Big Block Brewing: Sammamish

Another eastside of Seattle run and this time not down the river trail, but rather side by side with the lake. This was also the first time that I have had company for one of the runs, with my friend Ed joining me for it.

For the run, we decided to do a 5k along the lake Sammamish trail, so we had one of our friends drop us off 3.1 miles down form the brewery and then go there and wait for us to get there. We ran about a little less than 30-minute 5k, which is pretty slow but we also stopped a couple times to take some pictures and check when we have to turn up and go up to the main road as we approached the brewery. Our clocked pace was 9:46 a mile and my heart rate was around 150 flat the entire time, so there wasn’t much challenge to it. The biggest challenge was just the fact that I wasn’t really feeling the whole running thing today.  It was a very nice run on a beautiful day though. The lake trail is fun because you get occasional great views of the water, and nonstop views of all the expensive homes that line the lake. Its fun and perhaps motivating to point out which houses we like. It was almost flat the whole way, outside of towards the end, we turned up to the road and were faced with an extremely steep hill that really got the legs burning. At the top we were rewarded with a yard with pet goats and a great view of the lake from above, which was very rewarding given the effort exerted to get up it.

When we arrived at the brewery our company was already waiting there for us. The brewery is fairly unassuming and wouldn’t say it has much uniqueness or character to it, it is in the middle of a strip mall with a decent outdoor seating area out back. The first beer I tried there was the honey pale ale and it was pretty decent, this would probably be what I ordered again if I were to go back there. Not necessarily something extremely special, but it was quite refreshing after a run. The second one that I tried a bit of was a fruity sour, which was just okay, but I am not a fan of fruity beers for the most part so can’t fault them for that. A side note, I didn’t try one but if you are an empanada fan this place is a must visit because they have a partnership or something with an empanada place and empanadas are exclusively the only food option at the brewery.

Overall, the run was delightful but the brewery wasn’t necessarily a must visit for me. I think there are a couple other breweries along the lake trail so in the future I’ll be doing other runs to check those out as it’s a lovely running trail.

RATING: 5.4