During the early 1960s, when we travelled frequently on US Highway 2 between Spokane and Vancouver, BC, Leavenworth (located west of Wenatchee) was a dying logging town. It isn’t a dying logging down any more — it’s a thriving tourist destination.

It seems that over four decades ago, concerned town leaders decided the way to save the town was to make it a place tourists wanted to come — and created a plan to make the place look like an alpine Bavarian town. It worked and the town began to grow, not shrink.

It even had a brewery, Leavenworth Ales. But in the early part of the century, the company merged with Fishtail Brewing in Olympia and moved to the Puget Sound city. Then, on a trip to Germany five or six years ago, Pam and Oliver Brulotte, owners of the Munchen Haus Bavarian Grill and Beer Garden, realized that their town couldn’t be truly Bavarian without its own craft brewery. And so was born the idea for Icicle Brewing (it takes its name from the Anglo mispronunciation of the waterway the Native people called na-sik-elt).

Wandering through Leavenworth on a recent journey from Albuquerque to Victoria, BC, I immediately spotted the brewery (I have a nose or an instinct for such places). Gretchen Wearne, the tap room manager, enthusiastically welcomed me. A graduate of San Francisco and by her own admission a one time drinker of Pabst Blue Ribbon and Blue Moon wheat beer, she’d come to Wenatchee to work with AmeriCorps. A summer job at the new brewpub seemed like a fun idea, so she moved to Leavenworth and has been at Icicle ever since — becoming along the way very knowledgeable about craft beer and the craft brewing industry.

She showed me the 25 barrel brewing system, which last year produced 4500 barrels of beer, available not only in the tap room but around Washington state east of the Cascades. I briefly met Dean Peibe, the head brewer, an engineering graduate of the University of Washington who used to home brew in his dorm room and later apprenticed with Seattle’s Pike Brewing. He was in the middle of meetings and could only chat briefly.

Then came the best part sampling two of Dean’s creations: Crosscut Pilsner and Dark Persuasion German Chocolate Cake Ale. I’m not usually a fan of beer with additives, but this was surprisingly good. It’s a hopped down version of Peibe’s robust porter which is infused, post fermentation, with cocoanut extract and cocoa power. It would be a great dessert beer to go along with a rich vanilla bean ice cream.

Knowing that I still had a couple of hours of driving ahead of me and that I had to limit my sampling, Gretchen generously presented me with four 22 ounce bottles of their year-around beers. In addition to the German chocolate cake (which did go well with ice cream) and the Pilsner (which started with a slightly sweet maltiness and ended with a crispness contributed by the various Noble hops used), there was an IPA and an Amber. Bootjack IPA at 6.5 per cent ABV and 64 IBUs was in no way a hop bomb, but it had a very nice balance of hops and malts. Dirty Face Amber Lager (not a style that I usually like) was well-rounded and had a crisp hop finish.

It certainly won’t be another 50 years before a drive through Leavenworth — because I’d be 125 years old them. But even if I did achieve that longevity, I wouldn’t want to wait that long to enjoy Icicle Brewing’s beers again. Going through Leavenworth takes me over a hundred miles off the direct route from Albuquerque to Victoria. But I’ll definitely do it again next year — every extra mile will be worth it.

 

 

 

 

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