Robert L. Jamieson has a big, big problem with the way things are down in Belltown and a pretty strong idea of who's to blame: If the fates had cast Greg Nickels as mayor of New York City when Times Square was the pits, overrun with crime and grime, the renaissance of the one-time eyesore would have stayed a dream. "One-time eyesore," huh? Apparently Robert Jamieson hasn't been to New York recently. Jamieson's been on......

Now! Get out of your cubicle and come drink with us. We're open to you buying us drinks, but we're also open to sharing Moe Bar's fine beverage selection with you at $2 a pop for beers and wells, and $2 off the froofy drink menu. Come join us and help us christen the now-monthly Seattlest Happy Hour the way things ought to be christened: by cracking open alcoholic beverages. We're there already and we'll......

CHARITABLE INDULGENCES: If you're not too hungover from tonight's couture cocktails with Jack Mackenroth at Product Runway, something beautiful involving imported beer and fine Scotch is happening in Fremont both tonight and tomorrow: the HopScotch Spring Beer and Scotch Festival. The festival's a benefit for NW Folklife, so think of your purchase of extra tequila tastings as an act of springtime charity. 5 p.m.-12 a.m. Friday, 1 p.m.-12 a.m. Saturday // Fremont Studios, 155 N.......

The big news today in the brewing world is that northwest staple Pyramid Brewing will be bought by a Burlington, VT brewery. The deal should not have much of an effect on the consumer here in Seattle, but we will hopefully start getting Magic Hat brews sometime soon. Magic Hat #9 has been a popular pale ale in the Northeast for quite a few years, and it would be a welcome addition to the......

Now that the weather is finally get warmer, it's time to plan some summertime drinking. Enter The Saint, the new tequila bar/Mexican cantina from Havana owner Quentin Ertel. What was once the ugly (and scary) Wing Dome behemoth is now the soothingly sky blue building at the corner of Olive and Bellevue. Ertel describes his latest social club as: a tequila bar that would appeal to afficionados of the good life; a place where......

St. Germain has come marching into Belltown. Not the café from Madison Park, which closed earlier this year, but a French artisanal liqueur subtitled "Délice de Sureau," distilled from freshly picked elderflower blossoms. (The website, stgermain.fr, tells the story, probably aprocryphal, of a cohort of old men on bicycles gathering the flowers.) Many drinks are based on the elder, a common name for shrubs that grow in northern Europe, most with fragrant blossoms. Steep them......

To many beer lovers in the Northwest, this time of year means one thing: It's barley wine season. This style of beer can be very flexible, but it usually signifies high alcohol and a big flavor profile. The Alaskan Barley Wine has been a local favorite since 2003, but this was the first year that it was released in bottles (about $8.50 for a 22-ounce bottle). This barley wine is ready to enjoy now......

Instead of focusing on what Belltown has lost, we’d like to inject some positivity in the form of BBQ sauce on an overlooked aspect of this scrutinized neighborhood. ...

This time of year we start seeing fewer and fewer IPAs coming out. But, there are still quite a few interesting ones showing up around town. If you're someone who loves to bitch about how out of control American brewers are getting with their IPAs, just move on to another article. Lagunitas Hop Stoopid - With 100+ IBUs of pure citrus hops, this one is definitely for us hopheads. It is considered an Imperial......

It's so easy to keep going to the same places in Seattle over and over again. With the abundance of great places to grab a pint that we can get to from a bus ride and a quick walk, it's tough to hop in a car and go anywhere for a drink. But it is always great fun heading out to the breweries away from town to see what is going on. Snoqualmie Falls......

This Friday and Saturday, for the eleventh year running, the Pyramid Alehouse will host the "Get Snowed In Party" in celebration of Pyramid's flagship winter ale, Snow Cap. Snow Cap turns 21 this year, and in honor of this ale finally coming of age, ticket prices for each night of the event are only $21. Hosted in a frosty cold revival tent behind Pyramid Alehouse, last year the two-night party was fantastic: beer gardens, hot......

Corner of 3rd and Union last night, the air's full of crazies. The rabid anti-Hillary crazies, fueled by and fueling right-wing panic even as they convince the mainstream that she's unelectable because she's so polarizing ("Just look at us!"). The Ron Paul crazies, all suited and tied. The 9/11 crazies in search of evil conspiracies. So what do the street crazies have to do with, say, the newspaper crazies? It's the possibility, however small, that......

After enjoying last weekend's Washington Brewer's Oktoberfest, we are now preparing ourselves for this weekend's Fremont Oktoberfest. The festivities start at 5pm tonight and continue through Sunday. So, you should have plenty of time to make it to the festival (Without missing any important football games…). There will be a pumpkin carving contest using chainsaws, a 5k Run/Walk on Sunday morning, musical entertainment and a "Dog Day" on Sunday afternoon. But, as is the......

Our single favorite taste characteristic in a beer is possibly smoke.....or hops.....or coffee. Well, for today it is smoke. For those of you that stick to macro beers and the like, this may sound a little odd. But, to those of you who enjoy craft beer and wine, this flavor profile should not be surprising. Smoke flavor can get into beer from essentially two methods: using malt that was roasted over an open fire, or......

This afternoon at two o'clock the city council will vote on proposed new nightclub regulations, bitterly opposed by Seattle's entertainment industry. Yet even as the council prepares for the vote, controversy continues to swirl over SPD's nightclub sting op from Saturday, Sept. 8. This morning, The Seattle Times reported on inaccuracies in its article from a week age today on elements of the sting operation, including the disputed claim that a gun made it......

