Pugh (Session) Pale

Mt Pugh from the summit of White Chuck; Sloan in the background.

Session Beers. Session beers are ones that you can enjoy several of in one sitting. As such they are lower in alcohol and easily drinkable. In the Pac NW, there has been a lot of publicity about them recently. Most people focus on the alcohol content and solely define a session beer by it’s alcohol content of less than 5% ABV. But in order to have 3 or 6 of them, it has to be drinkable with no overpowering flavors. While we don’t target session beers perse, because the mountainBeers are in growlers (which if consumed by 1, maybe 2) they will be consumed like session beers would be.  Thus most trend towards those characteristics.

The session pale series. Pugh pale is a first of a ‘series’ of two. It’s a single hop beer meaning that we only used 1 hop variety for all of the additions. Pugh pale is 100% brewed with the Zythos blend.  In August, we are brewing the same base beer, but with a second hop varietal.

The name. The mountain. Mt Pugh is situated on the mountain loop hwy outside of Darrington. It looks like a diminutive peak compared to many of it’s NW partners and thus gets to be the namesake of a session beer. However, the hike up the trail is anything but diminutive as it gains 5300 ft with virtually no respite from the elevation gain.  The payoff with the views is definitely worth the trouble. Perfectly situated in the region by itself, you can see from Baker to Rainier to the Olympics and get a great vantage of all the mountains on the mountain loop hwy.

The Beer.Pugh pale is single hop ale. We brewed this in a way to try to retain a little body and backbone for being a small beer. We then used a single hop variety (Zythos blend) to give Pugh it’s character. The result is a crisp, light, hop forward beer that has all the essence of the Zythos blend.  It’s a light beer, with enough hop character that you can have a session of without killing your palate.

ABV: 4.0%.  Malts: Pale, ESB, Crystal, Acid.  Hops: Zythos.

Glacier Peak from the summit.