6/23/2023 0 Comments Elysion beer“I think there was a lot of missed opportunity,” he reproached his comrades. Still, speakers inevitably concluded with an observation that wasn’t couched in insults: Cantwell’s love of literature, near-photographic memory, the incredible palate that aids in judging beer competitions (as the joke goes, he can sample a beer and know whether the brewer changed her perfume).Įventually Cantwell took the mic. Cantwell’s longtime girlfriend Kim Jordan, cofounder of the well-respected New Belgium Brewing in Colorado, also received some ribbing in absentia. The commentary got raunchy fast, as tends to happen when the night is fueled by beer. Every person invited on stage arrived with a singular mission-roasting Dick Cantwell.īrewer Kevin Forhan, whose gray stubble and wry drawl is more Deadwood than GoT, told the audience Cantwell can be “prickly and kind of scary.” Naked City owner Don Webb lamented Cantwell’s lack of facial hair, calling the brewer “a little drunken 12-year-old.” A small stage held a row of chairs, their occupants spanning nearly three decades of Seattle brewing. In July, more than 100 people packed the red-walled screening room at Naked City Brewery and Taphouse in Greenwood the emcee joked that the multitude of beards in the room resembled a scene from Game of Thrones. Thus Cantwell’s resignation cemented his hero status in Seattle’s craft beer community. “We’ve come up as the rebel force taking on the evil empire, and that gives us a community.” He fears Elysian will do the same thing with hops. Fremont has one of the largest barrel-aging programs in the Northwest, he says, and now Goose Island has the financial firepower to buy up every barrel in sight, making it hard for his guys to find any. As Lincecum puts it, a local operation with access to AB’s capital disrupts the brewing ecosystem. In 2011 AB purchased Chicago brewery Goose Island, going on to acquire Blue Point on Long Island and 10 Barrel in Bend, Oregon. But Elysian’s journey from irreverent three-man startup to nationally respected craft brewery to property of the world’s biggest brewing company reveals a complicated mix of commitment, capitalism, personal loss, and adapting to the sort of breakneck growth that has seized the city in recent years.Īnd that community is very unsettled by the recent acquisitions at the global beer concern-formally known as Anheuser-Busch InBev after a series of mergers. People who drive Toyotas, text on iPhones, buy Diet Coke at Fred Meyer, and draw paychecks from Amazon swore off Elysian as soon as they heard the news, unable to stomach an IPA now associated with a multinational corporation. Everyone loved pointing out the newfound irony in Elysian’s Loser Pale Ale, conceived as a tribute to Sub Pop Records on its 20th anniversary in 2011 labels bore the tagline “Corporate Beer Still Sucks.” A server approached a couple to take their order only to have one of them respond, “Why would I want to drink here?” There’s also the story of the guy who purchased a beer from the bar for the sole purpose of pouring it on the floor, leaving a trail behind him as he walked out the front door. People called just to yell at the bartender. Things got especially rough at the company’s original Capitol Hill brewpub. Some Seattle bars immediately removed Elysian tap handles. The drinking public would spend the coming weeks going through its own range of emotions. While Elysian’s staff processed the news, word of the deal spread outside the brewery’s walls. The face of the brewery-blue eyes and a mouth prone to the slightest of smirks beneath a thatch of silvery blond hair-didn’t waste much time telling both the media and his own employees that he was outvoted, that he never wanted the sale to happen. Dick Cantwell, Elysian’s outspoken head brewer and one of its cofounders, was down on the floor, standing with the shell-shocked employees.
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