Letterpress and craft beer. These two artistries are at the forefront of the South Sound's creative scene. Over the last decade, the area has become a magnet for creative types of every stripe - especially letterpress artists and craft brewers. Chandler O'Leary, Jessica Spring, Chris Sharp, Beautiful Angle's Tom Llewellyn and Lance Kagey, J Hukee and othershave been fighting against the Kindle tide with small presses and handmade fonts, displaying their work in dentists' offices, bars, street corners and large shows, such as Wayzgoose. The other set of bib-wearing craftsmen put just as much time, energy, thought and humor into designs that help brand their beer and distinguish their products. Beginning in the '90s, a firehouse, an electrical station, a Ram and a Fish inspired the new talent in 7 Seas Brewing, Wingman Brewers, Narrows Brewing, Tacoma Brewing Co. and others, landing them with their own taprooms, spots at notable festivals and space in grocery stores.

Then, there's Harmon Brewing Co. Tacoma's first craft microbrewery cares as much about art and image as it does producing award-winning beers. Co-owners Pat Nagle and Carole Ford will tell you they're restaurateurs first, but crafting quality beer and presenting it in creative ways is always on their minds. They've paired their beers and one-off brews with the bicycling community, snow and sun celebrations, music festivals, airplane rides, holidays, bridge re-opening celebrations, city celebrations, and one of their favorite partnerships, art exhibits at the Tacoma Art Museum. Harmon has created seasonal beers in conjunction with huge exhibits at TAM dating back to 1998, including the Hop Art Ale, a season IPA in celebration of "Andy Warhol's Flowers For Tacoma."

"We really enjoy the collaboration, the community and city government involvement in creating the Art Museum beers. We met with the Tacoma Art Museum folks, examined the Warhol exhibit, knocked around ideas and walked away with flowers on the brain. We incorporated four flowers in the Hop Art Ale - lavender, rose hips, hibiscus and chamomile. The Art Museum designed the label and coasters. They sold the beer in their store. We put it on draft in our restaurants, with coasters everywhere. Everyone's talking about the show, the museum and Tacoma craft beer - I love that," says Nagle, with enthusiasm.

Harmon Brewing Co. will once again team up with the Tacoma Art Museum, this time crafting beer around a Northwest print art show opening June 7.

Ah, all my babbling comes to a point.

"Ink This! Contemporary Print Arts in the Northwest" will shine a light on raised metal letters inked and pressed into heavy paper by notable Northwest artists over the years. The exhibit will hang through Nov. 9, 2014. Naturally, over the course of the exhibit, TAM will host many lectures, workshops and events centered on contemporary print arts in the Northwest.

What pairs well with lectures, workshops and events?

Beer.

The Tacoma Art Museum asked Harmon to brew a beer for "Ink This!".

Harmon came back with ... drINK THIS!  

"drINK THIS WHITE IPA is a medium-bodied IPA brewed with three different malted barleys that make up just over 60 percent of the grain bill," says Nagle. "White wheat makes up the other almost 40 percent, with five different hop varieties - Simcoe, Centennial, Cascade, Amarillo and Citra - used in the kettle."

Nagle says it was then dry hopped with a sixth variety of hop, Sorachi Ace, which was chosen for its tropical fruit and lemon aroma flavors.

"Bold flavors of orange, lemon and melon give away to a crisp, clean and smooth finish," he adds.

drINK THIS dials in with a 7.6 percent ABV and 65 IBUs.

The beer will make the same rounds as its other arty predecessors. It will be sold in TAM's store and be available at special Museum events. The Harmon will have it on tap at its four restaurants: Harmon Brewery & Eatery, Harmon Tap Room and The Hub in Tacoma and Gig Harbor.

While the exhibit doesn't open until June 7, drINK THIS will sneak into a couple earlier events. It's scheduled to be a part of the Walk Tacoma UWT/Brewery Walk after party at the Harmon Brewery & Eatery Wednesday, May 21. Click here for details.  

Others will have the opportunity of snatching drINK THIS even earlier. The national American Alliance of Museums organization will hold its Annual Meeting & Museum Expo in Seattle May 18-20, with a couple busloads of museum directors, curators and educators traveling south to visit the Tacoma museums. During an evening gathering at the Tacoma Art Museum May 19, the group will score a taste of Tacoma - drINK THIS.

"We're going to have drINK THIS coasters in all our locations, with the Art Museum on one side and the other side blank. We're going to come up with fun stamps so you can personalize your coasters and take them with you," says Nagle. "Hopefully, it will entice people to visit the exhibit."

Crafty.

