Wait, before you answer, one detail: Costco's private label hef will be brewed by beloved local micro-operation Gordon Biersch. With an abundance of local breweries producing excellent beers--and a freaking commission created specifically for the promotion of Washington brews--you'd think Issaquah's warehouse overlords would have kept the hop-dollars local. But no. Hef, amber and pale ales will be brewed fresh in San Jose, California. Cheers?......

photo courtesy of caseysail in the Seattlest Flickr pool. We hope this isn't a growing trend. From the Croc to the Sunset Bowl to all of Seattle's bars, it seems as though any place of which beer is an integral component is endangered with stifling regulation or closure or even the wrecking ball. The very latest, of course, is a portion of the old Georgetown brewery just a scant few days after the 104th......

Here is a statement overheard when a local brewer was talking to Ralph Olson, owner of Hopunion (A Yakima located supplier of hops to world-wide brewers), as he was getting off a phone call: That's just another person trying to get me to shit hops. Beautiful. Something really has to be up in the world of hops when the man who should have them falling out of every nook and cranny in his house......