Meet the Man Behind Puyallup River Brewing

With this being my first post here on the Patch, I thought some great content to introduce myself to the community on here would be an interview I recently had with the newest brewery in Puyallup, set to start serving this wonderful beverage this spring. 

I got an opportunity to sit down with Eric Akeson, of South Hill, Puyallup to talk for a few about Puyallup River Brewing, one of south Seattle’s newest up-and-coming breweries. Eric is still in the process of finalizing the mounds of paperwork and legal issues surrounding opening your own brewery for the public. As we speak, a building to house his new 1bbl brewing system was just completed and and he hopes to be pouring his wonderful creations at beer festivals next spring!

Below are some highlights from our one-on-one interview - 

When did you get into brewing? Who got you into it?  — In 1995, I started working at the Rosehill Alehouse and Cafe’ in Kirkland.  It was the first non-smoking “micro-brew” oriented alehouse on the east side.  We had 32 micros on tap, including a beer engine for cask conditioned beers, and a hard cider.  The owners of the bar were all home brewers in college… so it was only natural to buy an extract kit and brew a batch of beer…. that was the only batch of extract that I have ever done, as I borrowed my boss’ all-grain equipment and got a lot of help from them, and all of the other brewers that frequented the Alehouse.

How long have you been homebrewing? First batch was in 1996.What made you want to take the “leap” to a nano?  I would like to be able to share my creations with a wider local audience.  I have always wanted to start my own business.  Brewing beer is something that I really enjoy… so a Nano Brewery somehow made sense to me…. hopefully it’ll still make sense six months from now.  :^)

Why Puyallup River Brewing?  I wanted to name my brewery after something local to the Puyallup area…. all of the beers will be named after locations in and around Puyallup, the Puyallup River System, and Mount Rainer.

When do you hope your beer will be ready for commercial sale?  I hope to be good to go by springtime 2012.

What is your favorite local brewery?  Naked City…. What a cool place, cool owners, great beers… Plus, Don Webb was one of my most favorite regulars at the Rosehill Alehouse.

What is your favorite style to brew? To drink?  I don’t necessarily have a favorite to brew, but my favorite style is a nice dry hopped pale ale.

If you could have one beer, and only one, what would it be?  Winthrop Outlaw Pale Ale…. on cask!  Too bad that brewery no longer exists.

What should be the first beer from Puyallup River Brewing we should look out for?  There will be several beers for initial release… but I’d say to watch out for the Lahar Imperial IPA. 

Look out for Eric and Puyallup River Brewing on upcoming segments on my web page www.thebestcraftbeer.com. Additional pictures of the building being built, equipment being installed, and the first batch of beer being brewed for commercial sale. In the meantime check him and Puyallup River Brewing out on Facebook.

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Cheers!

-Craig