The Best of 2010

It’s hard to believe, but another year is already drawing to a close and it’s got us in a reflective mood over here at Boundary Bay Brewery.  So, today…we’re looking back!

Cheers to our 15th Anniversary!

2010 marked our 15th anniversary and we had a fantastic party here at the brewery to celebrate!  We ranked as the largest selling brewpub in the nation for the third year running and were voted the Best Brewpub in Washington by the readers of Northwest Brewing News – also for the third year in a row.  The Northwest Brewing News Readers choice awards also named Boundary Bay Brewery for Best Scotch Ale and Best IPA…which makes our IPA the winner for the last five years consecutively!

In 2010, we brewed our first Tripel, made an anniversary ale called “15” and created a special brew to help celebrate the 30th anniversary of Village Books…and all were met with rave reviews! We got a new Mash Tun and installed our very first beer engine which now lets us provide our thirsty customers with not one but TWO cask ales every day.  We brought home medals from the North American Beer Awards, the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup:  Silvers for our Dunkles Bock (WBC) and our Porter (NABA) and Bronzes for our Cabin Fever (WBC), Imperial IPA (WBC) and Imperial Oatmeal Stout (GABF).

our logo come to life in St. Paddy's Parade!

We had the pleasure of helping over 100 local nonprofits and in bringing the community together for Bellingham’s first annual St. Patrick’s Day parade (thanks to Janet, our General Manager!).  We had a Locks of Love donation party with free haircuts in our beer garden and brought together lots of local and sustainable businesses for our very first Earth Day Sustainability Fair.  We surpassed 10,000 fans on Facebook, held our first (possibly THE first ever?) Virtual Brewers Night and took back the tap as the House IPA at Beveridge Place Pub!

And, besides all that, we’ve kept on keeping on…brewing and bottling all our usuals that you’ve come to know and love, serving up fresh and local Northwest food, hosting events here at the brewery throughout the year and doing our best to help keep Bellingham a strong, local, sustainable community.  It’s been a whirlwind and we’ve had a fabulous time!  We just want to say thank you to all of our incredible fans who are such an important part of what we do.  We could never be a success without the love and support we receive from our community.  So, cheers everyone…and thank you!

 

 

Brewing a Belgian Beer at Boundary Bay

On January 23rd, The Washington Beer Commission is putting together the first-ever Belgianfest 2010!

Here at Boundary Bay Brewery, we’ve brewed up a Tripel to submit and we’re really looking forward to this beer festival.  Not only will the Belgiumfest highlight the skill and creativity of many Washington breweries, but it will celebrate the Belgian approach to brewing, which seems to be a whole lot like our own!  Belgians don’t limit themselves on their ingredients or brewing techniques and are not always compelled to “brew-to-style.”  Basically, if they like it, they brew it! And we can really appreciate that attitude!

There are many styles of Belgian beers (over 500 varieties!) and many that are practically impossible to categorize by style. However, there are some well accepted style definitions and, interestingly, our beer falls into one of those categories.  We’ve hand crafted a Tripel for this competition…historically a brown ale, but many (like ours) are now a golden blond and sweeter than a dubbel.  Both Dubbel and Tripel are Flemish Dutch words meaning double and tripel (respectively) that historically refer to a rough measure of the alcohol level in the beer styles.  Traditionally, monks would brew a beer around 3% or less for their consumption, then a dubbel at about 6% and then a tripel at about 9%.

Our Tripel was made with Pilsner, Vienna, Special B and Belgian aromatic malts.  Then, we rounded it out with Tettnang and Saaz hops, Belgian Candi sugar and Abbey Ale yeast, which is a Belgian Ale yeast with a very high alcohol tolerance traditionally used to make trappist style beers.  I do believe we’ll have some kegs to try here in the brewery, but the brewers are keeping things top-secret right now and keeping their lips sealed as to a release date here at Boundary Bay.  Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for our real-time updates and we’ll be sure to spread the word when our Tripel’s coming up on tap!

