wine by the glass plus 10 different $5 treats!  Enjoy deep fried ravioli, grilled eggplant, pulled pork sliders, teriyaki steak & rice, spinach salad, yam fries, a quesadilla, pancetta steamed clams, sweet chili-lime prawns or 1/2 BLT and fries for just $5…all perfect with a BBAY IPA.  Cheers!

Great food, served by good people, in a nice place.  Eating (and drinking!) at the Maple Leaf Grill feels like one is part of a special group who has discovered a Seattle secret. Cheers! –Michael Nichols

Oh Yes We Did

Last night, around 9 pm or so, our owner Ed Bennett received a very welcome phone call.  It was from Beveridge Place Pub and they were calling to tell us that the Boundary Bay Brewery IPA has been named the official Winner of Hoptoberfest 2010!  If you haven’t been following along with us as we’ve tweeted, blogged, etc. about this for the last month, here’s a very, very brief overview from last night’s post to the Seattle Beer News blog:

“With people across the country closely watching political results this week,Beveridge Place Pub will be announcing a much more important winner tonight [November 4th] at 8pm. They’ll be announcing which Washington IPA earned the right to become the Beveridge Place Pub house IPA for 2011 by garnering the most customer votes during their month-long Hoptoberfest, which featured IPAs from a slew of Washington breweries. The field was narrowed down to three favorites on October 25: Black Raven Trickster IPA (reigning champion), Boundary Bay IPA (former repeat winner), and Two Beers Evolutionary IPA. Becoming house IPA at Beveridge Place Pub is a serious honor and a lucrative business incentive (BPP goes through a lot of pints of IPA…). Good luck to all 3 breweries this evening.“

We are thrilled to have been named the House IPA for 2011 at Beveridge Place Pub!  We want to thank everyone who came out to vote and to support Washington craft beer!  Thanks for helping us Take Back the Tap!  Cheers to all the amazing Washington breweries who participated in this Hoptoberfest competition and especially to Black Raven and Two Beers Brewing Co. who made it to the final three with us.

 

One Day IPA

Seattle fans of Boundary Bay Brewery can find our beer at a number of  bars, bottle shops and the like in the King and Pierce counties.  Our IPA that you’ve all come to know and love so well is a perennial favorite at many of our accounts.  The Fiddler rotates IPA’s through their selection, and when the Boundary Bay IPA comes up, they sell out a whole keg in one day. Seriously!  So, the people at the Fiddler wanted us to brew them a special IPA that they could call the Boundary Bay Brewery One Day IPA.  And, so of course, we did!

Our One Day IPA is a lighter bodied IPA that has a slightly lower alcohol content and lighter mouth feel.  We brewed it with Columbus, Amarillo and German Tradition hops and rounded it out with 2-Row, Crystal and Vienna malts.  In contrast, our regular IPA uses Centennial, Simcoe, Amarillo, Cascade and Crystal hops with Pale 2-Row, Crystal, Carastan and Vienna malts.

Right now, you can get your hands on this special brew in Seattle at the Hopvine Pub, the Latona Pub and the Fiddler’s Inn.  You can also try it at the Highland Games this weekend at Hovander Park here in Ferndale.  As the summer progresses, we might have the One Day IPA available here at the brewery, at other festivals and/or at more of our accounts.  We’ll definitely keep you posted!  In the meantime, let us know what you think of our One Day IPA when you get a taste…especially a side by side comparison with our regular IPA.  We’d love to hear your feedback.  Cheers!