Greetings, Great Beer Now fans and followers! This is the fifth in a multi- part series of blog posts relating to the Great Beer Now Spuds and Suds Beer Tour, which took place in southwestern Idaho, from Boise northward to the mountain resort city of McCall. I got to experience the burgeoning Boise craft beer scene and several impressive breweries in the small but vibrant resort towns. Open a can or bottle of your favorite beer and follow along on my journey through the Gem state of Idaho and my discovery of the beers that make it famous. Cheers!
America’s Pacific Northwest is home to a wide variety of wildlife. Most of us, when asked to think of animals that are common to this area, will likely name predators such as mountain lions and wolves before anything else. But the state of Idaho is also known for the fish that populate its many rivers and lakes and one of those fish happens to be salmon, that peculiar fish that spends a good part of its life swimming upstream to spawn. There happens to be a brewery that takes its name from one of these hearty fish. That establishment is Sockeye Grill and Brewery, located at 12542 W Fairview Ave in Boise.
The Great Outdoors
Sockeye Grill and Brewery is a large establishment, complete with a full- size brewery and restaurant. The inside of Sockeye Brewing features lots of wood, giving it a mountain lodge/country feel. The outside landscaping, with its many pine trees, is indicative of the Idaho forests and is certainly befitting of an establishment with an outdoor theme.
Food is as important at Sockeye as the beer and many who visit here go for one of the hearty sandwiches or entrees. If you assumed that salmon would be on the menu, you would be correct. If fish is your game, then you might choose the Sockeye Salmon Cakes as a warm- up appetizer followed by a Sockeye Salmon Dinner for a fully salmon dining experience.
Sockeye Brewery churns out over 10,000 barrels of beer per year, which is enough to rank it as one of the two largest breweries in the state- a title that it trades back and forth with Payette Brewing. It is also one of the oldest breweries, with a history that dates to the late 1990’s.
Angler Sampler
Sockeye Brewing serves its beers on draft and in cans. Visitors to the Fairview Ave. location can expect to find about 12 beers on tap, including the brewery’s six mainstays. Here is a list of the beers I sampled when I visited, listed alphabetically by name followed by the style and my Untappd rating on a 5- point scale:
- Angel’s Perch Amber, American Amber,3.75
- Dagger Falls IPA, American IPA, 4
- Galena Gold, Kolsch, 3.25
- Hell Diver Pale Ale, American Pale Ale, 4.25
- Power House, American Porter, 4
- Woolybugger Wheat, American Pale Wheat Ale, 4
Overall Average Rating: 3.88
I went for a variety of beers when I visited Sockeye and I liked the Hell Diver Pale Ale the most of all. Dagger Falls IPA, the brewery’s flagship, is a solid, all- around everyday type of beer, highly drinkable and crushable.
Swimming Upstream
Sockeye Grill and Brewery is an Idaho institution and one of the best- known breweries in the state. Outsiders have likely not heard of this brewery and that is because almost all the 10,000+ barrels of beer brewed by Sockeye are earmarked for in- state consumption.
As a beer writer/blogger, I had heard of Sockeye Grill and Brewery before, but I wasn’t familiar with the brand beyond its name. I was anxious to learn more and a visit to the large brewery on Fairview Ave in Boise served as both an educational opportunity and a means to discover some of the tasty beers that the people of Idaho enjoy on a regular basis.
This brewery is all about the great outdoors and they incorporate this into the food and beer they serve as well as into the atmosphere. When you enter Sockeye, you immediately feel the warmth of a country cabin and the lodge- like surroundings do, indeed, invoke a sense of the outdoors. Pictures of outdoor scenery continue to affect your mood and you can’t help but think about the mountain wilderness and vast forests only a short distance away.
With the food and beer, the folks at Sockeye put a good deal of care into what they serve and as a big city outsider, I was looking forward to sampling something new- something that I couldn’t get back in my stomping grounds on the Texas coast. I got my wish when I was served finger steaks. They are like chicken fingers but with beef on the inside instead of chicken and with added seasoning. They were certainly different, that is for certain, and they did go well with several of the beers.
Sockeye Brewery utilizes a type of salmon as its mascot and the reddish- colored fish can be seen on the brewery’s packaging and logo. Salmon spend several years of their lives swimming upstream, returning to the place where they were born for spawning purposes. It’s a treacherous journey and only a tiny fraction of salmon survive to the end. At Sockeye Grill and Brewery, the hard work has already been completed by the dedicated staff and you, the craft beer lover, need only to arrive with your thirst and appetite intact. It’s a cool place where you can appreciate all that nature and hardworking individuals have to offer so be sure to visit Sockeye Brewing the next time you’re in Boise, Idaho. And tell them Great Beer Now sent you.
Special thanks to Visit McCall for sponsoring this visit!
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