The Ale Master -- Brewing Pioneer Bert Grant Isn't Shy About Proclaiming His Ale As The Best

YAKIMA - Meet Bert Grant's biggest fan: Bert Grant.

Sure, a lot of people like his Scottish Ale, but who states unequivocally: "This is the best ale in the world"?

Who thought his beer was so good it might be accepted as payment at the brothel next door - though he swears he never had time to find out?

And who just published an autobiography modestly titled "The Ale Master" with the subtitle, "How I pioneered America's craft brewing industry, opened the first brewpub, bucked the trends, and enjoyed every minute of it"?

If you answered "Bert Grant," to all of the above, pat yourself on the back and pull up a pint of ale.

The 70-year-old, kilt-wearing Scotsman, credited with starting Washington's first microbrewery and the nation's first post-Prohibition brewpub, wants people to know he knows what he's talking about.

Seattle is Grant's major market. The Blue Moon, F.X. McRory's and the former Jake O'Shaughnessey's helped launch his success.

But with publication of the book, co-written by Seattle author Robert Spector, Grant has packed up his kilts for a tour that has him signing books and pouring suds as far away as Denver, New York, Miami and Atlanta.

Like frothy beer from an open tap, self-confidence gushes from the man who was running a hop-processing plant in Yakima and started making his own brew because he couldn't find anything there worth drinking.

"I've always made beer to please myself," he insisted over lunch at the Yakima pub last week. "If other people like it, I'm glad. If not, there are plenty of other beers around."

A little biography is in order: Grant was born in Scotland and raised in Toronto, making it impossible to tell whether Scotland or Canada is responsible for the fact that he pronounces stout "stoot."

He inherited his passion for quality from his father, whose beverage of choice wasn't beer, but scotch.

"He always said, `We'll have no cheap whiskey in the hoos; single-malt or nothin' at all.' And quite often it was nothin'," Grant recalls.

But there usually was beer around, and Grant remembers small sips even as a youngster. "I wasn't allowed to guzzle it, and I wasn't allowed to take the cap off, but if someone had one open, they might might give me a taste."

An early start

His first brewery job came at the unlikely age of 16.

At the time, World War II had cut the number of workers available, and a Canadian brewery boss came to his school looking for the best chemistry student. "That would be me, of course," Grant recalled.

So each day, he worked in the brewery's lab before school, tasting 50 to 100 beers a day, to the amazement of his friends.

After several jobs for other beer companies, he came to Yakima in 1967, but it wasn't until 1982 that he opened his brewery, when some Yakima beer-lovers offered to help bankroll him.

The pub was a natural addition, he said, when the Scotsman in him got tired of giving free samples to everyone who stopped by.

As we sat in a wooden booth at the pub, Grant wrapped his hand around a pint of Scottish Ale, one of three pints he drinks daily.

In front of me was a circle of eight small glasses holding samples of his current products. Counter-clockwise around a place mat, they progressed in color from the clear straw shade of the India Pale Ale, to reddish tones in the Scottish and Amber ales to the dark brown and black of the Perfect Porter and Imperial Stout.

A beer's color comes from the kind of malt used and how long it's roasted, while the flavor is derived from the combination of malt, yeast and hops.

Grant's personal favorite beverage is his Scottish Ale, and he seems untroubled by the fact that the strong hop essence makes it a bit too bitter for some consumers. Maybe their taste buds will grow up one day, he allows.

On the plethora of Northwest microbrews vying for space on store shelves and tavern taps, Grant managed this semi-compliment: "There are fewer undrinkables out there than a few years ago. Actually some are not too bad."

But when talk turned to an amber ale now popular at Seattle watering holes, he scowled. "Horrible stuff . . . It tastes like they stopped fermentation halfway through."

With an extensive background in chemistry, Grant loves to discuss technical aspects of roasting malt and processing hops, and as he did, my attention drifted out the window to the vanity plate "REAL ALE" on his Saab Turbo 9000 in the parking lot.

Following my gaze, Grant smiled, calling it an "excellent road car," that becomes especially stable over 90 miles an hour.

I had read about the license plate, I told him, except the article I saw had it on a Rolls-Royce.

"That was two cars ago," he noted. Turns out the Rolls didn't have the ooomph he wanted, and the Jaguar V12 that followed spent too much time in the shop.

About making beer

In our conversation, Grant was relaxed and friendly, not bombastic, and I searched for the right way to ask about the persona that comes across in some of his pronouncements on beer, a tone that seems . . .

"Like I'm egotistical?" he asked.

Instead of taking offense, he grinned. "I just make beer the way I think it should be made. I've been called a workaholic and I take it as a compliment."

The pub today is larger and fancier than its predecessor, just a small room in the brewery he opened in Yakima's old opera house. "There was room for six people to sit down and six more people to stand," he said.

Now the pub is a spacious restaurant in a former train station and the brewery has moved to an industrial area south of downtown.

The biggest change in recent years came in 1995, when the brewery was purchased by Stimson Lane Vineyards and Estates, which owns several Washington wineries, including Chateau Ste. Michelle.

The sale meant an infusion of capital that allowed Grant to double production. It also brought a change in the product name from "Grant's" to "Bert Grant's," made to increase customer awareness of the person behind the brew.

Not all aspects of the sale please Grant's faithful customers.

I returned to the brewpub several hours after our lunch, when pints were going for $1.50 at "Tightwad Tuesday."

Two Yakima city employees, planner Dan Valoff and design engineer Dan Ford, both said the beer is as good as ever, but bemoaned the gentrification of the pub.

"Look around," Ford said. "They've got kids in here now, brass rails and everything. It looks like . . . like a Seattle restaurant." (The way he struggled with the last two words, I sensed he did not mean them as a compliment.)

Grant's co-author, Spector, has also written books on Nordstrom, Frederick & Nelson, Eddie Bauer and Rainier Bank. As the two worked on the project, Spector took Grant to some pubs in Seattle, "and the reaction was as if I brought in Ken Griffey Jr."

The book features a forward by internationally known beer authority Michael Jackson of London, who is in Seattle today signing his own latest book, "Ultimate Beer."

Grant plays a major part

Grant's is far from the largest of Northwest regional breweries. His 20,000-barrel output last year is a fraction of the 215,000 produced by Redhook Ale.

But his role in the industry's history is undeniable, including helping persuade the Legislature to allow beer with more than 3.2 percent alcohol in grocery stores.

A fellow brewer offers some insight into Grant's nature.

"He is colorful, I'd say on the edge of eccentricity," said George Hancock, owner of Maritime Pacific Brewing in Ballard. "But he's well-respected in the industry and he's been around forever."

Hancock takes no offense at Grant's claim to be making perfect beer.

"We all believe what we do is the best possible way of doing it," he said. "Otherwise, why bother?" ------------------------------- Beer authority in Seattle

While Yakima's Bert Grant has hit the road to promote his book, "The Ale Master," one of the world's foremost beer authorities, London's Michael Jackson, is in Seattle signing copies of his newest book, "Ultimate Beer."

Jackson will be at Cutters Bayhouse, 2001 Western Ave., Seattle, from 5 to 7 p.m. today, 206-448-4884.