Beer Week at Boundary

Ready for Beer Week Bellingham? The planning is well underway, and we thought you might like to know what we’ve got lined up here at Bbay:

According to the owner of Chocolate Necessities, Kevin Buck, nothing pairs better with chocolate, than a tasty brew (and yes, this includes wine!) Naturally, we think so too : ) so, we’ve partnered up with Kevin to bring you an educational tasting experience that will surely please your pallets. Chocolate Necessities imports and produces some of the finest chocolates you will ever taste… We use a variety of remarkable ingredients gathered through years of inquiry into specialty sources — Amarena cherries, Agostoni chocolate and real pastry liquors from Italy, Vanuatu chocolate from Belgium, vanilla from Tahiti.

Everything we make is handcrafted to give you the best chocolate experience.  So why not offer a two-fer; the best chocolate AND beer experience in one!? Stop by during any day of Beer Week and sample Chocolate Necessities paired with Boundary Bay Beers. How does our Imperial IPA paired with Chocolate covered Lemon Sticks from France sound? Or maybe an Oatmeal Stout with Vanuatu milk chocolate from Belgian? There’s so much more…

On Monday, September 23^rd at 7:00, we’ll be hosting a delicious 5 course beer dinner led by Chef Matt Hansen and our Head Brewer Aaron Jacob Smith. Tickets are of very limited availability and will go fast. They can be purchased at Boundary Bay for $50 a person.  (21+ Only). Here’s how the menu is shaping up:

Roasted Yellow Pepper & Jerusalem Artichoke Soup, w/ Szechuan Peppercorn ESB
Locally Foraged Mushroom and Goat Cheese Parcel, paired with Harvest Rye Ale
Lamb and Rose Stuffed Quail with Harissa and Apricots, paired with Amber Ale
Choucroute Garnie made with local Carne sausages, infused with Scotch Ale
Oatmeal Stout Donut with Irish Stout Creme Anglaise paired with Irish Stout

Oktoberfest in the Beer Garden at 5pm on Thursday, September 26th!  We know we know, its not technically October yet…but we just can’t wait that long. Get ready to put on your lederhosen and tighten up your dirndl, were going to be dancing, drinkin’ and eating pretzels all night long! Not only are we hosting our annual celebration in the Beer Garden, but the next day on the 27^th, we’re also running an Oktoberfest BREWS Cruise on the Bay with San Juan Cruises.  Two days of Oktoberfestitivies…WE THINK YES!

Don’t forget the Beer and Bike ride set for the 29^th at Noon. The biking parade will start at Boundary, head to Kulshan, to Elizabeth Station, Chuckanut Brewery and finally end at the Copper Hog. Last year’s ride was a blast and we cant wait for you to be apart of it!

For more information about beer week, visit http://www.bellinghambeerweek.com!

Medals at the World Beer Cup

Brewers from six continents earned awards from an elite international panel of judges this week in the 2010 Brewers Association World Beer Cup—the world’s largest-ever commercial beer competition. The eighth bi-annual competition announced awards to brewers from 19 countries ranging from Australia and Italy to Iceland and Japan.  This year, 642 breweries from 44 countries and 47 U.S. states vied for awards with 3,330 beers entered in 90 beer style categories. The entries in each category were eligible for gold, silver and bronze awards. Judges presented a total of 268 awards.  And three of those awards went to Boundary Bay Brewery!

We are happy to announce that our Imperial IPA was awarded a Bronze Medal as was our Cabin Fever.  And our Dunklesbock brought home a silver medal!  We’ve got all three of these medal winners on tap now, so come try a pint or two!  It’s always an honor to compete against the best beers in the world, and to bring home a medal is just icing on the cake.  We think it’s amazing, as a small local brewery way up here in Bellingham, to be getting consistent attention on an international playing field.

