Poulsbo is about to get a
fourth brewery.
As we reported last week, Silverdale’s Rainy Daze Brewing will move north late this summer to take over Sound Brewery‘s original tasting room on Bovela Lane. (Sound is moving its tasting room to the current Campana’s Italian Restaurant building on Viking Avenue.)
Rainy Daze will join Sound,
Slippery Pig
Brewery and Valholl Brewing in Little
Norway.
With four breweries in a city of less than 10,000 residents, Poulsbo will certainly have an embarrassment of malty riches. So it’s fun to wonder where Poulsbo rates among craft beer crazy towns.
There are all kinds of ways to rank cities and states based on beer. Which has the most breweries? The most breweries relative to population? What city produces the most barrels or consumes the most beer? And which has the “best” breweries?
When it comes to breweries per capita at least, Poulsbo isn’t ready to claim the title of “Brew City USA,” as it was recently dubbed in the North Kitsap Herald.
There are a number of cities here in Washington with higher ratios of breweries to people. After all, we live in a state with more than 300 licensed breweries and a lot of very small cities.
Using a database of licensed breweries from 2015 provided by the Liquor and Cannabis Board, and the state’s official population estimates, I put together a quick list of Washington cities blessed with high brewery-to-population ratios. I ignored breweries that didn’t report any production in 2015 and stuck with incorporated cities.
Poulsbo
Population: 9,950
Breweries: 4 (once Rainy Daze opens)
Ratio: 1 brewery per 2,488 residents
Westport
Population: 2,110
Breweries: 3
Ratio: 1 brewery per 703 residents
Stevenson
Population: 1,530
Breweries: 2
Ratio: 1 brewery per 765 residents
Roslyn
Population: 890
Breweries: 1
Ratio: 1 brewery per 890 residents
La Conner
Population: 895
Breweries: 1
Ratio: 1 brewery per 895 residents
White Salmon
Population: 2,420
Breweries: 1
Ratio: 1 brewery per 2,420 residents.
Based on a quick scan, it does appear Poulsbo could become the smallest city in the state with four or more breweries. That by itself would be an accolade worth toasting.
