On Wednesday the 26th, Elysian Brewing Company hosted a virtual Zoom-based tasting events for press and media folks to promote the company’s 25th anniversary and The Box, a 23-beer-and-extras pack being sold in Washington state (and which was shipped out to media, myself included). Obviously we didn’t taste all 23 beers; rather, six made the cut that served as something of a guide for the brewery’s history:

• Contact Haze Hazy IPA
• Salt & Seed Watermelon Gose
• The Wise ESB
• Prometheus IPA
• Snailbones IPA
• Space Dust IPA

The tasting was led by co-founders Joe Bisacca and Dave Buhler, and folks had a chance to ask questions of the founders as well.

One of the extras in The Box is a 25th anniversary Fanzine the brewery put together with information tidbits and odds and ends, so I’ve peppered a bit of that in with this post.

Here are my notes about the event and thoughts about the beers, starting with some Elysian history. And further disclosure that didn’t make it into my earlier post about The Box (because I hadn’t received them yet): the brewery also shipped participants a set of six snifters for the tasting, and provided (via email) Door Dash gift cards to be able to order food for it.

Elysian was founded by Bisacca, Buhler, and Dick Cantwell, and opened the doors of its first brewpub in 1996, in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. The Wikipedia page about the brewery summarizes the trio:

Cantwell had been a homebrewer who gained a reputation at the Duwamps Cafe, the Pike Place Brewery, and Big Time Brewing. Buhler is a former spirits wholesaler and Bisacca was a home brewer and a vice president at Seafirst Bank.

Additional locations followed. From 1997 to 2002, Elysian ran a brewpub at the local GameWorks arcade. In 2003 the Tangletown pub and bistro opened, followed by Elysian Fields in 2006, and the production facility in Georgetown in 2011. Over the years the company has won a number of awards, including the GABF’s Large Brewpub of the Year several times in its early years.

On January 23, 2015, the (infamous) Anheuser-Busch acquisition was announced, which dropped Elysian from the ranks of the Brewers Association’s craft brewers. Cantwell was the sole dissenting voice to the deal, but was overridden; he left the company not long afterward.

Depending on your point of view, the AB-InBev acquisition was either a dark day and a black mark on the industry, or a smart and inevitable business decision. Regardless, the sale adds an asterisk to any story involving Elysian.

Since then, AB has taken Elysian national, and grown Space Dust IPA into its flagship brand, among other things.

Bisacca and Buhler led us through the six beers with background and anecdotes as they related to the company’s history. Two thoughts about this. First, they went in order from lightest to heaviest (the list as I posted above), whereas I would have gone in chronological order.

Second—no pumpkin ale? A bottle of Night Owl Pumpkin Ale is included in The Box, and personally I think that is a significant enough beer to Elysian’s history and identity that it should have been included. (It could/should have replaced one of the four IPAs in the lineup.)

At any rate, here are my notes about each beer—though, I’m going to discuss them in the chronological order I mentioned, as near as I can figure, rather than the order we tasted them.

The Wise ESB (5.9% ABV, 39 IBUs)

Notable because this is the first beer Elysian brewed, way back in 1996, and still remains a fan favorite to this day, albeit usually only on draft. It’s an old school American brewpub “classic” brewed with crystal malts and the three “C” hops—Chinook, Cascade, and Centennial, and the brewery doesn’t shy away from maintaining that recipe.

One of the stories shared by the founders is familiar to many early start-up breweries, that of having to run cold water over the fermenter to keep temperature control on that first brew.

My notes as I tasted: This is an old school, malty-rich brew that has nutty notes and even a hint of smoked/peated malt (at least to my palate). There’s a solid bitterness running through the middle of this.

I don’t know if that smoky suggestion was intentional (no smoked malt is included in the Untappd description), a product of my imagination, or perhaps even a hint of chlorophenols, but honestly, I enjoyed it.

Prometheus IPA (6.7% ABV, 60 IBUs)

Another early beer, inspired by a red ale brewed at Big Time Brewing where Cantwell worked before founding Elysian, Prometheus essentially became a red IPA version of that Big Time red. This is another brew that embraces crystal malt and is hopped with the 3 Cs.

The label for this 25th anniversary edition were created by Fantagraphics (as were many others), a long-time design collaborator with Elysian.

My notes: Drinks more like a hoppy amber than an IPA, but there’s still a nice hoppy bitterness to give it an IRA feel. There’s a nutty, caramelly malt character (as advertised) and a resinous hop note at the back.

Space Dust IPA (8.2% ABV, 73 IBUs)

Space Dust represents the “modern” IPA era for Elysian, and the final of these three to be developed and brewed before the AB acquisition. Back when Mosaic was the new and upcoming hop variety, the brewery wanted to craft an IPA with it; however the first back of Mosaic hop pellets looked like it had been dragged behind a car, with the pellets basically “turned to dust.”

