Pumpkin pie pizza? This Tacoma brewpub infuses intrigue and its own beers into food worth trying
Tickled with roasted garlic and a medley of Italian herbs that sneaks into each bite, the crust of Odin Brewing’s pizza is beholden to two important elements: beer and the gas-powered Wood Stone oven that idled for months after The Hub vacated the 6,000-square-foot space at 203 Tacoma Ave. S.
These unexpected flavors are a pleasant running theme of executive chef Kristen Lyon’s menu at this new brewpub, which opened, somewhat quietly, in June. Outdoor seating remains open through current COVID-19 restrictions, plus takeout five days a week.
Downstairs, with an entrance off St. Helens Ave., Northwest Brewing simultaneously took over the old Harmon Brewing space with a casual taproom serving savory pies from a Seattle bakery, aptly called Pint & Pie.
Lyon and her five-person kitchen staff embarked upon an ambitious food program that has been mildly derailed by the pandemic — she anticipated rolling out a retail market with packaged sauces and pasta, for instance, for easy at-home meals. Though she still believes in that plan for the long-term, for now they are focused on serving from-scratch food to diners outside and at home.
They make meatballs and lasagna noodles and orecchiette for a popular mac and cheese with a rosemary cheddar. The Cubano’s pulled pork entails two days of marinating, followed by a six-hour reduction that reinvigorates the meat.
The summer menu, not available now but a hint at Lyon’s approach, featured playful appetizers like “cheese crack,” housemade pimento cheese that arrived with a pinwheel of Ritz crackers, and the crowd favorite pickle pie, a white pizza with ribbed pickle chips, red onion and skinny strips of bacon. Sprinkled conservatively with dill, this pizza exemplifies Lyon’s ethos in the kitchen: “simple, delicious, accessible, but just a little bit different.”
“The pickle became the pumpkin,” Lyon recently confessed, referring to the current Pumpkin Pie pizza with butternut squash, goat cheese and prosciutto atop a pumpkin cream sauce. “I don’t ever want it to be 20 different pizzas. I want it to be six pizzas and one changes, or three change. It keeps people coming back, and keeps employees and kitchen staff involved and not stagnant.”
That approach, she said, has attracted first-time guests and resonated with return customers throughout the summer and fall.
What remains consistent is the pizza dough, which ferments for at least 24 hours and is hand-stretched to order before spending eight to 10 minutes in a 550-degree Fahrenheit brick oven. This temperature allows the undercarriage to develop a crispiness, while retaining a “nice doughy crust” akin to focaccia. The beer’s natural sugars also impart a sweetness you won’t find in the tang of sourdough or a straight-yeast mix.
It’s a thin-crust pizza, not as New York as Salamone’s but not as nearing-Neapolitan as Tacoma’s other new brewery pizzas at E9 and Sig, which also opened earlier this year.
ODIN BREWING, TACOMA TO TUKWILA
Odin Brewing founder Dan Lee and Lyon both lamented the strife of this year but expressed gratitude for the Tacoma community having welcomed them as best it can.
Despite having a prime location with a view of the bay and a big space for private events, said Lee, “There is the harsh reality of operating in these times.”
In the early days of Odin Brewing, nearly a decade ago, before microbreweries dotted the American map, he had one goal: make “great beer designed with great food in mind.”
The brewery moved to its Tukwila production space in 2014, where food “played second fiddle to the beer,” he said. It went something like this: He wanted to have a taproom. Then guests asked for snacks, so he arranged for food trucks to satiate the masses. Now the space houses a kitchen that, pre-pandemic, churned out sandwiches and other beer-friendly foods.
Odin Tacoma has not only reinforced but expounded on that mission, revealing a glimpse of what it could become once people can flock to the high-ceilinged, brick-walled restaurant in after-work droves.
Depending on how the next few months unfold, said Lee, brewing will start in the downstairs production room, fingers crossed, by 2022.
ODIN BREWING TACOMA
▪ 203 Tacoma Ave. S., Tacoma, 253-301-3636, odinbrewing.com
▪ COVID-19 hours: Wednesday-Sunday 1-8 p.m. (open until 9 p.m. Saturday)
▪ Menu: starters $6-$12, pizzas $16-$27, burgers/sandwiches $10-$16, entrees $16-$20
▪ What to expect: heated, covered outdoor seating; order takeout online
This story was originally published December 11, 2020 at 5:05 AM.