And, if sampling a bunch of really creative, interesting Belgian beers from Washington breweries somehow isn’t enough to get you to the Belgianfest, the Washington Beer Commission has a few more tricks up their sleeve.  In addition to the two sessions of beer tastings on January 23rd, there will be a Belgian Beer Dinner at the Corson Building. Dinner details are still being finalized but check the Belgianfest website for more info as they post it.  Plus, there is going to be a special beer brewed exclusively for members of the Washington Association of Beer Lovers (WABL).  Word on the street is that it’s going to be a blended beer made with different Belgianfest beers from several participating breweries and that the group will collectively decide what the blend should be. The actual blending will happen just before the event, when most beers are ready, so no one knows what the beer is going to be like until the event.

Check out this partial list of beers you’ll get to try at the Belgianfest!  See you there…

THE DETAILS:

Saturday, January 23, 201

Session 1: 12-4pm
Session 2: 6-10pm

The Engine Room @ Georgetown Studios
5890 Airport Way S.
Seattle, WA 98108
Map

Admission:
$30 advance tickets
$35 at the door
Separate tickets required for each session
Admission includes a tasting glass and ten 4oz tastes
Designated driver admission is $5 and available at the door only
cash and check only at the door
21+ only

Space is limited- Order your tickets early!
Tickets are available online and at ticket outlets.

Boundary Bay Brewery’s Social Media

Last October we here at Boundary Bay Brewery found our way to social media.  At the time, we weren’t entirely sure what it all meant or what we were supposed to do with it, but join we did.  In the (almost a) year since, we’ve continued to gain fans and get notice from the food industry, the craft beer industry and social media mavens.  In the most recent issue (August 2009) of Front Burner, the official publication for the Washington Restaurant Association, Heather Donahoe wrote an article about social media titled “Dive Into the Conversation: Come Up With Bigger Profits.” Here are some excerpts from the article about our social media here at Boundary Bay Brewery:

Boundary Bay Brewery & Bistro in Bellingham understands the benefits of social media better than perhaps any other restaurant in Washington. The popular eatery got serious about its social media efforts late last year and now has nearly 5,000 Facebook fans and almost 1,000 Twitter followers. Before jumping headlong into social media, Boundary Bay had a well organized blog that had drawn a fair amount of interest. Joining networking sites was the next natural step.

When the restaurant’s general manager Janet Lightner learned about Twitter last October, she was intrigued enough to ask her public relations specialist, Amy Jones, to set up an account. The response was overwhelming.

Amy Jones, Public Relations for Boundary Bay Brewery

“It absolutely exploded,” Jones said.  “We’ve gotten to where when we put our info on one site, we already have so many people excited about what we’re doing that it has spread to Twitter before we can even Tweet it ourselves.”

Boundary Bay Brewery uses Twitter and Facebook to share their menu specials, announce the release of seasonal brews and put out the invitation for special events.  Social media friends and fans of the restaurant respond by passing along the information and continuing the conversation.

“Customers love feeling like they have a personal connection to us, and this has been such a simple way to provide that,” Jones said.  “Answering people’s questions and becoming a personality instead of just an information source is what it’s all about.  It’s become a self-sustaining thing.”

Boundary Bay is in the advantageous position of being a craft beer brewer.  This niche makes their business of special interest to an already enthusiastic demographic. Building on that unique position, Boundary Bay has gained its devoted social media following.

“I’ve actually heard customers in the restaurant say things like ‘Oh, I’m one of your Twitter followers, and I’m here because I found out your Imperial IPA is on tap,'” Jones said.  “It’s exciting to see that connection.”

Jones offers a bit of advice for newbies to the social media game: “It’s really important right from the beginning to create a personality that allows you to interact with your fans in a way that feels real and personal,” she said.  “If you’re able to make that happen in the beginning, you’ll see sustained success in the long run.”

Sweet Tweetin’ at Boundary Bay Brewery

Last night we had our very first Sweet Tweet at Boundary Bay Brewery!  This year, we’ve gotten into social media pretty deeply and one of our favorite sites is Twitter.  We decided to invite some of our Twitter fans to our beer garden for a tasting menu of our new summer desserts.  We asked them to help us pair each dessert with a beer and to post tweets about it while attending the event.  The tweeters were served the Larabee Cake (a chocolate mouse, meringue and blueberry confection), a Strawberry Shortcake in a honey-champagne glaze and a Cherry Porter Ice Cream cake.  They were each poured tasters of a selection of our beers and asked to taste and tweet and tell us what they liked best.  They even got to try a chocolate wort reduction sauce drizzled over figs as the grand finale!

