Pre-construction photo of the spot shared from Spinnaker Bay Brewing’s website. Click to see more.

It has been a mystery to me as to how there is currently no brewery in the Rainier Valley. This large residential area on the south side of the city can claim the Columbia City Alehouse as their single beer-centric spot. It seems like the perfect place for a neighborhood brewery to open up. Well, let the countdown begin. Spinnaker Bay Brewing is planning to open at 5718 Rainier Ave S, located just south of Columbia City in the Hillman City neighborhood, by March 1. As a south-end Seattle resident myself located in Beacon Hill, I couldn’t be happier with the news.

I reached out to co-owner and brewer Janet Spindler, and I’ll let her tell you a bit about Spinnaker Bay Brewing in her own words:

It has been a mystery to me that with so many beer drinking residents in the ‘hood, we had no local brewery.  I have been living and home brewing in the area since 1995, all the time planning a brewery in my head.  Back then we didn’t even have the Columbia City Alehouse.  It wasn’t right.

My partner, Elissa, is a rock star Accountant for a company that owns over 40 restaurants.  She liked my porter and encouraged me to follow my dream.  With skills that compliment mine, we figured we would be a good team.  Spinnaker Bay Brewing was born.

Spinnaker Bay is on Lake Washington in the Prichard Beach/Rainier Beach neighborhood near where we live.  We found a space near the marina on Spinnaker Bay with the idea of opening a nano brewery.  When the deal fell through we spotted a space in Hillman City that was very rough but had great potential and it was close to Columbia City.  We were able to make a deal on it so we decided to become a mid-sized production brewery with a tasting room.

Our plans are to open by March 1st or sooner.  We will have a custom 4bbl brewing system from Psychobrew in Michigan (my home state), custom kettles from Stout Tanks in Oregon, and fermenters from Pacific Brewing Technologies in California.  We have 35bbl capacity and plan on supplying the local restaurants and pubs and our tasting room.

Our post prohibition and nautical theme tasting room is located at 5718 Rainier Ave S.  It is at the corner of South Mead street and next door to Rocket Crossfit Training.  We have a parking lot and will have a food truck on site when the tasting room is open.  We will begin with the tasting room opening for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evening hours and Saturday afternoons.

Our beers will be some of my award winning home brew recipes.  We will begin with my Scottish Export, English Pale Ale, and Robust Porter.  We will have a rotating tap with one of my seasonals or a guest tap.

We have been fortunate enough to have friends like Alex Dittmar of Airways Brewing and Skip Madsen of American Brewing who have answered so many questions and for allowing me to work with them in their breweries to gain experience on a large scale.