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Ballard Is Buzzing Over Fair Isle, Its Newest Brewery

Ballard Is Buzzing Over Fair Isle, Its Newest Brewery

The owners of Fair Isle Brewing have been extremely busy for the last three years, although not with selling beer.

Fair Isle started with an Instagram post back in 2016, announcing that the owners had impressive beards (they must know beer) and were going to start a brewery in Seattle with a little help from their spiritual advisors at the venerable Texas brewery, Jester King (so hot right now). They launched a crowdfunding campaign and reminded the world a dozen more times they are friends with Jester King (4real though, wow, legit beer connect). The beer didn’t start flowing but the social media stream couldn’t stop.

They were seen on Instagram holding glasses of beer while wading off what appeared to be the Washington Coast (legit), or posing as they vacuumed fields of grain (funny and legit), or carrying wicker baskets as they foraged for ingredients in winter fields (fuck, these guys definitely know beer).

They hosted drinking salons around Seattle where they shared their homebrewed beers and debated whether or not they should be calling them saisons or mixed culture beers or farmhouse ales (they eventually decided on saisons). They launched a beer club (called the Knitting Circle) so people could pay more money to get more of their hypothetical beer. Then they reminded the world that they’re friends with Jester King.

But selling beer was the one thing this Very Online Brewery wasn’t doing.

Now that’s changed. As of last week, Fair Isle Brewing has successfully transitioned from an Instagram marketing concept into an actual brewery. And the beer is actually… quite good.

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