“Space Dust” became the internal name for the beer, and when Elysian put it on tap, it was a hit and became hugely popular. The hop bill in the recipe has changed over the years, with the current iteration featuring Chinook, Citra, and Amarillo.

A founders story about the label: at the time Space Dust was being releases in bottles, the brewery was releasing beers left and right, and the (sole) label designer at the time, Corinne McNielly, was scrambling to keep up. The original label for Space Dust (still in use, with the big hop with the face with dust trailing out of the mouth) was basically a direct lift of an old Pop Rocks candy label. During the “three week panic” of what they could do, the owners contacted General Mills, owner of the trademark, told them what happened and apologized, and asked if they could use it. Since it was an old, vintage label, General Mills called back three weeks later and gave Elysian the go-ahead.

The label in the anniversary pack, with a variety of design sketches, are actually sketched designs drawn up during that three week panic as possible alternatives.

I didn’t take notes specifically on this, because I’ve reviewed Space Dust here. It’s a really good IPA.

Salt & Seed Watermelon Gose (4% ABV, 10 IBUs)

If I got my notes right (which I may not have, I was trying to type and listen and missed part of the description (blame the beer?)), this beer is a bit of a play on umeshu, a Japanese plum liqueur, for a sour ale, along with the idea of salted watermelon, and a squeeze of lime. Elysian brews the beer with a bit of acidulated malt along with doing a lacto culture souring (I’m assuming as a kettle sour), but also blends it with a “mother base” sour beer to get the acid levels right.

A note about the label, which is fanciful and looks like a creative Photoshop: it’s 100% real, down to the carved watermelon, letters written in salt, and the alligator clips holding up the “Elysian” sign. I would not have guessed that.

My notes: Pale peach flesh color with a slight haze. Subtle watermelon rind that’s earthy and juicy. It’s gently tart with a noticeable saltiness and a touch of watermelon and a touch of citrus. Light, with crisp/earthy finish.

Snailbones IPA (8.5% ABV, 63 IBUs)

Another strong “modern” IPA that plays with newer hop varieties. The unusual name came about from a naming session (“naming is hard”) trying to come up with something was wasn’t trademarked—in this day and age, a perpetual issue for every brewery. Essentially, they had a big list of words that they mashed up in various combinations and liked how “Snailbones” sounded.

For the 25th anniversary, Elysian commissioned 27 different labels for these cans going into The Box, and did a call out for multiple artists for each variant label.

My notes: Clear, copper-golden color, really attractive, with a good fruity nose that has a touch of allium and cattiness. Solid drinker with well balanced bitterness and great herbal flavor that’s slightly dank, with a green balance all the way through. Solid.

Contact Haze Hazy IPA (6% ABV, 39 IBUs)

This represents Elysian’s foray into hazy IPA territory and thus exploring the new, trendy styles. Contact Haze was the first in the new “Contact” series, which includes Full Contact Imperial Hazy IPA (my review of that is here) and Altered Contact Tart IPA (both included in The Box).

Contact Haze is full of new variety hops, including Southern Passion, Sabro, and Sultana hops.

I didn’t take any tasting notes because I did already review Contact Haze here.

As I mentioned earlier, I wish Night Owl had been included in this tasting since pumpkin beer has become an integral part of Elysian’s identity. Bisacca and Buhler did touch on it a bit, with some backstory on how the Great Pumpkin Beer Festival got its start and how it has grown (in recent years, it’s become a bit more of a “harvest” beer festival in theme). And when someone else asked about fresh hop beers, I slipped in a question about fresh hop pumpkin beers—which Elysian has indeed brewed.

The one that stands out was Nymphogourdiac, brewed with pumpkin and fresh Amarillo hops, and the founders mentioned that the TTB questioned the name for approval, they said it meant “someone obsessed by pumpkins.” Which apparently satisfied the TTB and the name got approved.

One other tidbit that was mentioned on the call, and confirmed in the fanzine: the label for the bottle of Avatar Jasmine IPA in The Box has seedlings embedded in it, so you can literally peel and plant the label into a pot of soil and it should grow. The note says “seed variety may vary” so I really have no idea just what might grow, but something should.

Even this box isn’t just a box to ship the beer and extras; it can be repurposed into a lightbox for photography. That might be more ambitious that I’ll be with it, but it’s a creative use for something that would otherwise be recycled.

There are of course other beers in The Box—17 more—so I’ll be reviewing a number of them as I go.

So—Elysian at 25, through the lens of six beers, a fanzine, and a virtual tasting event. There’s an undeniable legacy there, asterisk included, that’s made its mark on the Seattle (and Pacific Northwest) beer scene.