It’s so completely its own unique thing, despite being composed of all recognizable elements. The people are really cool, and the personality of the place is, too. If you like road trips and little oddball watering holes, then by all means consider this a must-visit. There’s a little downtown area of Port Orchard, right across the water from Bremerton. Trust me when I say a person can live in the Puget Sound region for a long time and not realize he’s never been to PO. At the end of that downtown is a little tilt-up office building with a cool bar on the southwest corner. That bar brews its own beer, very quietly under the radar, and it is Slaughter County Brewing Company. There are two looooong, high walls of glass around the dining/drinking room. (There’s a separate bar area--kids are welcome in the dining room here). There are overstuffed leather couches, there are tables and chairs, there are leather captain’s stools at the bar. The bar is covered with Mardi Gras beads and every corny Jolly Roger decoration, parrot, pirate hat, and other corny buccaneer gewgaw you can imagine. The corniness makes it better, after you’ve soaked it up for a while. They pour a bunch of different good beer, some from Oregon, most from WA, most from the west side of the Sound if they can get ’em. They brew good beer in house, too, though they only had three on when we hit the joint. The sandwiches here are bangin’. They braise the sandwich meats in beer and serve ’em hot. The hummus plate is a really solid effort. They emphasize local fresh ingredients, which is awesome, so give ’em a break for serving Lay’s potato chips with the sandwiches. They’ve cultivated a nice roster of regulars of all stripes, and every night here, the whole bar toasts the sunset. This place has personality in a way that’s genuine and entirely unforced, and lord knows there’s a shortage of that everywhere you go these days. Long live Slaughter County Brewing.

Great place that’s a little hard to find, but welll worth the effort. Pirate themed brewpub, with a great selection of local beers. Tap beers are continually rotating, and they are often of top quality. Food is good too.