Editor’s note: Made in Cascadia highlights makers and artisans in Whatcom and Skagit counties.
BURLINGTON — Skagit County is famous for its farm-to-fork culture, but Garden Path Fermentation’s products are better described as farm-to-glass. The Burlington brewery has a unique claim to fame: It crafts not just beer but wine, cider and mead from Skagit-grown ingredients.
“Skagit Valley is one of the few places in the world where we can source 99 percent of our ingredients from our backyard,” said Amber Watts, who co-owns Garden Path with her partner Ron Extract.
Watts and Extract moved from Texas to Skagit County for this reason in 2016; eight years later, their original mission still holds true. Virtually all of Garden Path’s ingredients are sourced from the valley, right down to native yeast used for fermentation.
Garden Path opened a second taproom, The Great Northern Bottle Shop & Lounge, in summer 2023, but their flagship Burlington location is most reflective of their philosophy. However, their flagship Burlington location is most reflective of their philosophy. For Watts, Extract and their staff, fermentation is about more than making beer. Rather, they use experimental brewing methods as a creative — and delicious — way to showcase Skagit County’s bounty.
From flowers to ferments
Extract began homebrewing in college, but he didn’t pursue beer professionally until after completing a graduate degree in philosophy. Watts, on the other hand, was a film professor before becoming “disenchanted” with academia. She decided to join Extract in the beer world, and the pair worked together at Jester King Brewery in Texas before making the move to Skagit County.
“At a certain point, we decided that we weren’t getting any younger,” Watts said. “We spent most of our careers … helping other people create really cool, beautiful things, and it was kind of our time to do that.”
Once the pair decided to pursue this goal, they started with a small yet vital ingredient: yeast. Most beer is made with single-strain yeast from a lab; however, Garden Path’s “house culture” has very different origins. Extract and Watts created it by making a single batch of unfermented beer, then leaving nature to do the rest.
“That day that we’re all looking forward to in April, where all of a sudden all the flowers bloom, we just went for a walk … and picked one of every flower we saw,” Watts said. Next, they put the flowers in mason jars in their kitchen and “let them go to see what would happen.” Eventually they picked the ferments they liked best — and those original ferments still form the base of Garden Path’s house culture.
When sourcing other ingredients, Garden Path only works with whole fruits from nearby farms. Their team even prunes and harvests trees at the county’s Washington State University extension in exchange for apples. Most cider at Garden Path begins with these trees, but on occasion, Extract and Watts will use apples from local growers — or even customers — without knowing their pedigree.
“We have a barrel that just said ‘Mary’s apple tree,’” Watts said. “We don’t know what the apples were — [our customer] Mary just wanted us to use them.”
The brewing process
Spontaneous fermentation gives Garden Path’s final products a signature funk, though their beers are not acidic enough to be described as true sours. This is intentional: Skagit County’s climate allowed Watts and Extract to create a native yeast culture that isn’t “too aggressively sour,” which in turn lets them lean into the “softer side” of mixed culture fermentation.
“We like subtlety, we like nuance,” Watts said. “Our favorite beers, you enjoy a pint, not a little taster. You can think about it as much as you want to; you know there will be complexities to explore there.”
During the brewing process, Garden Path focuses on creating parts of a whole, not finished products. Their initial ferments — which Extract refers to as “components” — are normally blended to create the final drink, and the timeline for each component varies. Some are used at a relatively young age, whereas others are left to age in oak barrels for years.
Ultimately Extract compares his and Watts’ roles to that of a curator: They aim to understand what the batch needs to “reach its full potential.” Spontaneous fermentation is also influenced by environmental factors, meaning every batch is slightly different.
Garden Path’s experiments also go beyond fermentation alone. In one example, Watts said their previous malt supplier, Skagit Valley Malting (which closed in 2023), was unable to provide roasted malts. This prevented Garden Path from producing dark beers — but in a creative workaround, Watts and Extract “burned a bunch of wheat to see what would happen.” The result was a beer called the Experimental Roasted Wheat, which they ultimately served on draft.
“We never know exactly what direction [brewing] is gonna go or how long it’s going to take,” Extract said. “And that’s part of the nature of Garden Path Fermentation, is that it’s a winding path that may take us in directions that we didn’t intend … but that can be really beautiful and worth exploring.”
Speaking of complexities and nuance: Most beers are named for “garden path sentences,” which are grammatically correct yet ambiguous or misleading in their structure. Examples include, “The Little Horse Around,” “The Old School the New” and “The Garden Paths Led to Flowered” (the latter of which is the first beer Garden Path released).
The final products
Garden’s Path’s Spontaneous Ferment Three-Year Blend is a sterling example of the brewery’s experimental ethos. The batch was inspired by a Belgian brewing method that blends lambics of various ages. For their version, Watts and Extract blended three beers that were fermented in a coolship (brewing vessel) using wild yeast, then aged in oak barrels for one, two and three years, respectively.
“I do still think about that beer all the time. It was just very balanced and nuanced, a little bit of tartness, you could taste the oak,” Watts said. “I was just so proud that we could make that here.”
But the pair also know when to keep things simple: Extract’s everyday go-to is the Little Horse Around, a simple, dry-hopped table beer created to be the “ultimate brewer’s beer.”
Garden Path also lets local flavors shine by including foraged ingredients like fir tips, rose hips and blackberries. Extract cited another Spontaneous Ferment, which was re-fermented with local Italian plums and tayberries to “accurately [reflect] the local terroir.”
Want to sample some of these brews for yourself? The Great Northern Bottle Shop & Lounge, Garden Path’s Bellingham taproom and bottle shop, has plenty of options on tap. It also highlights other values-aligned producers, both through a dizzying bottle selection and guided tastings (“Sunday school”) every weekend.
But for the full farm-to-glass experience, a visit to Garden Path’s Burlington taproom can’t be beat. There’s something special about driving past Skagit County’s sprawling farmlands, then tasting their bounty firsthand — encapsulated perfectly in a pint of beer.
Garden Path Fermentation is open 2–7 p.m. Wednesday–Thursday, 2–8 p.m. Friday, noon to 8 p.m. Saturday and noon to 7 p.m. Sunday at 11653 Higgins Airport Way in Burlington. The Great Northern Bottle Shop & Lounge is open 2–10 p.m. Wednesday–Friday and noon to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at 1319 Commercial St. Info: gardenpathwa.com.
Do you have a suggestion for who we should feature next? Email cocoalaney@cascadiadaily.com with tips.
This story was updated clarify the date of the Great Northern Bottle Shop and Lounge opening on Tuesday, March 26 at 3:15 p.m.
Cocoa Laney is CDN’s lifestyle editor; reach her at cocoalaney@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 128.
