The pub is in a very odd, apparently two story, red wood-sided building with a belfry and weathervane on top. The building is extremely narrow in the front, deceptively as it happens, as you enter the interior soon widens into the dining area and bar. There are rough, worn, but classy light wood floors with wide planks, a white textured plaster ceiling, and windows all along the right side. Colored, opaque, glass pendant light fixtures help to create a very comfortable pub/restaurant feel. 

The dining area is in the front and along the right side of the room. The dining tables are made of light colored, thick, and fairly rough hewn wood, and have wooden chairs. The bar area is towards the back on the left. The bar itself is an amazing wooden beam, at least 5 inches thick and 2 feet wide. Opposite the bar, defining the border with the dining section, is a similar beam, if not as thick, or as wide. Both are lined with wooden stools.

At the back there is a deck, and after descending a wooden staircase, you reach a large outdoor patio overlooking the fast moving river. The patio is a great place to be on a warm summer afternoon or evening. Wood topped tables and white plastic chairs fill the patio. Many of the tables have green market umbrellas. A stage at one end of the patio hosts live music on occasion.

The brewery is a the very back, and looks very small and simple/basic. Some of the lack of sophistication of the brewing equipment is evident in the beers, but the pub is still a worthy visit. The beers available are: Double-D Blonde, Epiphany Pale Ale, Blazing Amber Ale, Ruud Awakening IPA, Uncle Big’s Brown Ale, Hooligan Stout, Backcountry Coffee Stout, and the Brewer’s special (an Imperial IPA, on our visit).

Food is wraps, salads, and burgers, including a “create your own style” burger. The fish taco wrap we had was good, if not the world’s definitive version. 

• Ruud Awakening IPA: Light copper, hazy. Minimal aroma. Citrus, fresh, biscuit flavor. Very bitter, citrus, grainy, dry finish. Score: 3.25
• Imperial IPA: Amber color. Citrus and some butterscotch aroma. Citrus, sweet biscuit, and some butterscotch flavor. Quite bitter, dry, citrus finish with some butterscotch. Score: 3.25
  

On a good sized piece of land at the end of a gravel road, Skookum serves up good beer as well as growlers to go in a comfortable outdoor setting. There were nine beers on tap during our visit, representing a large range of ales from pale ale to imperial stout, including two IPA’s and a wood-aged beer. The Jackass IPA is quite good. The atmosphere is very friendly and local. There is no food served except for a generous supply of pretzels.

The brewery and tasting room are in a large barn-like stained wooden building. A large roll-up garage door provides a great view into the brewery, which has a wood-clad mash tun and kettle and several stainless steel fermenters. A large rusted round saw blade with the brewery’s name hangs on the outside of the building and adds to the overall impression of an old fashioned sawmill.

A good number of black metal open mesh tables and chairs (a couple with umbrellas) are distributed on the patio around the brewery and taproom.  At one end a heavy wooden picnic table and some benches surround a metal outdoor fire pit. On the other side of the building a beautiful wooden structure supports a clear corrugated plastic roof. This area is decorated with strings of lights and has several propane heaters. Several more picnic tables are available out back in the woods.

Parking is plentiful, if somewhat ad-hoc, on the side of the drive or in the back.

Beers we reviewed:

• Skookum Jackass IPA: Amber/cloudy. Citrus/floral aroma. Citrus & slightly sweet biscuit flavor. Intense citrus, bitter, semi-dry finish. Score: 4.0

• Live Long Lager: Dark gold color. Cider aroma. Crisp, tart, slightly sweet cracker flavor. Fairly bitter, lemon, dry finish. Score: 4.25
• Buck Off IPA: Amber color. Lemon, floral aroma. Floral, lemon, sweet biscuit flavor. Lemony, bitter, fairly dry finish. Score: 4.5

Methow Valley Brewing Company/Twisp River Pub
209 East 2nd Ave
Twisp, WA 98856
United States
(509) 997-6822 
methowbrewing.com

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Overall Score: 88.3
Selection: 4.8 | Service: 4.0 | Atmosphere: 4.5 | Food: 4.5

At the back of the building, adjacent to the river, is an extensive patio covered with concrete pavers and furnished with numerous wooden tables and plastic chairs. A fence constructed of wooden blocks and aluminum rails marks the edge beyond which the ground descends fairly steeply to the river. In late spring, at least, the roar of the river provides some great white noise! Along one side of the patio is a trellis supporting a wall of growing hop plants.

