Tap Handle #285: Pyramid - Weiss Creme

It's hard to believe I've listed 285 taps and this is the first Pyramid tap I have acquired. I haven't really liked Pyramid taps very much, but this is a beauty. It looks like a real ice cream cone - the detail is superb. Simply an awesome tap!

Click through to read more about Pyramid Brewing and their Weiss Creme...

An old Hart Brewing tap

Pyramid was originally named Hart Brewing, which was founded in Kalama, Washington in 1984 by Beth Hartwell and Tom Baune. A pioneer of craft brewing in the Pacific Northwest, Hart's signature beer was Pyramid Pale Ale, which was soon followed by the well-regarded Wheaten Ale in 1985. Wheaten Ale was the first American year-round wheat beer produced since Prohibition. In 1989, five investors from Seattle bought the brewery. The extra funds allowed Hart to expand by building a second brewery in Kalama in 1992, and helped purchase the Thomas Kemper brand, which had been brewed on Bainbridge Island in Seattle. By this time, Hart was the fourth-largest craft brewery in America. In 1995 they opened a third brewery in downtown Seattle, across the street of what would later become Safeco Field, home of the Seattle Mariners, in the Sodo neighborhood.

In order to continue to grow the business, Hart Brewing filed an IPO in 1995, and with its approval in 1996, renamed itself Pyramid. While the IPO generated a much-needed infusion of cash by opening in the low $20s, within the next year, after renovating an old warehouse into a brewery and brewpub in Berkeley, California, the stock price had plummeted to single digits. Although the owners had touted the benefits of a local brewery in Kalama during the IPO, a planned brewpub never materialized; instead, the Kalama breweries were closed and production was shifted to other locations, while the company's headquarters were relocated to Seattle. Restaurants were opened in Sacramento and Walnut Creek, California, and in 2004 MacTarnahan's/Portland Brewing in Portland, Oregon was purchased. The stock price continued to fall under $6. Pyramid sold off Thomas Kemper in 2007. By 2008, investors decided to cut their losses and approved the sale of the brewery to Magic Hat, who immediately shut down the Seattle brewery (but left the brewpub open), shifting all brewing to Portland and Berkeley.

In 2010, North American Breweries (NAB), who was owned by a private equity firm called KPS, purchased both companies and their assets, and in 2012 they allowed brewing to begin again at the Seattle facility to try to regain local interest. However, later that year NAB was purchased by Cerveceria Costa Rica, a unit of the Costa Rican company Florida Ice & Farm Co. KPS earned $388 million in cash from the sale, more than 9 times the capital they invested. One of their first moves was to close the restaraunt in Sacramento in 2013, which was suffering from increased competition in the renovated K street area.

Through the years Pyramid consistently racked up awards in beer festivals, and at one time had the largest year-round selection of beers in the U.S. Their current lineup features 6 year-round varieties, with 32 seasonal and specialty brews.

Weiss Cream is a spiced wheat ale that is new to the year-round lineup. It is brewed with orange peel and vanilla, then nitrogenated to provide a smooth texture. Weighted average on ratebeer.com is 3.02 out of 5.

Pyramid Brewing Official Website