We count our biggest successes, though, right here at home.  Boundary Bay Brewery was awarded the 2009 Small Business of the Year by the Whatcom Chamber of Commerce and was voted the Best Brewery in Washington for the last two years by the readers of Northwest Brewing News.  We’ve always placed a great value on having strong connections in our community.  We think it’s important to be a place that feels like home to our customers as well as to our employees.  Maybe that’s because we’re a family owned and operated business.  We’re happy to see locals feel that way too!  Check out what the 2010 Spring Entertainment Guide for the Cascadia Weekly had to say about Boundary Bay Brewery:

“One could easily say you can’t be a proper Bellinghamster without logging the requisite number of hours inside Boundary Bay.  But that’s not the case.  In order to truly be considered one of us, you must know the number of pints of the brewpub’s tasty but deceptively potent award-winning beer you can consume without succumbing to drunken foolery.  You also must know what your favorite menu items are and what nights you like to drop in to hear some of the plentiful live music that takes place there.  And when you realize you now spend your holidays at Boundary (everything from St. Partrick’s Day to New Year’s Eve comes to mind) instead of with your own family, that’s when you’ll know you’re here to stay.”

Whether at home or afar, it’s always nice to know that others like what we’re brewing. We’ve always brewed what we like to drink and it’s important to us to do it our own way.  We might not follow traditional style classifications, but we brew beers that we believe in.  We’re thrilled to add these three new awards to our collections.  Please visit our website to view the complete list of Boundary Bay Brewery’s awards.  Cheers!

Welcome to Denver… (a graphic designer’s perspective on the GABF)

Thanks to the best volunteers ever!

It was a freakishly early flight to Denver. When we arrived it was as if the rules of Seattle and Denver weather had switched. I left 70 degree sunny Washington and arrived at 50 degrees and raining. The forecast called for warming by the weekend and I could put that twinge aside—that I’d just left the end of summer behind. This was to be my first visit to the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) held in Denver, CO and I will tell you now that I’m not a beer expert or even close. I do enjoy beer (duh) and was very excited to see what the festival was like. I really didn’t know what to expect. I’ve been to a handful of beer festivals, but nothing on this scale. With 49,000 attendees and 3,308 beers entered into competition and 457 breweries in the festival hall, this was year’s GABF was bigger than ever.

So what do you do? I guess I should introduce myself. I’m Tammy and I do the graphic design and marketing for Boundary Bay Brewery. We do all of the design for Boundary Bay in-house. All of the beer and event posters, clothing designs, the website, blog, podcast, ads, etc are put together by our team of three downstairs in the bowels of the brewery. People who don’t understand graphic design marvel that we all have enough work and people in the field wonder how we get it all done. Yep, it’s a pretty sweet job. I went to the GABF to meet my people, the fans of craft beer! I wanted some feedback on what people like. I wanted to see what other breweries were doing to promote their beer. And I wanted to drink some GREAT beer!

When the mountains turn blue… We went to a brewer’s dinner at the Wynkoop Brewery on Wednesday night. The place was packed. I was advised to get a glass of Black Folie, the brain child of Red Stone Meadery and New Belgium Brewery, because it would be the first to run out. Wow! Delicious. My boss, Janet whisked me around, introducing me to friends. The Wynkoop is housed in a historic building right in downtown Denver. I enjoyed the vintage poster art hanging throughout the brewery. I tried some more sour beers and decided that they are a new favorite style for me now. After a while, we decided we’d mingled enough and we cut out to see the last of the Colorado Rockies game at Coors field. It was the top of the 5th and they let us in for free on one condition, we had to cheer for the Rockies. We wasted no time and got to hoopin and hollerin. We poked our heads into the Sandlot for a beer. The Sandlot brewery is actually owned by Coors and is part of The Blue Moon Brewing Company, but they brew their own beers on premises and these are the beers that have won more medals at the GABF since their opening than any other brewery. Despite our feverish cheering, the Rockies didn’t pull out a win that night. They did make it to the playoffs, but sigh, the Phillies pulled out a win. There’s always next year, and hey, the Broncos are 5-0. Thanks to everyone at the stadium and at Wynkoop for your hospitality and warm welcome.

