Janet Spindler is the brewer at Spinnaker Bay Brewing, a little Hillman City brewery named after the nearby neighborhood where she lives with her partner, co-owner Elissa Pryor. Spinnaker Bay Brewing is the only women-owned, women-founded, and women-operated brewery in Seattle. Janet had dreamed of opening a brewery for 20 years before she finally collaborated with Elissa, an accountant by day, to make it happen. Housed in a former furniture store/secret massage parlor (!), the brewery provides tasty industrial-strength beer, is full of knockout gorgeous antique furnishings, and has a walk-in freezer named Christopher Walk-in.

Tell me about the history of beer-making in your family.

That picture on the wall is from a family reunion. My grandmother is sitting on the keg there. My great grandmother was a brewer. My uncles were brewers who made bathtub gin during Prohibition.

What's the most unusual beer you have on tap?

Most of mine are classic styles. Our seasonal blonde ale is only available in-house, not even to take out in growlers. It's made with gin-spent juniper berries. When I took a distilling class at Batch 206 Distillery, I asked for a bag of juniper berries they had used to make gin, and they said, "Well, you can have them, but not the bag." [Laughs] I said I could use my own bag.

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