By now, you’ve most likely realized that Seattlest loves a little bit of the strange in our daily lives. Between all the off-beat circuses, live movies, and pillow fights, our entertainment tastes obviously run a little bit off center. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that spending a day shooting nine holes of golf around Capitol Hill, in costume, at the bi-annual Seattle Urban Golf was right up our alley. At first glance, nine......

Keg tossing, seasonal brews and kids running around with the adults could only mean one thing - the Washington Brewers Festival is here for 2008. Coming up this weekend at Saint Edwards Park, in Kenmore, WA(North side of Lake Washington), almost 200 beers will be available for your tasting pleasure. The full list is here, but we're most looking forward to the Organic Alder Smoked Coffee Stout by Elliott Bay, Scuttlebutt's 12th Anniversary Scotch......

Looking for a way to get out and enjoy some beer with the nice weather this weekend? You've probably got it all figured out, but here are a few ideas anyways: University District Street Fair - Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. (6 p.m. Sunday). Nearly 400 craft and food tents to browse, plus live music and other events. The Big Time Brewery beer tent will be the place to be......

Seattle's beloved brewer of Manny's Pale Ale (and now, the wonderful 9LB Hammer) releases Bob's Brown Ale on this day every year to raise money for the Ronald McDonald House and to honor the memory of their old friend, Bob Hirsch, who died of cancer at age 21. More than seventy bars in the Seattle area will have this 6.3% ABV ale pouring today (Bob's bday). Bob's Brown Ale is big and brown with......

All About Beer Magazine recently came out with this list of their idea of the 125 best places in the world to have a beer. There are many worthy places on there for sure. But lists like these won't make everyone entirely happy. Here are a few things that stuck out: 1) Of course, the lack of Seattle/Washington places. Stumbling Monk is awesome, but to have that included as the only Seattle place (barely......

With the start of the MLB season upon us, it's time to head down to Safeco and see the Mariners try and win the AL West (or at least win a game). Before you get in the park, there are plenty of pre-game spots to grab a good beer. Here are some of our favorite watering holes for game day: The Collins Pub - This is easily the #1 place to grab a good......

Yeah, we've got the same lame resolution as everyone else for 2008: Eat healthier and get to the gym more often. But, as we sit here drinking our first beer of 2008, a 6 month old homebrewed stout, we realized that we need a few beer goals for 2008. Following are a few things we plan to accomplish in the following year. 1) Finally make that trip to Walking Man Brewing in Stevenson, WA. Some......

Dammit, neither were we. For opening day, Mr. Seattlest got up in the wee hours and was in lot 2 about 30 minutes before the lift opened, ending up about 20th in line. The guys waiting for first chair up front were drinking PBR tall boys and said (and acted like) they'd been there since about 7am. With a base of about 51", it was an excellent start. Snow was a bit heavy, and chair......

Five night Hip-Hop Extravaganza "The Program" began last night at 8:45pm, and we were in our pajamas eating stale Cheeto Puffs and drinking cheap red wine from the grocery store. What's that? Did you just call us a slacker journalist? Hardly -- we were watching the show on SyncLive, which streamed the entire show (plus soundcheck!) in surprisingly good video/audio quality. Once we figured out how to re-buffer the feed without refreshing the entire page,......

We have to be honest: We were slightly annoyed when we read the email promoting Seattle School's (of Motel fame) latest event. Anything that calls an organization "insanely exuberant" and says that it is putting on one of the "craziest film events in the history of the city" is trying pretty hard to sound zany and exciting. But as we told Seattlest Audrey, we're a sucker for weird (you should have seen us in college)......

With all of the people that live/work on the Eastside, it is really surprising to not find more beer spots to explore. Granted, we probably haven't found everything worth visiting, but it just seems there is plenty of room for more good beer on the Eastside. Below is a summary of what you can enjoy on the other side of the lake. Breweries: Rock Bottom Bellevue is about the only place if you want......

A few weeks ago, singer/raconteur Jenny Owen Youngs was in town, playing at the High Dive the same time as the Fremont Bridge was being closed evenings, which led to our arriving mid-set in a state of high dudgeon. We decided to skip a half-assed review, and afterwards fired off some impertinent questions via email. We just heard back, and as you'll see, Jenny schools us a bit. Now we adore her even more. If......

Besides the Big Wood Festival going on up at Brouwer's (which even exceeded expectations last night), this weekend marks the 3rd Annual Winter Beer Festival put on by the Washington Beer Commission. The Winter Beer Festival is held at Hale's and will feature over 30 different winter beers from Washington brewers. It can get a little packed, but it's a great time and last year was a solid lineup. This year keep your eyes......

Cascadia's new cocktail menu (now that we've dispensed with Big City interlopers) includes a classic called Satan's Whiskers, a combination of gin (high-end Plymouth, ideally), sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, orange juice, Grand Marnier and (very important) orange bitters. All ingredients we're very fond of, so let's go for it. Bartender Michael Candelaria, long a master of his craft, builds the drink with care, measuring precise amounts of liquor into an empty glass, squeezing fresh juice,......

