Humanities Washington hosted its first “Think & Drink” event last month at Naked City Brewery & Taphouse in Greenwood, and it was so successful they’re doing it again Tuesday night.

The topic is urban planning and development, and this time, HW is partnering with Northwest Film Forum, which ran its “Remaking the Metropolis” documentary series last week. “Think & Drink” starts at 7 p.m. at 8564 Greenwood Ave. N.

Speakers for Think & Drink:

• Steve Scher, event moderator and host of KUOW’s Weekday.
• Nicole Huber, professor of architecture, University of Washington.
• Bryon Ziegler, urban planner and designer, Strategy Workshop LLC.

Speaking of Naked City, the brewery recently won the gold medal in the American Ale category at Lallemand’s Brain of Brewer’s Competition in Denver with its Podunk IPA. This is Naked City’s first gold medal at a national brewer’s competition.

And the folks at Naked City will be celebrating their third anniversary with an all-day party on Saturday, Oct. 22.

Join us for all day happy hour, raffles & giveaways, live music, an oyster bar, & up to 15 fantastic Naked City Beers on draft and cask including rarities and one-offs available exclusive at Naked City for our anniversary. Come try Dark Passage, a stunning merlot barrel aged imperial sour, along with casks of Big Lebrewski & an as yet unnamed 9.7 % Imperial IPA. Limited edition anniversary shirts will also be available!

Naked City Brewery & Taphouse is hosting the first “Think & Drink” event by Humanities Washington next Wednesday. The hosted conversation is called “The Politics Behind Your Pint,” and will explore the history of liquor laws.

Speakers include Steve Scher, event moderator and host of KUOW’s “Weekday”; William Rorabaugh, University of Washington professor and author of “The Alcoholic Republic”; and Charles Finkel, founder and president of Pike Brewing Co.

“Think & Drink” starts at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21, at Naked City, 8564 Greenwood Ave. N. It’s free to attend. If you have any questions, you can email Zaki Abdelhamid at zaki@humanities.org, or call 206-682-1770.

Naked City Brewery & Taphouse is holding a special one-night only benefit for its nearby neighbor, the non-profit writing and tutoring center 826 Seattle, which is housed inside the Greenwood Space Travel Supply Co. at 8414 Greenwood Ave. N.

Next Friday (which, by the way, is Aug. 26, or 8/26, get it?) Naked City will serve a new pale ale called 826 Luminosity. $1 of every pint sold on Friday night will go to 826 Seattle. 826 Luminosity will be available only on that night.

The Phinney Neighborhood Center’s annual summer beer taste is back. Saturday from 4-7 pm. in the lower parking lot of the PNA at 6532 Phinney Ave. N., you can partake in “Beervana.”

Admission is $25 for PNA members, $30 for the general public, and $10 for designated drivers. You can buy tickets online, or in person at the PNA. Admission includes 10 tastes from local microbreweries, pub style snacks and “dogs” by Barking Dog Alehouse, and homemade pretzels from The Park Pub.

Participating breweries include:

• Confirmed Breweries And Beers To Date
• Diamond Knot Brewery
• Elysian Brewing Co
• Fish Brewing Co
• Fremont Brewing Co
• Georgetown Brewing Co
• Golden Hills Brewing Co
• Hale’s Ales Brewery
• Harmon Brewing Co
• Lantern Brewing
• Leavenworth
• Maritime Pacific Brewing Co
• Naked City Brewing Company
• North Sound Brewing Co
• NW Peaks Brewery
• Odin Brewing Company
• Pike Brewing Co
• Port Townsend Brewing
• Silver City Brewery
• Snoqualmie Falls Brewery
• Spire Mountain
• The Ram at Northgate
• Two Beers Brewing Co

Seattle is a land of microbreweries, and it seems everyone knows someone who home brews. Phinney-Greenwood resident Christopher Engdahl has taken his home-brewing passion and turned it into a teeny-tiny nano-brewery called Lantern Brewing, in the basement beneath The Chocolate Shoe Box, 7410 Greenwood Ave. N., Suite B.

Lantern Brewing is located on the lower level of this building on Greenwood Avenue and North 74th Street.

Engdahl quit his computer job to focus full time on Lantern Brewing. He found the unfinished basement last summer and spent about six months fixing it up. He started producing beer in January.

He cited a few good nearby breweries, such as Naked City in Greenwood, and Maritime Pacific and NW Peaks in Ballard, but felt the Phinney community needed its own brewery.

“I saw so many awesome bars and restaurants here, and I wanted to bring hyper-local, fresh, delicious beer to the neighborhood,” Engdahl said.