Watch out for Falling Rock. On Friday I was having some serious baggage issues. I had stayed with my brother in Littleton and took the light rail into downtown. The light rail is awesome, so convenient and easy. Not so easy, the fact that I had all my bags for the trip with me because I was planning on staying with my dad for the rest of the my stay. I thought I’d check them at the Amtrak station. No can do without a Amtrak ticket. The attendant, while extremely polite and sympathetic told me her boss wasn’t one for exceptions, while her co-workers simultaneously nodded in agreement. So me and my bags went to The Sandlot, Falling Rock Tap House and then on the free mall bus to the Convention Center. Our stop at the Falling Rock put me in awe. So many taps, so many beers! In the basement, people were eagerly awaiting the results of the Alpha King Challenge founded in 1999 as a tribute to Alpha King Pale Ale, crafted by Three Floyds Brewing in Munster, Indiana. Here the hoppiest beers are judged in this fun event hosted by Chris Black, the owner of Falling Rock. Boundary Bay won this award in 2006 for our Imperial IPA and took 2nd place in 2008. A total of 70 beers from around the United States competed in the tenth annual Alpha King Challenge. Congrats to Mountain Sun Pub and Brewery and this year’s winner, “Hop Viviant”.

The Festival. I have to start by giving a shout out to our volunteers at the festival. They worked really hard and stayed upbeat and enthusiastic. They made working the festival less like work and more like, well, partying with a chicken hat on your head. I set up a little area with a portfolio of our beer & event posters. I did get a lot of positive feedback on the designs and was even asked to sign a couple of posters I brought to give away. Thanks for making me feel like a rock star! Most often, people told me they were happy that someone from the brewery was there. Often the booths are only staffed with volunteers that don’t know much about the beer or the brewery. They wanted to voice their appreciation of the beer to someone who’d hear it. My dad met me midway through the session and we spent some time seeking out sour beers. Some of our favorites were from New Glarus, Lost Abbey, Russian River and New Belgium. Cheers to all that came to our booth to try Boundary Bay beer and thanks for the feedback!

Saturday—Judgement day. I have to come straight out and say it. I was disappointed when Boundary Bay didn’t win any awards at the festival. The competition gets tougher every year as more and more breweries enter beers into the festival. The categories we typically enter our beer into are categories with a large number of entries. Some of the beers that tend to do better in award competitions are more unique and rare. If we should judge ourselves on anything, it should be the fact that we sell out of our beer, every time, everything we brew and we brew at capacity. There were a lot of other great WA beers at the festival that were shut out as well, but none of us are about to stop drinking their beer. A big congratulations to Chuckanut Brewery on winning Small Brew Pub of the year. This award is given to a brewery that wins the most medals compared to how many beers entered. Congratulations to all the other Washington State winners too. You can download a list of the GABF winners here.

Time to go fishing. After the festival, my dad and I headed out to the Blue River, near Silverthorne to do some fly fishing and camping. The weather was perfect. The fly fishing, it was pretty flat. But the saying is true, I’d rather have a bad day fly fishing than, well, just about anything.

Boundary Bay Brewery Loves Dawgs!

The College Inn Pub and Boundary Bay Brewery are teaming up for yet another year of Home Game Saturdays!  Here’s how it works: head down to the College Inn Pub in Seattle, WA on any day when the UW Huskies are playing a home game and you can score a Boundary Bay Brewery handcrafted ale for a measly $3.00!  We feature a different Boundary brew each home game and have great prize drawings before each game, so there really is no reason for you not to be there.

Boundary Bay’s Imperial IPA

We tapped our Imperial IPA last night and had a little party to celebrate!  We somehow convinced everyone at Boundary Bay Brewery to wear gold crowns and got them in the mood to celebrate our hoppiest beer ever.  We had to celebrate this royal beers Alpha King history and it’s many awards – there IS a reason this is the only Pacific Northwest beer to take home the title of Alpha King!  Check out a couple pictures from the event last night.

2 of our bartenders who weren't working and came in JUST to have a taste!

two of our brewers getting their first taste of their creation

owners, brewers, long time regulars!