Larabee Cake

After tallying the votes, here’s the Sweet Tweet results: the crew chose Dunkles Bock as the clear winner to accompany the Strawberry Shortcake (thought the Stout got a few votes too – especially when tasted with the shortcake biscuit!).  “Dunkles Bock brings out some nice complexity and cuts the sweetness.”  When it came to pairing beer with the Cherry Porter ice cream cake, the opinions were much more divided.  As one of our voters stated quite clearly: “With Dunkles = yum.  With Stout = yummier!”  One of our tasters thought the Stout was the undeniable obviously right  choice, while another observed that the “Dunkles Bock makes the cherries pop…”  And last, but not least, the Larabee cake was paired with everything from the lightest (our Lightner Ale) to the Oatmeal Stout.  “Stout works with the chocolate perfectly and cleanses the sweetness.” vs. “Ale works surprisingly well…Ale works best with the more strongly flavored desserts, contrary to my expectations.”

Overall, the Sweet Tweet was a great success!  We were blessed with a group of Twitter techies who were well versed in beer and food as well.  They served as an incredible think-tank and we are so thankful to all of them for being part of this event with us.  If you’d like to read more of the comments posted during the Sweet Tweet, go to search.twitter.com and type #bbst (boundary bay sweet tweet) in the search field to see all the results.  And, if you’re still longing for more Sweet Tweet action, you can check out all the photos from the event on our Facebook Photos Page.

our sweet tweeters

Boundary Bay Brewery Chooses Father’s Day Winner

We chose the winners today for the Boundary Bay Brewery’s Father’s Day Contest! Our fans were given the task of telling us which Boundary Bay beer their dad was the most like.  Our congratulations go to Lori York who won first place in our contest.  She said her dad is “…just like the Boundary Bay IPA, the best that ever was! Everything else is just a Pale imitation! My dad is the real deal.” And Ryan Cassady placed second when he said “My dad is like Boundary Bay’s rotating cask ale because he’s smooth, has a big mouth(feel) and is firkin awesome.” Thanks to all who participated in our contest and stay tuned to our Facebook and Twitter pages for more contests in the future.  Cheers!

Boundary Bay Brewery Father’s Day Contest!

Boundary Bay Brewery wants you to take your Dad to the Mother of All Father’s Day Festivals, so we want to give you a chance to win a ticket to the festival AND a WABL membership for your Dad.

If you live in the Seattle area and if you are a beer enthusiast, you’ve probably heard of The Mother of All Father’s Day Festivals put on by the Washington Beer Commission. The festival is held during the Fathers Day Weekend- June 19th – 21st, 2009.  The festival which takes place at Saint Edward State Park in Kenmore, WA is family friendly (on Sat. + Sun.) and there will be plenty to keep the whole family entertained…from live music, craft booths, kid crafts, and lots and lots of beer.  In addition to the great selection of beer there will be a small Wine and Cider Tasting area featuring Washington wines and ciders. For those who are not old enough to drink and designated drivers the Rootbeer Garden will be serving premium craft rootbeer and other soda drinks by Washington breweries. WABL is the WAshington Beer Lovers Club and the members will receive many exclusive offers throughout the year, including an extra taste and special WABL tasting glass (GLASS, not plastic cup!) at the Washington Brewers Festival, plus the privilege to try a WABL Beer, a special beer brewed by Washington brewers for each Washington Beer Commission festival that is available EXCLUSIVELY to the WABL members.

So, here’s what you have to do:  head to our Facebook Fan Page and post your response to the question below on our discussion board.  Then, we’ll choose our favorite response by June 12th and notify the winner.

CONTEST QUESTION:  “My Dad is most like [insert Boundary Bay beer here] because he’s….”

Example:  My Dad is most like a Boundary Bay Brewery Scotch Ale because he puts great importance on tradition, but still values his individuality.  And, like the Scotch Ale, he is very strong yet somehow still sweet and gentle.

And if you need inspiration check out our beer page on the official Boundary Bay Brewery website!