(Visited 09/2012 on the Seattle Road Dogs Tour): Hilliard’s brewery is located on the northwest side of Seattle on 49th Street near Salmon Bay. There is a parking lot next to the building.

The inside is spacious and the front door opens to a counter for to-go beer. Some tables made out of telephone cable spools. Beyond the seating area is the canning line.

Hilliard’s had 4 beers available on our visit: Scottsh Blonde, Amber, Nautical Reference Pale, and Saison. They were all fairly average.

Service is good at Hilliard’s. We got a brief tour of the brewery and explanations of the beer. Checkout was friendly too.

Overall this is a decent brewery to visit in the Seattle area.

These guys are definitely off to a great start. They have a great light-industrial facility in Ballard that they have unobtrusively converted to a great brewhouse and taproom. They often have a good food truck parked right outside, and they often have a huge crowd of people parked inside. You walk in and immediately feel like you’re hanging out in a cool garage. The chairs and tables are pretty second-hand, especially the biggest one, which is a giant cable spool they picked up somewhere. Nice reuse. There’s a free pool table behind the bar. The bar has four taps, and they always have tallboys of four beers, for a total of eight different things pouring. There’s not much going on except hanging out, but it’s kid-friendly and dog-friendly, and people certainly take advantage of that. Lots of wee ones and four-legged ones in the taproom. It’s got a great vibe, with old punk and metal playing (at least when I was in), and a nice kind crowd. By the end of the night, you’ve had a couple beers, maybe you shot pool, maybe you hit the food truck. It’s an uncomplicated proposition. They have these cool little touchscreen tablets that you use to choose a tip and sign out, and those are kinda neat. The beers range from good to great, with a couple detours into OK. I’ll definitely be back.

Spacious, industrial chic type place to enjoy a few pints and chat with the brewers. Pretty good mix of beer styles to choose from.

This is a brand new place winter 2012. Has a small tap room up front but then there is a brand new 15 barrel brew house right behind. Plenty of brews on tap and bring your own food. They got 6 taps and 2 canned brews. Great feel and awesome service.