This is the shop. It's located in a former tobacco shop on South Lawrence Street in the 'burbs of South Tacoma. Tacoma is a historical railway town; it was the junction of many rail lines out West. Back in the day, the area that the shop is in was nicknamed "Edison City" when Thomas Edison came to town. Now it's part of South Tacoma, separated from Tacoma proper.
I like the color scheme. There are a few tables out front with umbrellas as you can see. Upstairs, there's an apartment. Inside, the shop is an open floor plan (pretty much) with two distinct sections - one, the beer cooler section...
...and the other, the bar and tap area. They have a good selection of beers in bottles, lots of local stuff. They also have a nice selection of cider, and some sodas as well. I like the clean, uncluttered look of the retail portion. It's bright, clean, and the selection can be browsed easily.
Here's the bar area. In Washington state, bottle shops can also sell beer on tap, which I wish DC could do. There's a digital board with the on-tap beers on it; they are sourced from Untappd and are live. The sliding glass door leads to an office / storage area, which once was a walk-in humidor.
I like the whole set up. It's unassuming, comfortable, and welcoming. There's enough space for people to spread out (with a bar counter running the length of the exterior wall, with power plugs for laptops.) There's a central bar counter as well, and behind the cooler area is a kitchen where they have a variety of sandwiches, fresh made to order. The shop is open to people of all ages, so a couple with young kids could come here for a sandwich and a soda if they like.
As Robbie settled in, I perused the selection. Their draft is list is not crazy huge, but extensive enough, and covering the broad range of beers one may want to order. For my first glass, he and I split a rather nice bottle of 2014-vintage "Beltane" saison made by Port Townsend, WA-based Propolis Brewing.
It's a super local beer from a tiny brewery - Robbie says the only have a single-barrel system. It's got a metal crimp cap and underneath, a cork!
As we had our beers, I spoke with Robbie briefly about the shop and its future plans. It's pretty new, only about 6 months old, and they are still working towards getting the place set up to their liking. A big challenge for the shop is distribution - since it's a smaller shop, just starting out, they're working towards getting the wide varieties of beer they want. Problem is, a lot of distributors have minimum purchase requirements, and so for a small shop, it might be hard to meet those quotas easily. Robbie also likes trying at least one of every thing they sell, to make better recommendations, so they're currently working towards getting a more comprehensive selection. Stuff like this takes time, I am told, and it's just another hurdle that smaller beer shops have to contend with.
Next beer is Crux Fermentation Project's "Session IPA," a delicious 4.5% ABV saison out of Bend, OR. Check out that double bubble coming out of the bottle neck!
It just hit the spot - crisp, easy drinking and full of hops. I chose something light not just because it was before noon, but I also was going to go to another Seattle brewery to review it later that day, and needed to pace myself. Speaking of lunch - as I mentioned, they serve sandwiches, so I ordered a "South Side" sandwich - salami, smoked ham, provolone cheese, whole basil with olive garlic tapenade on sourdough. Super tasty!
Robbie is also a fan of sour beers, and having never tried a proper sour beer, I figured this would be the time and place to do it. Sour beers are the latest fad in beer, and according to Robbie, they're rather hard to make. It's a time consuming process that requires special yeast and an eye for detail, and brewers need to be on their game to put out a quality sour. I asked Robbie to pick me out one from the shop to drink, and he came back with this:
It's Cascade Brewing Co.'s "Figaro," a 2013-vintage oak-aged Northwest-style sour made with figs and lemon peel. According to Robbie, Edison is the only place in the state of Washington that sells it. Robbie had to drive down to Oregon himself to pick these up.
I was very surprised. The beer definitely had a tang to it, and was super sour with a little bit of unobtrusive carbonation. It had strong apple sugar flavors, but in a muddled cider kind of way (unlike the crisp and floral saison.) There's a bit of sweetness on the end, but the sour flavors still dominated, in the best way possible. After another hour or so of chatting and taking a walk, I remembered I had to catch a bus north to my next brewery appointment. I wrapped up, paid my tab, and headed out.
It was really cool to learn more about operating a beer shop and looking at it from a business angle as well as a beer angle. Knowing what beers are available, what beers people want, and balancing distributor's requirements is just one of many considerations that go into running your own pub. When sitting back with our favorite saison, we often don't think about the challenges present in operating a small, independent brew shop. In a region like Seattle, where there are probably hundreds of breweries, brewpubs, and bars, it can be tough to operate with all the competition and overhead. But Edison is well on its way, and if I lived in the area, I'd make it a regular hangout. As I mentioned it's a really nice laid-back place without a pretentious atmosphere or oppressive culture, and very much suited for enjoying a beer without being hurried along by some officious bartender. They also know their stuff here, so a big shout out to Robbie for opening his doors for me - if you're ever in South Tacoma, swing by Edison. It's worth a visit!
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