BY MATT STEVENS for WEEKLY VOLCANO | 10/23/2026
The last days of the PNW second summer were on us as I made the trek to The Parkway to find something interesting. The 90-year-old tavern in Tacoma’s North End had gone through most of their fresh hop beers, so I was left with something not interesting on the fresh hop board, or the others. I went with the others. I got myself a Holy Mountain Demonteller Saison – because life is always better with saisons.
The beer pours a gorgeous golden yellow with a healthy bright white head. It looks great. It’s cloudy, but not thick or dense. A great start.
On the nose, this beer gets a little funky, and not like a walking bass line that travels to Chicago and gets stuck three days behind the beat. Holy Mountain tells us this is a mixed fermentation and aged in foudres, which are basically huge upright barrels. That means this beer has bacteria purposefully added to the fermentation and uses the wood to manipulate the flavor of the beer to produce that funkiness. The beer nose has a front edge of hops that quickly disappear into barnyard smells. It’s an interesting combo and if you don’t like mixed fermentations, this beer may come across as quite odd. Because it is.
Most beers are produced with saccharomyces cerevisiae beer yeast. Mixed fermentation beers purposefully add different types of bacteria that add different flavors – think a standard golden ale or stout.
The first sip of this beer continues its trek of funkiness and fun. If you dislike sour beers because they are too sour, then this beer may be a great midpoint between your standard golden ales and a truly sour gueuze or kriek. We have the crispness of a dry saison, with the hop flavors that come to the front on the sip, but those hops are subdued with the barnyard and horse blanket combination. If that is a flavor profile that just screams ick to you, then this may not be the beer for you. I’m enjoying it, but I’m not sure I need a second one.
The mouthfeel continues to evolve. As I get more into the beer, the dry hops are just on the edge of coming through. Generally, hops are added during the boil phase of brewing. Dry hops are added during fermentation while the beer is cold and provide different flavors than when added during the boil. It’s such a tame looking beer aspiring to greatness. A simple 5.5% pale beer usually doesn’t have this much going on within one glass between the drop hops, the saison yeast, and the funkiness.
Overall, this is a great beer. It may make you sneeze from all those weird free radical aroma compounds that escape from your glass. But each time I have a sip, I enjoy it more.
The Parkway is at 313 North I Street, Tacoma. Holy Mountain Brewing is at 1421 Elliot Ave. W., Seattle.
