Ram Restaurant and Brewery Northgate

 Ram Restaurant and Brewery Northgate 01Aug2017

I have been holding back the visit to the Ram to use it as a dinner date. Renee and I were treating my sister, and the food of chain-restaurant caliber along with fine beer sounded good. No bus rides for me on this trip as I have a designated driver.

The entrance to the Ram as seen from the parking lot

The Ram has an outpost at Northgate firmly planted in the mall while the entrance is on the outside. The front is configured to present the greeter’s desk as you enter, 

Greeter's station to the right, restaurant seating to the left, and Renee checking out the dominant sports theme

and once inside you see the large open restaurant seating to the left and center while the bar is to the right.

The bar behind the greeter's station

The everyday beer list is at the table and a seasonal beer list is presented with the menus. Both clearly list the beers ABV and bitterness in IBU.

Beers are available in 10 ounce, 16 ounce and 20 ounce servings and I bought a short flight of three 10 ounce beers.

From l to r: 71 Pale Ale, Barefoot Wit, and Big Red's IPA

Tasting Notes:

Barefoot Wit (5%, 15 IBU): Hazy gold. Wit beer yeast aroma, a nice Belgian smell with corriander. A sweet taste with peppery phenolics and a wheat bite. Faint orange and some spice. Sweet finish.

71 Pale Ale (5.5%, 40IBU): Gold and orange with some haze. Piney and peppery hop aroma. Sweet and bitter with hop flavors and biscuit maltiness. Bitter sweet finish.

Big Red’s IPA (6.2%, 65IBU): Hazy red-gold. Citrus hop aroma. Sweet and bitter balance in the flavors with citrus hops. Bitter finish.

The Ram is a destination restaurant, not a neighborhood joint. I suspect that they draw mainly from shoppers at Northgate. If it were not for the quality of beer, I would not bother much with the place. The food is pub style and filling but nothing special. The everyday beers are pretty uniform across the franchises, but, I believe, the local brewer is given a certain amount of autonomy. Even if the recipes come from a ring binder the beers at the Northgate outpost are well executed and are completely suitable for washing down dinner. Renee and I find ourselves here occasionally as a good compromise for us. She can usually find something on the menu that suits her, I can eat just about anything, and the beer is usually to my liking. As an indication we rarely visit the Ram at U-Village as it is out of our way and I would never go there alone, unless I was trying to visit every brewery in Seattle city limits. The last time I went was on a pub crawl several years ago.