There are seven regular beers, two seasonals, two guest beers, and two ciders (locally made at an organic orchard from apples and pears; the apple was excellent - fruity and dry). The beers tend to lighter styles, but there is still a decent range.

Food is good and reasonably innovative in execution, if fairly traditional in style. The burgers we had were quite tasty as were the salads.

Great authentic German beer garden atmosphere - shared tables, no table service, bus your own table - make this a fun and low-key place to hang out with a beer.

There is a decent selection of beer - eight taps of Northwest craft beer and imported German beers. Food consists of quite varied artisanal sausages with sauerkraut and a wide range of mustards. In short, it is a limited menu, but the quality and variety is good.

The main room is fully paneled with light knotty pine on the walls and the tall ceiling which helps lighten up the place as well as give it a vaguely German/Northern European feel. Several huge wooden beams support the ceiling, attached to posts along the walls. Light wooden tables and captains chairs fill the room on top of dark green carpeting. Various historic alpine artifacts decorate the walls (e.g., snow shoes), and there are several big sets of antlers and somewhat odd light fixtures with decorative antlers. There is a second large room with a special wood-enclosed booth that is decorated with a nice wood-inlaid picture of the building. The outdoor area is on the second floor and is shaded by various umbrellas.

The small bar is at the back of the main room and consists of a formica top with wood panelling below and six dark green padded stools. The bar back is fairly generic, in spite of the two glass-fronted cabinets with various ceramic beer steins.

The food menu consists of a few different style burgers with fries, various sandwiches served with potato salad, halibut and chips, soups, several entree salads, German sausages, and a couple of desserts.

Overall, it feels more like a restaurant than a pub, but the beer selection is quite good - 14 taps, all craft beers on our visit, except Guiness. Several custom-made beers are on the list from Pyramid, Roslyn, and Boundary Bay, as well as some reasonably local options.

Good wood-fired pizza plus burgers, salads, and some intriguing sounding appetizers constitute the menu.

The bar itself is in an arched alcove and has a black painted wood surface and is flanked by tall black chairs with padded seats (black with a line of red piping trim). The bar area also has several booths with similar padded dark blue with red accent decor. And it is OK to come in here just for a beer.

The dining area has black wooden tables and chairs and is separated from the bar area by a low wall and the bar-area booths. The carpet throughout is an attractive dark charcoal grey with colored triangles and an accent stained-glass window style pattern. Walls are dark green and the ceiling is a dark red with ceiling fans, cream-colored beams, and a skylight in the middle. Good-sized windows line the front of the space. The open kitchen at the back has beautiful pots and pans on display. A mounted swordfish also decorates the back wall.

The food is superb. Seafood (calamari, mussels, shrimp, salmon) and steak in innovative and delicious plates dominate. The style covers the map from Italian to Asian. Our tempura prawns and the sauteed calamari with capers, olives, and tomatoes appetizers were wonderful, as was the caesar salad with cold-smoked salmon.

The IPA Festival at Cooper's Alehouse runs from April 9th-30th. Over 50 IPA's are planned to be offered this year. The first week of the festival concentrates on IPA's from Washington state. The chalk board lists the beers expected to be on hand during the first week. In addition to those listed, we also found Anacortes IPA on tap today. They offer sampler trays of four 8oz servings, and have a special food menu with items designed to complement the flavor of IPA's. They also recently expanded their hours, and now open at 11:30AM daily. Cooper's Alehouse was the first Seattle tavern to concentrate on offering microbrewery beer, and this festival which is in its 8th year is well worth attending.