written and photographed by Jackie Dodd

Perihelion Brewery reminds you why pubs existed in the first place. Before they became cool, hipster dwellings and trivia night havens, they were where the neighborhood gathered. A “third place” between work and home. A room with a heartbeat. A place where someone asked how your day went, cooked you something you actually wanted to eat and poured you a beer that felt like home. Perihelion feels like a throwback and, hopefully, a glimpse of what beer is evolving back into.

Opened in Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood in 2016, the brewery sits a short walk from the Beacon Hill light rail station in a part of the city that, for years, didn’t have enough good places to grab a pint.

Perihelion was founded by Les McAuliffe and Karin Paulsen, longtime Beacon Hill residents who set out to build something for the neighborhood they live in and raised their daughters in. McAuliffe had been brewing beer at home for decades before opening the brewery, and he brought that experience with him when he decided to turn a former dentist’s office and the neighboring hair salon into a brewpub.

When Perihelion opened its doors in February 2016, it filled a noticeable gap in Seattle’s beer landscape. Beacon Hill, despite being one of the city’s most vibrant neighborhoods, didn’t have its own brewery.

The name comes from astronomy. A perihelion is the point in an orbit when a planet or celestial body is closest to the sun. McAuliffe had previously homebrewed a beer called “Perihelion,” and the name stuck. It also works nicely as a metaphor. Just as an orbiting body swings closest to the sun at perihelion, the brewery aims to be a place where people come together. In practice, that idea shows up in the way the space operates. It’s equal parts neighborhood pub, community living room and craft brewery, run by a family, and you can feel it.

Perihelion runs on a relatively small seven-barrel brewing system, which keeps the beer list moving and focused on smaller batches rather than large-scale production. That setup gives the brewers room to experiment while still keeping a few familiar styles on tap. The lineup often pulls from Belgian brewing traditions, but it’s not limited to them. On any given visit you might find saisons, IPAs, lagers, Märzen or the occasional experimental release.

The smaller scale keeps things flexible and lets the brewery chase interesting ideas without committing to massive production runs.

Unlike many small breweries that rely on rotating food trucks, Perihelion operates as a full brewpub with an in-house kitchen. The menu leans past elevated pub fare into thoughtful dishes built with house-made ingredients. Paulsen and her kitchen team smoke meats and nuts with cherrywood and produce items like house-made mustard and sauerkraut for the sausages they make themselves. The food is deliberate and well made, designed to pair with the beer while still standing comfortably on its own.

The team, which now includes the couple’s twin daughters, runs the place the way you want to see a family business run—with heart and intention. They brew the beer, cook and serve the food, bake the beautiful house-made cakes and even deliver kegs to local accounts. The takeaway window they added during the pandemic is still operating, offering meals to anyone who wants to grab dinner and head home. The focus is simple. Make beer and food they’re proud of and take care of the people who walk through the door.

Seattle has no shortage of breweries. The city has been a cornerstone of the American craft beer movement for decades, and the surrounding region is packed with world-class producers. In that landscape, Perihelion represents a slightly different model than the large production breweries that dominate store shelves. The emphasis here is on kegs, well-made food and making sure the space feels welcoming.

That approach is part of what has allowed the brewery to settle naturally into the neighborhood over the past decade. Instead of chasing rapid expansion or distribution growth, Perihelion has stayed focused on what it originally set out to be: a local brewpub where good beer, good food and good company intersect.

In other words, the kind of place you wander into for one beer and accidentally stay for three. Which, historically speaking, is exactly how the best neighborhood pubs have always worked.

PERIHELION BREWERY

2800 16TH AVE. S.
SEATTLE
www.perihelion.beer

What to Know:

• Kid-and dog-friendly