Established: July 1995
2016 Brewery Production: 472 barrels • 945 kegs • 117,118 pints
McMenamins' 12th brewery opened in the summer of 1995. The company's northernmost outpost, it's located about 30 miles north of Seattle. These days Charlton Fulton rides herd over Mill Creek's cozy brew house.
Mill Creek Brewery has the reputation as a place to find a truly fierce IPA. It’s the birthplace of Empirical IPA, which established the Mill Creek standard, and was first brewed there in 1995 by Doug Frank Goding (who had left the brewery at Murray & Allen in Portland and made the trek up north stuffed into the back of a company transport van). Lured away by the High Seas and nautical dreams, Doug has long since departed Mill Creek but the theme of a house IPA lives on as the locals are in the lengthy process of choosing their very own standard.
