Precious Things Offers Stunning, Welcoming Experience

Reliving the quaint past of craft beer can be interesting...and instructive. Cash laden investors and hedge funds hadn’t yet entered the scene. Early craft brewers were stuck cobbling together makeshift breweries with their personal savings and borrowed money. Craft beer hadn’t yet arrived. 

On a recent trip to Spokane, I entered a worm hole that took me back to yesteryear. The area is home to a robust craft beer movement that’s probably a decade or so behind Portland in its evolution. There are a lot of small breweries catering to a growing audience of fans. 

My travels took me to Precious Things Fermentation Project, located in rural Spokane on the property of Jeff and Candace Clark. There, the Clarks have fashioned a unique experience with a collection of nice beers and a small taproom that has a ton of charm. You can't make this stuff up.

“We’ve been fans of craft beer for as long as we’ve been of drinking age…maybe longer,” Jeff said. “We’ve always been attracted to the camaraderie. It’s impossible to count the number of long lasting and close friendships we’ve made because of craft beer.”

The Clarks got totally hooked on craft beer while they were living in Portland, 2010-2015. Those years were instrumental in what they’re doing now, they say. It was then that they learned how to brew and started collecting the memorabilia that is now featured in their taproom. 

“The vision for what became Precious Things occurred to us about five years ago,” Jeff said. We had a bar set up in our garage, first in Oregon and then in Spokane. People would stop by and drink our homebrew and commercial beers. We had a tip jar, but it always seemed to wind up empty.”

While they enjoyed the experience of having people over and drinking good beer, the cost became unmanageable. They eventually decided to go into business for real and actually become part of the industry they had come to respect and love. 

“It’s ironic,” Candace said. “Many of the people who used to come to our place and drink for free now come here and pay to drink. And they leave tips. They could've saved money by just putting a little dough in the tip jar in the first place.”

Precious Things has a nice list of beers, but it operates on a tiny system. Even by the standards of the early craft brewers, it’s amazing that they get by with what they’re using. Of course, there are reasons for everything.

“Our system is incredibly small,” Jeff said. “You might say it's stupidly small. We still brew on two Grainfather systems we purchased years ago and brewed on before we moved here. Our plan when we moved here was to build a 2-barrel system. But the property won’t allow it.”

The issue with the property is it has a septic system and drain field. There’s no sewer in the area. Water disposal isn’t a huge problem, but disposal of solid waste (yeast and trub) is. The tiny system they have now doesn’t present much of a problem. Anything larger is a problem.

“We continue to use our Grainfathers, and we invested in four small conical fermenters and a glycol chiller to control their temperatures,” said Jeff. “We’ve managed to be open on Saturdays for two years doing this. For the last year, we've had an arrangement with Bellwether Brewing allowing us to brew on their pilot system and enjoy access to dry and cold storage.”

They do plan to expand the brewing system, though the taproom will stay exactly as it is. 

“We’re hoping to build a 3.5-barrel brewhouse here,” Jeff said. “The new building would allow us to move out of Bellwether and brew everything here. We’d also have more cold storage, as well as room to expand our barrel program." 

That plan hasn’t come to fruition because they haven’t been able to find a builder willing to do the work. Home construction in the Spokane area is off the hook crazy.

I had not searched out images of the taproom prior to my visit. It’s housed in what was once a garage. I expected a grubby space and was stunned by the aesthetics when I walked in. The place was packed and the visuals transported me to another place. While I enjoyed a few beers, Jeff and Candace poured beer and mingled with patrons. A most welcoming place.

“The aesthetic of our taproom has been influenced by places we love in Portland and beyond,” Candace said. “Places like Horse Brass Pub, Saraveza and Belmont Station, as well as the Cat's Eye Pub in Baltimore and the Delirium Café in Brussels. We really love to drink beer at places that have a lot of things to look at.”

For the Clarks, the overriding mission has always been to create a community of craft beer drinkers. That mission appears to have been largely accomplished in the two years they’ve been open. The busy taproom was evidence enough of that. 

“We love learning about beer, talking about beer, brewing beer, and of course drinking beer,” Jeff said. “We make beer for people we like and people we want to meet. If you love any of those things (learning, talking, brewing, drinking), then we make beer for you!”

If you find yourself in the Spokane area, a trip to Precious Things is definitely recommended. They don't currently have a website, but you can find them on Facebook and Instagram.

 

Whistle Punked in Spokane

Compared to the Portland beer scene, which is spinning wildly out of control with breweries and pubs opening seemingly every week, the scene in Spokane is relatively calm. Nonetheless, there's a quality craft beer culture on the rise there.

Craig Hanson

Last week's trip to the Inland Empire to visit family included several brewery stops. Each of them was impressive in it's own way, but the one that continues to stand out in my mind is Whistle Punk, located in a unique basement space in downtown Spokane. 

Co-owner Craig Hanson, who doubles as the longtime wrestling coach at East Valley High School, was behind the bar and happily chatted me and others up on the Whistle Punk story. As always seems to be the case, there were some interesting twists and turns involved in getting the place up and running.

"I got involved in brewing when I was a college student in the eighties," Hanson recalled. "It was a cheap way to make beer. Later on, my son [co-owner] Matt got interested. Pretty soon, friends started asking us to supply beer for weddings and other special occasions. We obliged."

They were selling so much beer by 2013 that they figured they ought to get a license. At that point, the original name, Hanson Brothers Brewing, resulted in a trademark dispute with the Hanson Brothers singers. Rather than fight it, the brewing Hansons took the path of least resistance and changed their name to Whistle Punk, an old logging term that refers to the guy who blew the whistle on a steam donkey (look it up).

"The name and branding have been well-received," Matt Hanson said. "We get guys here who've been in the logging industry and they know what a whistle punk is. They like it. And it seems to have wide appeal with a lot of our patrons."

With the name in hand, the Hansons began selling kegs to a few key outlets in 2015. The objective was to collect feedback on the beers and build some name recognition. Mission accomplished. But they knew selling beer out of their own space was the future. That's become the Holy Grail of craft brewers in recent times.

In May 2017, they landed in a charming downtown space which formerly housed the Brooklyn Nights lounge. It's a sunken space bathed in brick and rock walls. As with many pubs and breweries, exposed wooden beams complete the visual picture. Tables and chairs of various heights provide apparently ample seating. Nice digs.

No beer is produced  here. The Hansons brew on a tiny 2-bbl system located in nearby Newman Lake, then transfer the beer to the tasting room. Fresh, small batch beers rotate through on a regular basis. Although they will soon upgrade to a 7-bbl system, their goals aren't changing.

"We really like being taproom-focused," Matt Hanson said. "Moving to a larger system will allow us to do a little outside distribution and participate in some festivals, which is tough now. But we'll continue to make a great product and sell most of it in our taproom. That's our profit center."

As for the beers, everything in my flight was solid. Coast to Coast IPA is a juicy hazy with a bit of bitterness. Good stuff. Another one I liked was the Espresso Milk Stout, which is aged on bourbon-soaked vanilla beans and blended with cold brew. This beer is 7.1% ABV, but drinks a lot softer and lighter than that, thanks to the lactose. There's also Spruce Tip Pilsner, a terrific beer.

The beer scene in Spokane remains well-behind what's happening in Portland and Seattle. That, I believe, is because Millennials have flocked to the larger cities and are driving the craziness there. But Spokane is on the upswing, catching up nicely, doing things right.

Whistle Punk visitors can check the current tap list on their website. It's constantly changing and they update it regularly. I advise verifying their open hours the same way.