TUMWATER, Wash. – The Golf Course in the Valley of the Shadow of the Brewery is really the course in the valley of the shadow of the empty, decaying, long-defunct former brewery where once they made Oly. That crime against the drinking public notwithstanding, it’s sad and a little creepy to see the huge buildings and vast acreage sitting neglected, unused and apparently unusable.
Since the last big corporate owners of the brewery shut it in 2003, it’s been wannabe “owners” and temporary “holding companies” and visionary “public-private developers” who can’t quite get enough actual cash onto the barrelhead.
Now comes the next guy up, and skepticism still rules the discourse. But maybe, just maybe, this time … well, we do hear things.
The city of Tumwater, which owns the golf course and retains a keen interest in the future of the brewery, is making its Olympic Flight Museum out on Old 99 available for the South Sound Spirits Gathering, a trade fair and tasting Saturday for close to 20 craft distillers from Seattle and points south and west.
The city, according to the local rag, is hosting the event to get the eyes of the drinking public on the new Thurston Craft Brewing and Distilling “partnership zone” – i.e., a brewing and distilling center to be established by the city at the old brewery facility.
It’s a start, maybe, toward a beginning. The city, it seems like, wouldn’t get this far down the road if the man with the plan wasn’t packing the moneybags along with bringing the noise.
In the meantime, while we wait and see, we can get our drink on from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Olympic Flight Museum, 7637-A Old Highway 99 S.E., Tumwater. Sip, eat snacks, 40 bucks.
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