Or, as Pyramid's Scott Barnum (billed on his business card as "Chief 'Weizen' Guy") puts it, "This is all about a new menu, new brewing, and new innovation." The PR event was also a coming-out party for the brewpub's new brewery facility. Eighteen months ago, the company had quietly shut down most production at its Seattle HQ; the Pyramid products seen in stores and bars in 31 states came mostly from its Berkeley, CA plant. Production for the Northwest states was handled by the MacTarnahan's brewery in Portland, which Pyramid acquired in 2004.

But now the brewery part of the big fancy brewpub across from the baseball stadium is back in operation. With more flexible equipment installed throughout the production line, Barnum says, "now we can do more experimental things." These will be limited-release beers, bearing the brand "Brewer's Reserve" and the signature of Pyramid's "master brewer" George Arnold. They won't be around forever, and they won't be in all the stores and bars that sell Pyramid's regular line. But at least the first of the new line will capitalize on the company's best-known product, its Hefe Weizen unfiltered wheat beer. The new brew, Imperial Hefeweizen Ale, is billed as having "a pleasant hop flavor and a more full-bodied taste than our flagship Pyramid Hefe Weizen." Yes, the company sometimes spells that as two words, sometimes as one. No, I don't know why.

Rex Lameray

On the food side of the brewpub's menu, Barnum also promises exciting new additions, giving diners "more of a beer experience. I think the fall will be our best representation of that, including desserts made with beers."

Several pub-grub-plus items were sampled at the press event. They'll rotate onto the brewpub's menu over the next several months. They included scallop kebabs, shrimp and andouille sausage kebabs, chorizo and green pepper kebabs, big chunks of sashimi tuna on even bigger portobello mushroom tops, clams, crab meat on lettuce beds, cream puffs, and blueberry parfaits. In keeping with the pub-grub aesthetic, it's all hearty stuff. Even the tuna and the cream puffs come in Hungry-Man sized portions. The new high-test brews, and the gussied-up food selections, mark another advance for Pyramid, which claims to be "one of the only remaining independent craft brewers in the Northwest."

Actually, there are dozens of other craft brewers around these parts. But many of the companies in Pyramid's weight class have folded, merged, or formed alliances with the big boys. Redhook and Widmer have distribution deals with Anheuser-Busch; Full Sail's doing third-party production for Miller; and Bridgeport is owned by the same company that imports Corona to the U.S. But Pyramid's still as "indie" as it was in 1984, when Beth Hartwell started the Hart Brewing Co. in the southwest Washington logging town of Kalama. It was bought five years later by what the company calls "five beer- loving investors from Seattle." The publicly-held company has five alehouses; it sells three "weizens," an India Pale Ale, and two seasonal brands on tap and in bottles. And now it wants its alehouses to be seen as dining destinations, not just bars with food.