He began toying with home brewing while in high school and college 20 years ago, but became more serious about it in the last 10 years.

After traveling in Europe, he decided to focus on Belgian and French style beers, which are less hoppy, more spicy and fruity, and flavored by yeast and malts rather than hops. He propagates his own yeast from an original strain from a Belgian monastery.

“I saw a lot of focus on Northwest style, hoppy brews, and I wanted to do something a little different,” he said. “Myself, I love a really yeasty, active beer.”

Chris Engdahl examines some of the yeast he propagates.

He hopes to eventually source everything locally. He uses Northwest hops from Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. But, his roast barley is from the United Kingdom because he can’t find it locally. He said he may eventually buy local barley and roast it himself.

He bought two oak wine barrels from Phinney Ridge winemaker Leroy Radford, who owns Flying Dreams Winery, because he’s interested in seeing what oak aging does to flavor some of the beers.

Currently the only place to purchase Lantern Brewing’s beers is at the Phinney Farmers Market, which opens for the season on Friday afternoon. Engdahl is still finalizing pricing, but said he’ll likely sell 22-ounce bottles for $8-10 a bottle, depending on the style. Lantern Brewing currently brews a pale ale, stout, white ale, brown ale and golden ale.

He said he’s taking a slow approach to producing and marketing because he doesn’t want to overcommit himself or decrease the quality of the beer. He eventually would like to have Lantern Brewing beer served in neighborhood restaurants and pubs. And he doesn’t plan to turn his brewery into a tasting room.

“It’s not the best ambiance for the public,” he said with a smile. “However, as a microbrewer, I have had a few tastings here.”

Chris Engdahl with the 26-gallon tanks where he mixes his grains and hot water to create “mash.”

He and his wife have two daughters in elementary school. Engdahl said his wife is fully behind him quitting his computer job to focus on brewing beer.

“She’s extremely supportive of this lunacy,” he said. “I grew up with computers and just got tired of it. Beer is much more historically interesting.”

Kevin Klein of Greenwood just opened NW Peaks Brewery in Ballard. Smaller than a micro-brewery, it’s considered a “nano-brewery.”

A long-time home brewer, Klein served up his brews at the PNA Summer Beer Taste in July before his nano-brewery opened.

Kevin Klein pours a beer for a thirsty customer at the PNA’s Summer Beer Taste in July.

Our sister site My Ballard has a full interview and photos of NW Peaks Brewery here.

On a pretty darn nice day, several hundred people partook of their choice of more than 40 beers from two dozen brewers corralled in the Phinney Neighborhood Association’s lower parking lot Saturday afternoon.

The PNA’s Western-themed summer beer tasting event had a mix of well-known local and regional brewers, as well as a couple home brewers. One of them, NW Peaks Brewery, will soon join the ranks of commercial brewers when it opens a nano brewery in Ballard, explained Kevin Klein, seen pouring a sample here. 

The event was sponsored by Prost!, the Park Pub and The Barking Dog, which kept a steady stream of beer drinkers fueled up with savory bockwurst topped with sauerkraut and grainy mustard.

Here the beer taste board pose for a group photo. If you’re interested in joining, expect to be put on a long waiting list.

Jed Jedrzejewski and Jon Parry played country tunes around a faux camp fire complete with flame ribbons blown by a fan.

Beer tasters could vote for their favorites and here are the winners:

• 1st place: Lucille IPA from Georgetown Brewing
• 2nd place: Pike Dry Wit from Pike Brewing Company
• 3rd place (Tie): Scott’s Puget Creek Vanilla Porter from Harmon Pub & Brewery; Thor’s Intrigue from Odin Brewing Company

Local website Seattle Beer News posted an article today describing their latest ”beer crawl” through Phinney and Greenwood.

Seattle Beer News had great things to say about the Barking Dog Alehouse, The Dray, Sully’s Snowgoose Saloon, Park Pub, 74th St. Ale House, and Naked City Brewery & Taphouse.

The six bars we hit was really just about perfect, and with the 2 to 3 miles of walking our sobriety was still pretty well in check. Overall, these crawls are making me a bit jealous for the lucky people that get to live in these neighborhoods.

Naked City Taphouse at 8564 Greenwood Ave. N. has spent the past year constructing their very own brewery at the back of the taphouse, and it’s finally ready. They’re hosting a “release party” tonight from 4 p.m. until close.

Co-owners Don Webb and Donald Averill will share four beers, including Hoptari 644, Bing, The Big Lebrewski and Yankee Drifter.

