• Please visit and share your knowledge at our sister communities:
  • If you have not, please join our official Homebrewing Facebook Group!

    Homebrewing Facebook Group

What brewery are you visiting?

Homebrew Talk

Help Support Homebrew Talk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Invertase Brewing Co., Phillipsburg, NJ.
IMG_7043.jpeg
IMG_7039.jpeg
IMG_7044.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Went down to Tacoma, WA to drop off my kettle for some welding and while we were down there we visited 7 Seas Brewing. 7 Seas is based out of Gig Harbor, a short throw across the Sound on the peninsula from Tacoma, and opened back in 2009, with the Tacoma location opening with a taproom and barrel aging cellar in 2016 (https://washingtonbeerblog.com/7-se...d-location-tacomas-historic-brewery-district/). Eventually they expanded brewery operations to that location increasing their capacity ten fold.

Old frieze from the Columbia brewery


The Tacoma facility is the old Heidelberg Brewing Company (née Columbia Brewing) building which shut down operations in 1979 due to "consolidation in the industry" (sound familiar?). With 80,000 sq ft they had a lot of room to work with.

Old Heidelberg brewery building

(Photo from 7 Seas website)

Heidelberg started in the early 1900s, survived the Great Depression, at least one World War, but not anti-trust regulations (at least according to https://www.brewerygems.com/columbia.htm).

But I don't care about Columbia Brewing or Heidelberg (although 7 Seas now makes and sells the latter). 7 Seas rehabbed the place and it looks great. Lots of space, vertical AND horizontal so no one is crammed together.

Taproom


The tables and bars are mostly natural wood, while planed and highly polished they retain their natural look. The building reflects the industrial heritage of the area and maintains the warehouse feel of the building. The windows along the far wall are just slightly too high up to really be able to see anything aside from the tops of buildings and sky, for instance.

Pinball machine room


It has shuffle board, some vintage and modern pinball machines and a "canteen" kitchen that is run by another local brewery from Vashon, Camp Colvos.

Kitchen


It also has an event space for rental.

The brewery itself is separated by a window wall but you can sit at the bar and watch the brewers operate.

Brewery with fermentors and bright tanks


We could smell something mashing at the time but all they were doing close to us was cleaning out fermentors. I couldn't see all of the vessels but they had at least two rows of 75 and 50 barrel fermentors.

Glass of barley wine on a counter


They make about a dozen beer styles with maybe double that in individual beers, although some of those are seasonal. I've had their IPAs, sours, stouts, and a barley wine and they are all solid, although I wouldn't consider the sours or barleywine to be world beaters. The IPAs are very good, consisting of WC, hazy, black, red and doubles.

Merch and museum displays


They have a large selection of merch but also a nice collection of Columbia and Heidelberg swag from up to a century ago. I thought it was odd that they also had some Rainier memoriabilia but makes sense if the previous owner had to divest from Heidelberg after buying Rainier. They have some one-off growlers made for their anniversaries that made me very envious.

I'm not a big fan of the restrooms. The men's restroom is somewhat exposed and not great for shy bladders. Parking could also be an issue. Both times I've visited I have found street parking, but during an weekend evening it would probably be a bit of a walk.

This is a great beer joint with a fun history, well worth the drive down from Seattle. Next time I go I will have to wait for better weather and see if they have a patio.

Glass of stout on a counter
 
Last edited:
Pinball is a great idea for a tap room and $0.25 a play is fantastic idea. I would kill to play Asteroids or Galaga.
I recently bought a 1939 jukebox. The guy I bought it from is a pinball guy. He's encouraging me to buy one of his "vintage" models. These are the relay styles. So maybe in my future and a little more room, a classic next to my jukebox!
 
This place in Asheville NC has 14 of their own beers on tap and does 4oz and half pours. I would have tasted more beers but the good burger I had there for dinner had me stuffed.
 

Attachments

  • E4970505-A052-43CB-A57A-4DBD0473F142.jpeg
    E4970505-A052-43CB-A57A-4DBD0473F142.jpeg
    147.2 KB
  • 8292AE35-8F29-494B-80C6-2C0E9779C12D.jpeg
    8292AE35-8F29-494B-80C6-2C0E9779C12D.jpeg
    1.3 MB
  • A148CA99-1BA1-40BD-80D0-E5F2F657D7EC.jpeg
    A148CA99-1BA1-40BD-80D0-E5F2F657D7EC.jpeg
    877 KB
  • 4D05D18E-3BC6-4FEF-B2F3-22F8F895BEBF.jpeg
    4D05D18E-3BC6-4FEF-B2F3-22F8F895BEBF.jpeg
    2 MB
  • CDCF4C78-6E10-4C18-B0F8-4375BDE5017E.jpeg
    CDCF4C78-6E10-4C18-B0F8-4375BDE5017E.jpeg
    1.6 MB
  • C0B3ACB0-297D-496C-AF89-AD486215BF51.jpeg
    C0B3ACB0-297D-496C-AF89-AD486215BF51.jpeg
    1.7 MB
Back
Top