Thanksgiving doesn't allow for us Seattlesters to partake in our usual rock and roll lifestyles. Instead it's friends and family and mellow times about the house. Our drinking's liable to be more restrained and coordinated with a heavy meal of rich food. (Seattlest Geoff offered some choice beer recommendations earlier this week for those who've got a pit-stop planned on the way to grandmother's house tomorrow.) And according to the weather report, it's going to......

What better time to talk about beer and food than with the holidays coming up? We enjoy wine with a good meal just as much as everyone else, but we hate the perception that beer should not be paired with anything except pizza. Unless you are still drinking that macro crap, you can enjoy beer with a wide variety of food. This Seattlest is currently reading "The Brewmaster's Table", written by Garrett Oliver, the......

We would like to take a short minute to let you know what we did on Sunday night instead of hitting up the Rakim/Ghostface/Brother Ali show for $32. Instead, Seattlest trundled over to The Comet, where we got to sit down (albeit in rickety wooden chairs), drink $4 whiskey sodas, and enjoy the hooting and hollering of a crowd of thirty at the Nite Owls show. We had never been to a show at The......

You thought your beer was safe left in the back seat of your car? Think again. We got this email from our friend today: So yesterday I was driving home from Vancouver. Per Geoff's recommendation, I stopped at Bounday Bay's taphouse for a few beers. When I left I bought a growler of IPA. I was happy. When I got home, I parked outside and forgot to bring in my bookbag (worthless) and my......

Tonight would be the night to dominate the jukebox at the Wildrose, because all the ladies (except for us) will be at the Paramount drinking a nice tall glass of alt.country goodness. Brandi Carlile's back in town with her hot twin-powered band and we understand she tends to pull traffic away from the corner of 11th and Pike (at least until 11 PM). We don't really get it, but whatever. We so don't get it,......

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......

A friend just emailed Seattlest, gushing with glee that our season's passes to the Summit (Alpental, really) grant us 5 free days of skiing at Crystal Mountain. We'd already written about how the ownership of the Summit by Boyne Mountain (who also owns Crystal Mt.) might be a good thing for mountain bikers. So it sounded like it was already working out for those of us that go mostly to Alpental (due to sheer proximity,......

Is there anyone in this city that doesn't love El Chupacabra? There may be, but that's probably because they haven't been there yet. We went to long-time favorite El Chupacabra on a rainy evening last week to have drinks and dinner with a close friend and were pleased to discover that in the winter, it loses its party vibe and becomes much more than a great place to get soused on sangria in the......

We start things off this weekend with a simple two words from Donte: Muthafucking Justice! As Halloween approaches, it seems that the tradition of Seattlests stalking each other continues. Seth will attend the opening night of the Seattle Opera's first ever co-production with New York's Metropolitan Opera, Iphigenia in Tauris, which is conveniently scheduled at the exact fucking same time as the Husky/ASU game. He'll try to catch the fourth quarter at the Spectator on......

So, you think you have been to a beer festival before? Maybe you went to Fremont Oktoberfest , or maybe you even went to the Seattle International Beer Fest this summer. If you really want to go to a beer festival, get yourself to Denver in 10 days. The Great American Beer Festival (GABF) is every beer lovers dream. 408 breweries. 1,884 beers. One huge convention center. 3 straight days of goodness. Can it......

Sunday afternoon turned out to be a terrific time to hit the Fremont Oktoberfest: at one o' clock it was still gray and cloudy and the crowds hadn't arrived. For $5 extra, we ended up with a total of eight tokens, good for eight 5-oz. pours. Our initial plan was to drink anything that was named "Oktoberfest," but there were only two Oktoberfest beers that weren't tapped out (or called Beck's): Lang Creek's Oktoberfest and......

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......

Feel like doing a little Oktoberfest drinking this weekend, Washington style? The Washington Beer Commission is holding their 1st annual Oktoberfest at St. Edwards State Park on Lake Washington in Kenmore. There are going to be some great local brewers there, but don't expect to find any of the big German brewers. There will of course be the requisite oompah music and German food from local vendors (doesn't get much more German than that!).......

Just when you think you've made up your mind about a place, about Tavolata specifically, along comes a dish of gnocchi akin to a religious experience. Regular readers know that Seattlest has been Seattle's lone holdout in the standing ovation for Tavolata. Ethan Stowell--who pays ferocious attention to his reviews--has not been happy with us, going so far as to purge a critical thread from one of the Chowhound discussion boards. Yet we keep going......

It's a newer, thinner Dan Thiessen presiding over Bellevue's 0/8 Seafood Grill and the adjacent bar, Twisted Cork. "I stopped drinking and lost 80 pounds," he confides, no mean feat for a dude who clearly wants to become the Tom Douglas of the Eastside. His most recent accomplishment: winning the Seattle leg of national poke championship with a three-level, "Walk on the Beach" theme: a palate-cleansing spritzer of Kestrel Viognier and Dry Soda Lemongrass; the......

No, not that Michael Jackson. The other Michael Jackson, the world's leading beer critic/scholar/historian/writer, was found dead in his London home last night. Likely, not many of you have heard of the anti-child molesting Michael Jackson. He was possibly the most important driving force in the world-wide beer community over the past 30 years. Starting with his first publication of "World Guide to Beer" in 1977, he has always been a strong voice for......