Naked City was fueled from a mutual love of beer by the owners who both have a long history of brewing and appreciating their passion, beer. Don and Donald can’t imagine a better job than serving beer, talking about beer, and tasting beer day after day. They are very grateful to the community for their overwhelming support through the process of building the new establishment and allowing them to follow their dreams. Naked City offers a setting where the experienced beer enthusiast as well as craft beer novice can relax and enjoy a mutual love in great beer.

Yankee Drifter: A light ale brewed with pilsner and honey malts and German Tettnanger hops. A refreshing change of pace for this time of year!

Hoptari 664: A fresh-hop harvest ale brewed with Pale, Rye, Wheat and Light Munich malts, flaked oats and Amarillo bittering hops. 50lbs of experimental wet hops were added to the hop back. Thanks to Chris Miller from Snipes for sharing the fresh hops straight from Yakima!

The Big Lebrewski: A White Russian Imperial Stout aged on Kahlua-soaked oak. This beer is already being well-received at festivals. As it continues to age, it is getting better and better and better!

Bing: An English Style Old Ale made with Lyle’s Black Treacle Syrup and then “dry-hopped” with Washington cherries, cinnamon, star anise and cloves. Definitely enough to keep you toasty warm during the cold days of December!

COMING SOON… Hoptrocity: An Imperial Rye IPA brewed with Pale, Rye, Munich, Wheat, Crystal malts and Black Barley and Cascade, Centennial and Amarillo Hops.

Saturday night’s 22nd annual Beer Taste at the Phinney Neighborhood Center brought in more than 700 people to enjoy “Beer Care for All” (a little riff on health care reform, in case you missed all those folks in medical scrubs).

The first floor was packed as a very long line of people waited outside to get in.

And the upstairs was also jammed as people moved from room to room, trying out the 30-some craft brews.

The musicians were fantastic, but I neglected to get the band’s name. If anyone knows, please put a note in comments.

First place winner, as voted on by attendees, went to Two Beers Jive Espresso Stout. Second place was Naked City Hoptari. And third place was Georgetown Superchopp.

Now that a suspect has been arrested in the string of Greenwood arsons, we should all feel a little sense of relief (but do remain vigilant, just in case). So let’s all get out of the house this weekend, talk to each other, and rekindle our sense of community. Here are a few happenings (and our apologies to anything we’ve missed, as our inbox is overflowing because we’ve been so busy with arson coverage. If we’ve forgotten something, just add it in comments.)

• Green Lake Elementary Book Fair at Santoro’s Books, 4-8 p.m. tonight. Santoro’s is donating 20 percent of all sales tonight to benefit Green Lake Elementary School. Teachers from the school will be reading from their favorite books and refreshments will be provided.
• The monthly Greenwood-Phinney artwalk is tonight from 6-9 p.m. And it’s the debut of the 2nd annual Snowmen on Parade. You can bid on these creative snowmen and take one home at the Dec. 11 artwalk.
• The Green Bean Coffeehouse, which was destroyed in the Oct. 23 arson, is coming back to life Saturday morning inside the Greenwood Sip & Ship. Starting at 8 a.m. Saturday, drop by for a “mugging.” Bring your own coffee mug, fill it up with their coffee, then leave it to help replenish their supply of mismatched mugs.
• The PNA Beer Taste is 7-10 p.m. Saturday. 10 tastes from more than 30 local craft brewers (or unlimited soda for designated drivers), noshies, music, and a general good time to be had by all.
• Ali Marcus, Trina Willard and Michael Connolly perform folk music “in the round” at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Empty Sea Studios. “You can expect lots of 2 and 3-part harmonizing, singing strings, Michael’s homemade harp making an appearance, and Trina and Ali both sharing a number of their original songs.” And solo guitarist Goh Kurosawa performs at 7:30 p.m. Sunday night.
• Wayward Coffeehouse presents the Pacific Northwest Folklore Society’s “Watch the Sky” – Irish/Celtic pub songs and ballads – from 8-10 p.m. tonight. No cover. And on Saturday it’s Pint & Dale performing “musical disasters at sea” from 8-10 p.m.

Beer lovers are invited to the 1st Annual Beer Can Derby at Naked City Brewery and Taphouse at 8564 Greenwood Avenue N. on Saturday. Sponsored by the new Greenwood Pub Association, proceeds from the derby will benefit Northwest Harvest.

Sign-up is from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Races begin at 12:30. The entry fee is one can of food.

Contestants design and construct racecars, which must contain at least one recognizably whole and uncrushed beer can.

Full rules are available here. Contestants must pre-register with Rachaal Steele by email or phone at  206-838-6299.