Highland Park Brewery opens pop-up Washington taproom
Highland Park, the popular and award-winning Los Angeles brewery, is opening a pop-up taproom on Orcas Island in Washington this summer. From July 1st through atleast August 1st, Highland Park owners Bob Kunz and his partner Tiff will be running a Highland Park beer garden at the Lone Pine Larder restaurant and market.
“I’ve always dreamed of bringing my love of the Pacific Northwest together with my passion for Craft Beer. Well, we’re finally making it happen as we’ve put together plans with our friends at Lone Pine,” says Kunz.
In 2024 Highland Park had one of the most impressive showings of all-time at the prestigious Great American Beer Festival where they won four gold medals in some of the most highly competitive categories: American-style IPA, contemporary American-style lager, American-style pale ale and juicy/hazy imperial IPA, and Brewery Group of the Year. But Highland Park is probably best known for their hoppy pilsner called Timbo Pils, the beer that is said to have originated the West Coast Pilsner style that is currently dominating taplists across the world.
The pop-up is both a homecoming and a reunion for Kunz and Tiff, who grew up north of Seattle in Edmonds and Mukilteo, and then went to college at Western Washington University in Bellingham. While living in LA, they got to know Spencer and Sabrina Bezaire, owners of two of their favorite restaurants L&E Oyster Bar and Ezsett. Spencer helped Highland Park open the kitchen at Highland Park’s Chinatown facility, and then a few years ago they sold their house and restaurant and moved to Orcas Island to open Lone Pine Larder.
“We’ve visited them every summer (we LOVE it there) and they kept nudging us to come up and do this with them and we finally said, 'what the fuck! Let’s do it’, and here we are. HPB Beer Garden on Orcas Island. It’s a bit wild and loose, but should be very fun,” says Kunz.
The Highland Park Brewery beer garden will basically operate as a 2 month pop-up operating Wednesday through Saturday from 12 to 7pm, and Sundays from 12 to 3 pm. They will be pouring six HPB beers on draft, plus they will have can pours of other special beers available on-site or to-go.
“Essentially what’s fresh, we’ll be rotating and pouring,” says Kunz, noting that they will have a new beer shipment coming in weekly. “We plan to have Timbo (West Coast Pils) and Baseball (rice lager) pouring the whole time and then rotate through west coast hoppy beer and hazy hoppy beer. We’ll probably rotate through a fair amount of hoppy beer through the two months.”
Both Kunz and Tiff will actually be living on Orcas Island and pouring the beers in the garden themselves. They’ve also found time to make a few special collaboration beers with Hood River, Oregon’s pFriem Family Brewers and Yakima, Washington’s Single Hill Brewing.
The HPB Beer Garden will be in a big grassy lot surrounded by trees just below the main Lone Pine Larder restaurant in the middle of East sound.
“We’ll have the beer pouring at a beer bar outside all day. Spencer has a fresh summer menu with some seafood (fish sandwich!), some wood grilled items, wings, etc. It’s gonna be awesome! His food is incredible” adds Kunz.
The Highland Park Brewery Beer Garden will run at least from July 1st through August 1st, with the potential to run a little longer.
Lone Pine Larder,
18 Urner St, Eastsound, WA, United States, 98245
