Floating Bridge Brewing

Floating Bridge Brewing  21Oct2016

I walked the relatively short distance from Big Time to Floating Bridge Brewing (http://floatingbridgebrewing.com/) to get my steps in, don’t you know. I walked past the first apartment, in which I lived when I moved to Seattle, and where I met my wife. The building is still standing in the beautiful setting of a surrounding parking lot and an adjacent gas station.

I tried to get a picture from across 45th but traffic was too heavy.

Floating Bridge (open in 2016) is located in a retail space right next door to the historic Blue Moon Tavern. 

The historic Blue Moon is right next door. I should go in some day.

The address is on NE 45^th a few blocks from I-5 with the attendant traffic and traffic noise (seemingly many honking drivers were impatient to get somewhere on a Friday evening). The brewery and the tap room are all in one large open space, which is the fashion for recent breweries.

The bar and the taps are readily visible upon initial entry.

You make a 90° turn to the right to see the brewery

I bought a taster, a generous pouring of 5 by 5 oz. samples picked from a list of nine choices from Floating Bridge excluding the guest beer (from Urban Family – a touch of class). The choices were tough because they all looked interesting.

Five 1/3rd pint tasters: Bitter, Blackberry IPA, Black Current Stout, Chai Pale, and Cross Country IPA

Tasting notes:

Chai Pale Ale (5.0%, 31 IBU): Nitro pour cleared to a transparent gold. Spicy aromatics. The beer tasted of pumpkin pie spices with, maybe, some cardamom but not tea (no tea was added – I asked the brewer) and it was dry and malty. The finish was bitter and spicy.

Bitter (5.2%, 45 IBU): Clear red. Yeast aroma. Dry and bitter flavor with some low ester presence. I could drink a lot of this.

Black Current Stout (4.5%, 37 IBU): Black and opaque. Dark malt aroma and some fruit. Fruity richness and slightly sour (from the fruit) with some roast and bitterness. Nice.

Blackberry IPA (6.5%, 65 IBU): Reddish purple and clear. Fruity hop aroma. Restrained fruit and sweet malt and forward hop bitterness. Bitter finish.

Cross Country IPA (5.6%, 65 IBU): Slightly cloudy gold. Standard NW hop aroma. Very bitter, malty, and good body. I was suffering tasting fatigue at this point so I’ll just say it’s a well-made IPA.

The tasting room at Floating Bridge is not homey and yet I feel right at home surrounded by brewery equipment. The scale is such that it doesn’t feel overwhelming. Beers are well made and the English style beers are not overly sweet, which I can’t say for some other breweries.

After I polished off my tasters I hopped the 44 to roll on back to Ballard – I’ve got a dinner to prepare, man.