INK THIS! CONTEMPORARY PRINT ARTS IN THE NORTHWEST, June 7-Nov. 9, 2014, Tacoma Art Museum, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday-Sundays, 1701 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, $8-$10, 253.272.4258

While many people who head to the newly opened Smoke + Cedar are looking for the slow-roasted prime rib, the half-pound chuck burger, Team Dino's cocktails and the awesome happy hour, I drive up the hill for the mac and cheese. An order brings the perfect amount of orecchiette pasta (means "little ears") mixed in with owner Gordon Naccarato's version of the Augusta National pimento cheese recipe, then spackled with panko and crumbled  "Ritzy" fire cracker crumbs. The mac and cheese is served in hot skillet, which keeps it hot and prevents the concoction from sticking to the pan - good idea, since you don't want to let a single bite escape. it's freakin' delicious.

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Whatever you do, don't call the Harmon Brewing Company's Stadium District restaurants "McMenamins."

I made the mistake of dropping that term during a conversation with co-owner Pat Nagle about his remodel plans to make the Harmon Tap Room and The Hub more of a destination. "It's not McMenamins," he shot back. "We're not adding a hotel or movie theater."

I've known Nagle for some time. I've never met someone more passionate about the restaurant and brewery business. If he says his new plan doesn't mimic McMenamins then, hey, I'm not calling it either (although I did notice a slight smile on the man's face).

Nagle, and his business partner, Carole Ford, are transforming the Harmon Tap Room, and in a way The Hub above it, into one single destination for families. Phase one is nearly complete. The Tap Room's outdoor beer garden has been remodeled, complete with new tables and concrete walkways. If you're thinking dirndl-wearing beer maids bearing big tankards of frothy lager, think again. You need to think families - dining outdoors, under Tivoli lights, next to a fancy new fence, with giant Jenga games and music on the way, only to be interrupted by the brewmasters wheeling kegs toward the cold storage. The keg highway through the beer garden, or Harmon Garden as it now is known, will disappear in June.

The Harmon, like many other breweries across the nation, is aspiring to be more than just a place where patrons drop in for a mug or a quick bite on the way to somewhere else.

"We have two restaurants and the huge all-ages outdoor Harmon Garden, a private events space, the brewery behind glass - it's more of a destination," says Nagle, nibbling on a Tap Room street taco, while pointing to each subject's location - including The Hub straight above. The Tap Room turned family-friendly this year, but the outdoor beer garden was a 21 and older hangout. If you take your beer out to one of the Garden's long, wood tables today, don't be surprised when two fifth-grade St. Pat's students slam down their root beers on the same table and high-five because their teacher, Mr. Moore, is "rockin' cool."

Over the next four to six weeks, Nagle and Ford will remodel the stairway between the two restaurants, allowing an easy flow.

"The only outdoor seating at The Hub is in the bar. If a family wants pizza or a pulled pork grinder in the sunshine, down the stairs they can descend and out to the Harmon Garden," explains Nagle. "It's that easy."

Other changes include a freshening of the Tap Room's facade. In June, expect to see window dressings and awnings. Wood fencing has replaced the chain fence around the Garden.

As I mention, the keg route to cold storage is changing.

"The area off the Tap Room's back room will be remodeled, insulated and fitted to be a bottling and keg-filling center, opening up the brewing room for more tanks," says Nagle. This will eliminate having to cart the kegs through the Harmon Garden. The kegs will soon only travel several feet into cold storage. Gone will be the crowded bottling situation in the brewing room, and awkward flow through the Garden."

Also on the way are menu changes, seasonal specials and holiday dinners.

The Hub and Harmon Tap Room should be integrated by mid-June, just in time for graduations.

Now, if there was a hotel on top of The Hub. ... Just kidding Pat!

HARMON TAP ROOM, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday, all ages until 9 p.m., 204 St. Helens Ave., Tacoma, 253.212.2725

It's Friday, which means I tempt you with another South Sound mac and cheese dish I believe is worthy of the Tournament of Mac and Cheese next spring. Of course, you, the reader, will ultimately decided the fate of the dish when nominations open in February 2015.

First, a touch of mac and cheese history. Thomas Jefferson helped make macaroni and cheese popular in the United States after sampling it in Italy. He brought home a pasta maker and introduced the dish in 1802. Mac and cheese is obviously the food of presidents, for it was also Ronald Reagan's favorite. Reagan enjoyed a little dry mustard and Worcestershire in his mac and cheese.

OK, on to this week's mac and cheese suggestion. ...

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"Cinco de Mayo," Spanish for "the sink is full of mayonnaise." OK, not really. I made that up, which is only fitting, because the idea that May 5 is a big holiday celebrated throughout Mexico is also made up. This yarn was spun by some PR hack for Corona beer back in the '80s, when the company was looking for a way to get Americans to drink more beer.

Since this is not an especially hard task, they didn't work especially hard on the idea, not even hard enough to note that Mexico's real Day of Independence is Sept. 16. Cinco de Mayo commemorates The Battle of Puebla, where Mexicans defeated the French army, and in Mexico is mostly a regional holiday. Ordinarily, Americans don't cotton to anyone except Oliver Stone replacing facts with fabrications, but in this case, with beer consumption at stake, we were more than willing to overlook a little lie.

