NEW TASTE IN TOWN >>>

Phone your beer buddies. All of them. Harmon Brewery Company has built a space where folks can gather around long tables and drink beer, eat pizza, watch the game and gab away.

Tomorrow the Harmon Tap Room (204 St. Helens Ave., Tacoma) opens its new production brewery in Tacoma's Stadium District. Pat Nagle and partner Carole Holder have been working hard for months to build a production facility for their Harmon beers that doubles as a dining and retail space in the spot that once housed Stadium Bistro.

I had the opportunity to tour the facility yesterday during a "family and friends" opening. In a nutshell, it's a slick (Rusty George Creative revised their corporate logos, bottle labels and tap handles) tasting room that seats 50 - on two giant communal tables, six or seven beer barrel tables and a couch area - where beer enthusiasts can sip on Harmon's Point Defiance IPA (India Pale Ale) and Browns Point ESB (Extra Special Bitter) and their other brews while throwing back paninis, pizza and salads. During breaks in conversation or the game, patrons may watch brewers Mike Davis, Bill Lundeen and Jeff Carson craft beer through huge windows. The Tap Room pizza with spicy sausage, black olives, red onions and a delicious buttery crust will be my game buddy.

Down a long walkway, between the production room and the long, open kitchen, sits a game room with two pool tables, pinball machines and a lounge area.

In the future, and quite possibly its flagship feature, will be an outdoor beer garden in a vacant lot next door. The large, European-style beer garden - designed by artist/architect/brewer Robert Horner - will house native plants as well as Northwest hops provided by hop grower Joel Attaway.

Nagle, managing partner at both the Harmon Brewery & Eatery on Pacific Avenue and The Harmon Hub, which sits above the Tap Room, had a permanent grin on yesterday. And with good reason. He and his partner just expanded their beer production operation in a beautiful space that will, no doubt, be a gathering spot for many folks.

LINK: More Tap Room photos in the Photo Hot Spot