Hurry in and try this incredible beer while we’ve got it on tap.  This is one gem that doesn’t get too far from the brewery.  It’s such a beloved beer that all we make gets served here at our brewpub (except for a few samples that travel to competitions!).  We never have any left over to bottle or even to sell at other bars who carry our beer.  Come see what all the fuss is about!

And keep your calenders marked…Cabin Fever will be on tap Tuesday, November 18th!  Ah, ’tis the season for wonderful, heavenly beer!

Imperial IPA On Tap…Monday, NOV 10th

Come down to Boundary Bay Brewery on Monday, November 10th ’cause we’ll be tapping Imperial IPA at 4 pm!  There will be party favors and a chance to taste our hoppiest beer ever.  Get a taste of this special beer and find out why it’s won so many awards…and why it’s the ONLY beer from the Pacific Northwest to EVER win the Alpha King Challenge!  Here’s what our Imperial IPA has also won:

2nd Place, Alpha King Challenge – 2008

Bronze, North American Beer Awards – 2006

Winner, Alpha King Challenge – 2006

Gold, North American Beer Awards – 2005

Gold, World Beer Cup – 2004

Boundary Bay receives a Silver Medal!

Boundary Bay Brewery, along with almost 500 other breweries participated in the Great American Beer Festival this weekend.  There were over 46,000 people in attendance and almost 3,000 beers being judged as part of the competition. We are proud to announce that our Imperial Oatmeal Stout took home a silver medal and our Imperial IPA was declared second place in the Alpha King challenge after winning back in 2006.  Thus, we’ve dubbed ourselves the Alpha Dude for the year.  =)  We’d like to extend a hearty congratulations to our brewers for another year of great beer!

Boundary Bay at the Great American Beer Festival

Currently, Ed Bennett (owner of Boundary Bay Brewery) and Matt Z. (one of our beer salesmen) are at the Great American Beer Festival that is happening this weekend in Denver.

These are the beers we’ve submitted for judging:

Cabin Fever: Specially brewed and bottled for the Pacific Northwest winters, this winter warmer’s dark red-brown color and rich malty flavor will complement any rich, hardy meal as well as your favorite spicy dish.  However, with it’s cold conditioned, smooth, dry-hopped flavor, Cabin Fever is very satisfying all by itself.

Old Bounder: A rich, full-bodied barley wine with a smooth caramel sweetness, warming alcohol content and balanced hop character.  Excellent with desserts as an after dinner beverage. To be appreciated in moderation.

Dunkles Bock: This traditional German-style Bock is made with all German malts.  Strong, full-bodied and bottom fermented, our Dunkles Bock has a low hop flavor and a deep copper color.

Imperial IPA: A full bodied, copper colored India Pale Ale, with a fairly strong alcohol content and an aggressive “fresh hop” quality.  Only in the Great Northwest can one find such a well balanced, over the top highly hopped draft ale.

Imperial Oatmeal Stout: A black, very rich and full-bodied stout with a silky smoothness that gives way to a long “roasty” finish.  A heavy weight monster of a beer — not for the timid.

Pilsner: A light, honey colored lager with a beautiful hop aroma and flavor.  This lager is brewed in a traditional manner using only the finest ingredients: Pilsner, Munich and Vienna malts and Saaz and Gr. Hallertau hops.  This beer is fermented at lower temperatures than an ale, creating a drier body, with less fruity esters.

Highland Reserve: In commemoration of the Highland Games our brewers have released a special reserve Highland Scotch Ale, rich and dark with a faint smokey finish.  Dark crystal and peated malts are added to achieve the elements unique to this historic seasonal.

Boundary Bay winning the Alpha King, 2006

The Alpha King challenge (which our Imperial IPA won in 2006) will be judged on Friday and all the awards for the entire competition will be presented on Saturday.  Get a piece of the action by trying one of our entries to the GABF.  There will be rotating taps all weekend with selections from our beers being judged. Come in to Boundary Bay this weekend and judge them yourself and let us know what you vote as the favorite!

Click here to see a list of the awards our beers have one in past years of competition.