New Beers From a Classic Company: Scuttlebutt Embraces the Future

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Scuttlebutt Brewing, now a large regional company offering over twenty styles of handcrafted beer, started humbly with a gifted home brew kit on Father's Day, 1990.

Phil Bannan Sr. made a few batches of beer. His friends were impressed with the results. Bannan Sr’s home brewing operation quickly scaled up.

Soon clusters of five gallon buckets filled the Bannan kitchen.

“‘You ought to do this professionally, they said.’ I thought about it and finally said ‘let’s jump in,’” Bannan Sr. said.

The family decided to go into business.

Phil Sr., the Bannan patriarch and company owner, seems reserved at first, but a few minutes into conversation his sharp sense of humor emerges. He wears a belt buckle that says “Got Beer?”

He sits next to his son, Scuttlebutt general manager Phil Bannan Jr., who wears a Scuttlebutt baseball hat and t-shirt.

Two generations of beer lovers who talk enthusiastically about their product and believe in it.

Senior’s favorite drink is the 10° Below Ale. Junior’s favorite is the Charlie Noble IPA.

Scuttlebutt pint on a table // Courtesy of Scuttlebutt Brewing

ORIGINS

Scuttlebutt brewed its first batch of beer as a company on Independence Day, 1996. Their first brew house had two 20 barrel fermenters and one 20 barrel bright tank.

That year they sold 170 barrels worth of beer.

In 1996 the idea of craft beer in the Northwest was just catching on. “There were maybe three craft breweries in the region, outside of Seattle,” said Bannan Jr. “By contrast, today there are over thirty within a twenty mile radius of Everett.”

Average beer drinkers of the 1990s favored “industrial”, yellow-colored beer. Think Budweiser or Coors Light.

“22 years ago there wasn’t a lot for young beer fans to do in Everett,” Bannan Jr. said. To get a decent craft beverage or experience any sort of quality nightlife, young Everett-ites had to drive to Seattle.

The first Scuttlebutt brewpub opened in an old fish processing plant on the pier of the Everett Waterfront. They offered three styles of beer. Bannan Sr.’s son-in-law was the first brewer. On the walls hung promotional t-shirts with the company’s tongue-in-cheek slogan: “The liver is evil and must be punished.”

A couple of years later the company introduced an IPA. It was cutting edge at the time—something so hoppy was considered by most beer fans to be a wild departure from the norm.

Scuttlebutt fish and chips // Courtesy of Scuttlebutt Brewery

Everett natives embraced Scuttlebutt from the beginning. “The community has been kind to us and has supported us,” Phil Sr. said.

When the company moved from the fish processing plant to their new location on the corner of Craftsman Way and 13th Street, they tripled their square footage and went from 17 employees to 77— all within a 30 day period.

Business has been booming since.

THE FUTURE

Today the restaurant is a popular spot for young families, beer connoisseurs, and people who like to eat and drink and have a good time on the Everett Waterfront.

“This area is really going to come alive,” Bannan Jr. said about the development on the Everett Waterfront.

The company is in a good place now and that’s allowed them to prepare for the next step. They’ve started canning beers and are experimenting with introducing new flavors on a regular basis.

“People come into the restaurant, they look at our tap list and say ‘What do you have that’s new?’” said Bannan Jr. “I get excited to see the experimental batches we’ve been working on. Our goal is not to get complacent. We have to stay relevant to the consumer.”

Scuttlebutt’s recently undergone a rebrand and the art on their newest cans. The artwork for the Pineapple Hefeweizen and Sundiver IPA was done by Seattle-based design outfit Blindtiger.

A lot has changed in craft beer since 1996. Scuttlebutt wants modern beer drinkers to know that they’re not the “old man on the block.”

They have three other new beers scheduled to come out between now and March 2019.

Pineapple Hef // Courtesy of Scuttlebutt Brewery

TAPROOM

I recently visited Scuttlebutt’s popular Taproom on Cedar Street in the industrial section of the Riverside Neighborhood.

The place is popular for its cornhole league, live music shows, and, of course, the taproom itself—where beer fans can taste the classics as well as one-off experimental small batches.

Tap list // Courtesy of Scuttlebutt Brewery

During the day, the back rooms of the Taproom roar with industrial brewing machinery. The warehouse is filled with towering stainless steel tanks and workers can pallets of beer to be shipped out to your local store. The overhead speakers blast dance rock music and workers hook and unhook industrial hoses as brewing needs dictate.

The scope here is pretty impressive. So this is where our local beer comes from. Right here, from this factory in Riverside.

It’s so much larger than the brew-in-the-kitchen origins of the company.

Locals know you can go to the Taphouse on Thursdays for $2 pints. It’s one of the best hacks in Everett.

VALUES

I ask Bannan Jr. what his favorite part of the job is. His answer reveals a lot, I think, about the longevity of this Everett company.

“(It’s) the awesome people we get to work with. The creativity ... every day is different. One day I’m out bussing tables, the next day I’m meeting with artists designing labels. It’s getting to work with my parents and be part of the family biz.”

His mother and the company’s namesake, Cynthia (a.k.a. “Scuttle”), is still part of the operation. She comes down to the restaurant to offer advice. Bannan Sr. describes her as the “driving force” of the company, especially in the early years when the business was getting off the ground.

Collaboration and family values: that’s what keeps this well-established brew pub growing in a rapidly changing craft beer market.

That’s something to lift your glass to.