What bar serves the most Rainier in Tacoma? This neighborhood joint is top 10 in the U.S.
The bartender was on his way before Michael Holmes and Scott Raley sat down at their usual corner table, by the window.
It was 11:15 a.m. at the Top of Tacoma Bar and Cafe, not long after the beloved McKinley neighborhood watering hole had unlocked its doors for the day, and there was no question what the two longtime friends would be drinking.
Rainier tallboys, coming right up.
“It’s easy. It’s not too filling,” explained Raley, 52, of his lunch hour beer decision-making process. “I’m not really a big fan of too much microbrew. Usually I drink Coronas. But at lunch, I always come in and get two Rainier tallboys — then back to work.”
Raley works in construction, but clearly not at one of those job sites that frowns on drinking at lunch. He’s known Holmes, who’s in real estate, since elementary school. For the last nine months, the friends have been working just down the street, restoring one of Holmes’ rental properties.
Every day at lunch it’s the same thing, they said: Some food from the bar, two Rainiers apiece — with an alcohol content of 4.7%, it’s basically spring water, they figure — and a game of cribbage. Quickly doing the math on his phone, Holmes calculated the duo has consumed 576 beers since they started — all of them Vitamin Rs.
So why did I interrupt their well-oiled lunchtime routine?
Unwittingly, Holmes and Raley’s consumption has contributed to an accomplishment that, at least in Tacoma, feels very prestigious.
The Top of Tacoma was recently recognized for selling the 10th most Rainier of any bar in the United States last year, as a sign now proudly hung above the bar proclaims.
According to brand manager Sean McKillop, Rainier identified the top 15 bars for sales across the country in 2021, and Top of Tacoma was the only bar from T-Town to make the list.
Holmes and Raley — who traced their love of Rainier back to the classic TV commercials of the 1980s — weren’t surprised.
“It’s a good, basic lager, you know?” the 51-year-old explained over the ambiance of a Queens of the Stone Age song. “I’m not a big fan of the IPAs; it’s a lot of alcohol and too many hops. Just not my flavor.”
“But this,” Holmes continued, gesturing at the glistening can in front of him, “is a simple beer, with a history here in the Northwest.”
If ever there was a town made for Rainier, Tacoma — a place with dry, cracked knuckles and a paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle — feels like it. With all due respect to more local easy drinking lagers, like the recently resurrected Heidelberg, Rainier is a no-frills beer that can’t help but feel like home.
More pointedly, with all due respect to the beer’s storied history in Seattle, today — now more than ever — Rainier tastes like it’s brewed with places like Tacoma in mind.
Greg Rodriguez, general manager at Top of Tacoma, said that — even before the folks from Rainier presented him with a shiny new sign — he was well aware that the bar sells what he described as “a ton of” Rainier.
Top of Tacoma caters to a diverse crowd of regulars, many of them with backgrounds in local music, he said, and the beer is a second-nature go-to for many, whether it’s shifts of longshoremen relaxing after a long day or an aging garage band warming up before practice.
“It’s definitely a staple for our clientele,” said Rodriguez, a service industry vet who has lived in Tacoma for roughly two decades and plays in the local rock band The (Expletive) Eagles.
“Rainier is definitely a blue-collar kind of beer,” Rodriguez continued, noting that, pre-pandemic, it was customary for Top of Tacoma to go through roughly 20 cases and six kegs of Rainier every week..
“Tacoma does drink. And it definitely feels like we cater to that crowd,” Rodriguez said.
According to McKillop, this is the first time Rainier has identified top selling bars in the country, but it’s no surprise that all of them are in the Pacific Northwest. A regional favorite dating back to 1878, today Rainier is brewed out of state by Pabst Brewing Company and is distributed in 10 states across the west. Ninety percent of sales are in Washington and Oregon, he said.
Of the 15 bars recognized, roughly six were in Seattle, a handful were in Portland, and at least one is in Spokane, McKillop indicated.
While he declined to divulge the full list of top selling bars this week — explaining that not all of them had been notified yet, and Rainier hopes to deliver the news in person — McKillop did say that a bar in Bend, Oregon, the Podski, sold the most Rainier of any bar in 2021.
McKillop also said that at least two other Tacoma bars weren’t far off the top-selling pace; Justin and Robby Peterson’s 1111 on Hilltop and the Red Hot on Sixth Avenue both sell an impressive amount of the beer, he said.
Still, in Tacoma, the Top of Tacoma is top dog, McKillop said.
“They’ve been at the top of our list for many years,” McKillop said. “Tacoma feels a lot like Seattle did 20 years ago — it has a bit more of that kind of grit to it, in a good way — so it makes sense.”
Raley agreed, telling The News Tribune that he has no plans to alter his lunch plans anytime soon.
Rainier might not be the best beer, but it suits him just fine, he explained.
“It’s good beer, and not like one of those IPAs that’s going to get you faded,” Raley said.
“It’s just iconic.”