So here we are, decades later, stuffing our faces with nachos (another American invention) and toasting each other with mugs of Corona as we celebrate the truly American tradition of making up holidays to boost sales.

Holy mole! Why celebrate the fake holiday by drinking tasteless beer? It's the perfect opportunity to celebrate Mexican culture and drink Mexican craft beer.  Mexico's beer market is the 5th largest in the world by volume: 1.77 billion gallons per year to be exact. Certainly beer-loving Tacoma has a few Mexican craft beer bottles ready for Monday's holiday.

OK, a little research proves grabbing a craft beer created South of the Border might be a challenge. Apparently, of those billions of gallons that are exported - 58 percent of it is Anheuser Busch (Modelo, Corona, Dos Equis) and 41 percent of it is Heineken (Tecate, Sol) - (divide number x by number y, then multiply by 100) that leaves a mere one percent for other Mexican brewers, fighting for space on shelves and taps.

I'm still up for the challenge.

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Following on the successful heels of the Weekly Volcano's Tournament of Burgers, our editorial staff will present a new NCAA Basketball tournament-like event next spring.  Once again we'll host a number of daily games that pit one restaurant against another, leaving it to the readers to decide the final outcomes all the way down to a final four and then a grand championship. (For newbie readers, Olympia's Westside Tavern edged out Tacoma's Maxwell's Restaurant in the final seconds of this year's Tournament of Burgers.) 

The competition for March 2015 will pit 64 South Sound restaurants that offer the ultimate comfort food - macaroni and cheese.

As I explained last week, my goal is to report on a South Sound mac and cheese dish every week up to the torunament - to spread the cheesy word, ease into tournament research and, obviously, build hype. I will highlight the best, skipping reports of orange cheddar and glistening pile of noodles that hold no nutritional value whatsoever.

Let's begin with one of my favorites, the Crown Bar's mac and cheese.

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Toward the beginning of last night's Georgetown Brewing Company beer dinner at The Swiss Restaurant & Pub, Manny Chao, Georgetown's co-owner and brewmaster, explained why it was an honor that his company be the first brewery Swiss owner Jack McQuade invited to dinner. The two go way back.

Chao met McQuade some 20 years ago when he was the first employee at Mac and Jack's. With Chao's help, Mac and Jack's amber ale became the third best selling craft brew in the state. Five years later Chao left Mac and Jack's and by 2002, he and his housemate, Roger Bialous, homebrewed their first beer - Manny's Pale Ale. In 2003, Chao was back in front of McQuade, this time selling his Manny's Pale Ale, from his new Georgetown Brewing Company located in Seattle's Georgetown district.

Read the recap of the Georgetown Brewing Company beer dinner at The Swiss Restaurant & Pub.

There's something to be said for being the only one. The outpost, colors snapping in the immaterial breeze, bastion of cool, temple of special. The Swiss Tavern was that, once - 21 years ago, in a galaxy remarkably similar to the one we now inhabit.

For those unfamiliar with the terrain, downtown Tacoma hasn't always been the beautiful specimen it is today. There used to be buildings hanging by a nail, people sleeping on colorful plastic in the Greyhound station, tumbleweeds. There were old folks who'd lived here for 50 years who weren't going anywhere no matter what, damn it. And there sure as hell wasn't any expensive coffee or glass bridge. There were no fancy lofts, no condos, no valet parking, no Tacoma Link (dollar fee or not). There was absolutely zero downtown.

Then, landlords sold out to the agents of The Future. The museums were built. Colleges erected. Devotees flocked from the hinterlands. Rents were raised. The little people got, as usual, their customary part of the stick. Some found themselves in the "No. 1 Wired City"; others bought chain mail and moved their tribes to East Tacoma.

Through it all, the Swiss Tavern - or, to the initiated, The Swiss - stood alone.

Read the full story on The Swiss Restaurant & Pub's 21st anniversary.

Since Doyle's Public House opened in the spring of 2006, the Tacoma bar has attracted tourists from all over the world (Esquire magazine gave it a thumbs up), as well as become a local hangout for South Sound Guinness lovers, Jameson drinkers and soccer enthusiasts who are grateful for a spot to meet more of their kind. These folks, and those who enjoy a good time, will pack Doyle's Thursday, April 17 when it celebrates its eighth anniversary.

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Bacon exemplifies everything I love about food. Bacon ties me to my foodie forebears who cured and smoked pork belly to preserve it in the absence of refrigeration. Highly prized artisanal bacons keep alive rural American traditions and ensure smokehouse knowledge will be shared with future generations of proud farmers. Bacon provides my 11-year-old with essential nutrients such as saturated fat, salt and nitrates. Wait ... those things aren't good. Uh ... if we don't stand together, resolute, in support of bacon, cultivating a culture of pork, the entire fabric of our society will come apart at the seams!

This past month I had my fare share of bacon cheeseburgers paired with beer. It's one of the great pairings of life: Fred and Ginger; baseball and hotdogs; sunrises and strolls along Ruston Way; Bella and Edward; beer and bacon.

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