NW Peaks Black Blonde

Black Peak From ESE (Maple Pass trail). Corteo Pk in the foreground on left.

The name. The Mountain. Black Pk is the 17th tallest mountain in WA situated just W of Washington pass on Hwy 20.  Albeit a trek from Seattle, WA pass and its environs offers spectacular scenery, great rock climbing opportunities, and great destinations.  Black Pk is one of them, just past Heather and Maple passes.  The route past Lewis and wing lake and up most of the mountain is straightforward, while the final couple hundred feet is fun class 3 with just enough exposure to keep your mind on the task at hand.  Even if you don’t make it to the summit, the trails in the area are a worthy destination if you are venturing a ways out of Seattle.

The (made up) style. After brewing this concoction I asked myself, what type of beer is this since it doesn’t fit the mold of any style?  The best I could come up was a “black blonde” which also fits its namesake mountain.  We modeled this after a schwarzbier (also known as a black pilsner), which is a German dark lager that has the attributes of a pilsner but also contains just enough black malts to make it dark.  In our version we used an ale yeast.  Since a “pilsner” fermented with an ale yeast is usually classified as a blonde, by analogy we called this a “black blonde.”

The Beer. Black Blonde is a nicely smooth non-overpowering beer.  It has a nice balance between the residual malt sweetness,  light floral hop character, and minimal roast notes from the dark malts.  Don’t be put off by the slightly dark appearance, Black Blonde is not overly roasty, but rather a nice crisp, balanced character.

ABV: 5.0% Malts: Pilsner, Black.  Hops: Apollo, Halertau, Tettnanger.  American ale yeast.