Fueled By Beer

Hi, my name is Paul Rayner and I’m blogging to you from Bellevue, Washington. You may already know me by my other name: “that kid in the candy store” people always talk about – yes, that’s me.

Back in the summer of 2008 I moved my family from the beer wasteland of south Florida to the Pacific Northwest knowing nothing about the region’s beer heritage.

Being an ex-pat Brit I grew up with an appreciation for warm, flat English-style beer, and it didn’t take long for me to realize that I had come to one of the few places on this side of the pond where draft and cask-conditioned ales rule over everything else – especially over those girlie lager styles that pass for beer elsewhere in America.

During the summer of 2010 I naively embarked on a quest to uncover Puget’s Perfect Pint: I say naively because initially I set out to find the best single beer. Later, after discovering there are simply too many amazing individual beers here, my quest morphed into finding the best brewery. Six months and 50+ brewery visits later, in January 2011, I announced my choice; Elysian Brewing.

But what does this have to do with alternative energy you may be asking? Well, as each new ‘discovery’ in my quest to find Puget’s Perfect Pint motivated further ‘exploration’ – which I conducted exclusively on foot and by public transit – I had less and less need for a gasoline-fueled automobile – in other words I am Fueled By Beer - get it?

My original intent with this blog: to provide insight into the many Seattle-area micro-breweries, as well as how to get to them in keeping with the spirit of Fueled By Beer; i.e. without a car, has now (in January 2012) been accomplished. Going forward, I may post from time to time if a noteworthy new brewery opens, or if I simply feel like ranting on about some other topic.