USA, WA: Poulsbo's Slippery Pig moving brewing operations to Bremerton

There are beer kegs piling up in Dave Lambert’s front yard and it’s starting to annoy him. Lambert, the owner of Slippery Pig Brewery who's known for his kilts and quirky style, also has boxes of glassware shoved up against the walls in the Front Street location and underneath its pinball machines, while full kegs are towered in the walk-in, leaving little room to squeeze by, Kitsap Sun reported on February 1.

Now, Slippery Pig is about to get a little more space to breathe. Lambert got the keys for a large vacated retail space on Callow Avenue in Bremerton’s Charleston District, has moved his brewing tanks south and plans to open a new location in March.

The Slippery Pig has been a resident of Poulsbo since 2010, first at a farm off Finn Hill Road and then the downtown location. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, business began to change. Familiar customers began buying to-go food to support the brewery during the shutdown, Lambert said, and as restrictions eased the demand for the brewery’s food continued to grow.

The kitchen got busier, and now the Slippery Pig has a bigger staff than ever before, Lambert said. That’s all good, but Lambert says that came at the cost of room to produce beer, as he’s sharing the 40- to 50-square-foot space with the kitchen staff, separated by a tiny divider.

“If we stay just with that one location, it's one or the other; the brewery's got to go, or the kitchen's got to go, and we're not willing to give either one up,” Lambert said. “So about three and a half years ago, we started looking at a building just for brewing.”

After Lambert spent seven months trying to close on another building, a friend mentioned 645 N. Callow Avenue to him, a vacant spot just south of 11th Street in Bremerton. Lambert remembers the retail building used to be a Pay ‘N’ Pack where he and his sister would visit to pick out Hot Wheel cars when spending time with their grandparents, and later became an indoor dirt go-kart track.

The facility was up for rent, Lambert said, and getting keys to the place was just as easy as signing the lease.

The Slippery Pig’s second home is nearly gutted and ready for a new occupant. Ladders and light fixtures, brewing kettles and bar beginnings are scattered across the concrete floor as Lambert and a friend walk in and out of a garage without a door.

While they wait on electrical and plumbing, a garage door and an occupancy permit, they are picking away at projects like skim coating the floor and painting the interior.

The Bremerton location will differ from its Poulsbo predecessor, Lambert said. His wife, Shawna, envisions a textural wall with moss and tree branches. The space will also be complete with pinball machines and skee-ball, without the regular band performances Slippery Pig patrons are used to. It’s an echo thing, Lambert said.

Brewing will be the focus, now with more room, Lambert said as he motioned to the area he envisions the "tank farm." After getting brewing operations established, the next mission will be to open a tap room within the space and then remodel the kitchen back in Poulsbo. Next year, Lambert hopes to bring a kitchen to the Bremerton shop.

The elbow room on Callow Ave will also allow Slippery Pig to can more beer, he said. But mostly, he’s looking forward to the menu a less squeezed Poulsbo kitchen can bring.

“Brock in our kitchen has promised me hand-dipped corn dogs, so I'm mostly excited about that,” Lambert said. “We'll be looking at burgers, fries. It's downtown where we get the tourists and they just expect burgers, fries.”

As the new neighbor on the Callow Avenue block, Lambert said they’ve already received a warm welcome – with a side of high hopes.

“That particular space that they're going to occupy is one of the largest retail spaces on the Callow in the Charleston Business District that has been vacant for some time,” said Faye Flemister, president of the Charleston Business District and co-owner of Unique Experience Custom Embroidery. “That is a huge influx of potential customers and more activities… making it produce life and energy and positive influence in the business area.”

Callow Avenue used to be a vibrant hub for business and activity, boasting cultural events, art and music, Flemister said. But when the area began to lose some of its established businesses, seeing shops close down or move away, Callow Avenue became “kind of desolate.”

Lambert himself remembers Charleston as a place where a 12-year-old wouldn’t want to come at night, but is excited to be “a really perfect fit to bridge that gap to the far end of Callow.” The Slippery Pig is already integrating into the community.

Before Lambert and his team even looked at the building on Callow Avenue, he gave fellow brewery owner Jesse Wilson a call, to make sure he was alright with the Slippery Pig becoming a neighbor just down the road from his business, Ridgeline Brewing.

“We're excited about the growth that's been happening here in the Callow area,” Wilson said. “Poulsbo's been able to do a lot with their brewery culture out there as far as beer runs and other pub crawl-type events that bring a lot of folks in from out of town and bring a lot of folks out onto the street. So we're really hoping to be able to capture the same thing here in Bremerton.”

Lambert and Wilson have partnered together before, but they are hoping to collaborate on a brew together sometime after the Slippery Pig moves in, Lambert said. “We want to compliment their business.”

In the meantime, Lambert is preparing his 20-year-old son to step up to the plate as a brewer. Lambert and his wife will be hard at work, switching between the locations every day, Lambert said. He may not know what the beer tastes like yet, but “my hope is to get my youngest kid brewing so that I can kind of step away when I need to… I think our next brew day, I'll be able to step away for almost all day.”

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