Just because it's a modest storefront doesn't mean it's a hole in the wall. Au contraire, mes amis. Two new spots in Belltown--both French--forgo pomp in favor of hospitality. At Entre Nous, it's the sprigs of thyme in a pitcher on the counter and Brigitte Bardot on the sound system. At Le Petit Café (no website), it's a slice of lemon in the water glass, seedless grapes on the plate. Little things that enliven lunch.......

So we woke up with no intention of getting all Gloria Steinem on you early on a Sunday morning, but after searching for the tie that bound together our first day of Bumbershoot, we couldn't help but gloat that the women of Bumbershoot were kicking ass/taking names. We started our day with Decadance Theater, an all-female dance troupe who popped, locked, flipped and B-Girled their way through a history of hip-hop, stomping all over a......

In the chapter on invasive species in David Williams' awesome book The Street-Smart Naturalist he says of blackberries: Ecologists don't like Himalayan blackberries because the dense thickets block light to other plats, reduce animal habitat, and hinder access to water in riparian zones, another area where blackberries flourish. With their rapid growth they can quickly outcompete natives and turn a diverse field into a monoculture. Himalayan blackberries, however, do have several features that make......

Dogfish Head (DFH) has been a rock for the craft brewing industry for years. Never afraid to go out on a limb and try something different, DFH offers a variety of adventurous beers. Sam Calagione, founder and president, is the master and brains behind many of their beers. Although located in Delaware, we can get most of their beers at bars and bottle shops around the NW. Below is a sampling of DFH beers available......

The other day, Seattlest heard that Pyramid Breweries was releasing Broken Rake again, after a several-year absence. We loved this fall seasonal when it still existed—its rich malt, deep amber color and higher-than-average ABV truly satisfied. So these press-release details stirred mixed feelings: Broken Rake added a new kick to its already celebrated recipe with the inclusion of Cascade hops. This gives the mahogany colored ale a more full-bodied and balanced flavor, while still......

If you have not had the pleasure of trying this wonderful concoction from Big Time Brewing, you should get down to their brewpub on the Ave. as soon as possible. The Old Sol is a wheatwine, similar to a barleywine, but brewed with about 50% wheat malt. This year's batch weighs in at about 11% alcohol, which makes this beer a very nice sipper. The malt is rich and sweet to start out, but......

Recently Seattlest developed what we’d thought was a disturbing habit: We started scanning six-pack packaging and pub menus for their brews’ alcohol content. And we usually chose the more potent stuff. We’d kept this habit a secret, but it turns out Pyramid Breweries knew it all along. And they approve. At their Seattle Alehouse Thursday, Pyramid introduced a small batch of industry insiders and media folks to two new beers, both with an ABV around......

Seattlest just got back from a road trip through some of the hottest places in the country. Our partner's mother's souped-up SUV clocked the temperature at Lake Mead, NV, to be 130 degrees on July 5th, so we had to chuckle when we arrived home to a rash of weather that makes our fellow Seattleites whine and head to the Homo Depot for a new window-unit a/c. Please don't do that. Really. Each year,......

LAist was comped front row seats by the Dodgers due to Malingering being struck by a foul ball last week, and she came back with some great photos, and earlier made fun of 4th of July on Venice Beach. But the biggest stories of the week was that the Mayor's Hot Tamale was revealed, and that a Kwik-E-Mart was erected in Burbank. Phillyist was busy doing the Fourth of July up right, exercising their......

Stone Brewing Company's Vertical Epic Series continues this year with the release of Stone Vertical 070707. This always impressive California brewer came up with a fantastic marketing idea. They decided to brew one bottle-conditioned ale per year to be aged for consumption in 2012. The idea is that consumers will buy the release each year, which is designed to be aged, and hold onto it until all of the beers are released after 12/12/2012. At......

Whether it was the warm weather, the accompaniment of canines, or the abundance of fantastic alcohol, people were blissed-out at Saturday’s go-round of the Seattle International Beerfest. Here’s a taste of what we observed during our first SIB experience. Things we expect from a brewfest and did, in fact, witness: The girl who, needing a free hand for a moment, stuffs her tasting glass into her cleavage. The guy who parts with his shirt after......

It is finally here! What is it? The Seattle International Beerfest (SIB). There will be over 100 different beers from breweries all over the world, and some great beers from our own backyard. You will have the opportunity to try samples of beer that is normally not even available in Seattle. Where and when is it? It is held at the Mural Amphitheater at Seattle Center Friday 4pm to 10pm Saturday Noon to 10pm......

Come with us back to our teenage years, will you? Then, the only visiting teams that drew any supporters to M's games were the Yankees and the Blue Jays. Damn it was annoying, to have Mariner fans outnumbered--and we mean this literally--outnumbered--at home games. The Jays no longer draw well, now that, in the A.L. East, they are basically impotent onlookers as the powerful teams battle for supremacy. (Call them the Canada of baseball). Now......

We were delighted to find out that offerings from Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales have hit the shelves in your better beer stores around Seattle. We would not be surprised if very few people in Seattle have heard of this small brewery out of Dexter, Michigan; let alone tried their beer. Jolly Pumpkin takes pride in producing small batches of Belgian inspired beers, which are all aged in oak barrels and bottle conditioned (Except for......

Some of you may be interested in checking out the newly opened Tap House Grill in downtown Seattle. Although we have had issues with service, beer quality and availability of beers on their list at the Tap House in Bellevue, we are still hoping the Seattle location works out. With 160 beers on tap, it should not be hard to find something you want. The new Seattle location is in the old Planet Hollywood building......