Guest Blogger: Lee on Chuckanut Brewery

“Chuckanut Brewery represents a convergence of technical and engineering concepts developed from over two decades of professional involvement with craft brewing both home and abroad. Many ideas and techniques implemented are not commonly, if at all, used in America. It is a small facility, but it has features which are large in capability. For example, most everything is computer controlled and driven. The precision and variability (e.g. all motors) provide for ease and efficiency of production.”

                                                                       –Will Kemper, Owner and Brewmaster, Chuckanut Brewing

  

Dudes. I'm seriously blown away by this operation. When I first got word of Washington Beer Open House earlier this week I was kind of like "Ehh, I'm s till hung over from last weekend."

By Thursday the winds changed and I was hankering for some Northwest Micro. The crazy thing about Chuckanut is they are brewing beer unlike anything my palette has really embraced yet. When I transitioned from drinking Pabst and Old English to Pliny and Occidental (shout out St. Johns!) I mostly made a transition that put hops rich beers on a pedestal. Beers without a robust profile and that Northwest known and loved bitterness were looked down upon. My taste buds can be real pricks sometimes.

Chuckanut is making German beer. Before I drank beer at Chuckanut I thought the only good thing to come out of Germany was Claudia Schiffer's legs and those little hot dogs that Rodney likes to cook up in a crock pot.  I was wrong. And Lager isn’t a bad word in the beer world. American Lager? Maybe it’s no good. But the kolsch, alt, and German Pilsner that Chuckanut brews are damn tasty. So what makes Chuckanut special? Well, as a guest blogger I’m damn lucky to have scored a trifold brochure that answers those very questions.

Here are the highlights of Bellingham, Washington’s best kept secret:

1. Ingredients: They are importing German Weyermann specialty malts and hops from a small hop farm in Germany. According to their website: Sie haben ihn angetreten, den weiten Weg aus der Ukraine nach Bamberg….So you know it’s good!

2. Technology: How about remote access to all brewery operations? Yep, Will Kemper, (that Kemper) can realize while he sits on the pot at home that he forgot to open a valve and do so. When on site at the brewery he sits at what appears to be a “Dude You Got a Dell” era PC at the corner of his brewery and commands Starship Chuckanut.  Almost every part of the brewing process he can complete with the click of a mouse. Very few breweries in the world are utilizing this type of technology and doing so allows him and his wife to run a tight ship and minimize error.

3. Will Kemper: Reign Man, Owner and Brew Master of Chuckanut. This dude has done it all and lived to enthusiastically tell the tale. Degree in chemical engineering. Founded Thomas Kemper brewing and got dicked by his partners. Went south of the border and opened Mexico’s first brewpubs, later opened Turkey’s first brew pubs. Along the way had roles at a dozen or so well regarded breweries.  In 2008 he opened Bellingham’s best brew pub and got a bunch of gold in the process.

A few of those gold medal beers at GABF  in the last couple years that I had the chance to suckle:

Dunkel (smooth as a Jamal Crawford stop and pop)

Kolsch (fruity, gentle, complex)

German Pilsner (a real reason to reconsider Pilsners if you aren’t a fan)

My favorite beer being brewed by the team at Chuckanut is their Alt. This earthly, brown headed bastard of The Rhineland ,was full of flavor and would make a fantastic session beer. It poured beautifully and I couldn’t help taking a picture of Claire through its handsome glow.

All in all our visit to Bellingham to visit Chuckanut was a great trip. Highly recommend snagging a pint of theirs the next time you are in Seattle or Bellingham. Unfortunately that’s as far as their distribution reaches at this time.

Check out the video: