The mood was jovial and relaxed at Thursday’s soft opening of Jellyfish Brewing in Georgetown. A crowd of mostly beer industry types mingled as they tried the 14 beers on tap while kids ran in circles around the high-ceilinged taproom. The brewery’s owners seemed confident and relaxed without any of the nervousness you would expect from someone opening up a new brewery in a city already full of over 60 of them.

That confidence is probably because Jellyfish can’t really be considered a new brewery. They’ve been sending their kegs around town for close to two years while they waited for permits and construction at their location just a block off Georgetown’s main drag. It also doesn’t hurt that Jellyfish’s Justin Rizza is a very capable brewer.

The beers are already good at Seattle’s newest taproom and I think they might only get better.

I started, as one usually should, with their pilsner. This stripped-down lager style is difficult for many brewers to execute, but Rizza’s pilsner had the honey-drenched bread and crisp finish that we all look for in a pilsner.

Breweries that attempt to produce a broad range of styles often fall victim to their hubris and end up selling a lot of different mediocre beers, but Jellyfish’s capricious tap list is actually full of winners. The Party On Garth, a barrel fermented sour red, had the aroma of rich caramel and cherry-infused vinegar and a beautiful round and malty body. The beer, which is named after Rizza’s son, not Dana Carvey’s Garth (I didn’t ask Rizza if his son is named after the Wayne’s World character), was plenty tart but still had a clean and delicious finish.

Their Saison Memoir was lemony, fruity like a banana, spicy like a peppercorn, and had a flavor of dried flowers that lingered pleasantly.

I continuing on this haphazard path of every style under the sun and started to try the dark stuff. First with the Cannonball, an oatmeal porter that had notes of coffee, smoke, and a bitter finish that left my drinking partner telling me that “it’s not creamy but it’s fucking good.” Then onto the Tickle Monster, an imperial stout that lacked any of the alcoholic bite that you would expect from a 10 percent stout. When I told Rizza how smooth this boozy stout was he replied: “Yeah, I tend to make dangerous beers.”

The taproom itself has the feel of a divided airplane hanger with a ceiling that slants up towards well over 20 feet above the bar. It's supported by exposed steel beams. A constant stream of planes heading towards Boeing Field and SeaTac can be seen through the brewery's windows. Little more than a fresh coat of grey and red paint covers the walls. Rizza told me they’ll be hosting rotating art from the Georgetown Art Walk in the space, which will be a welcome addition to the currently-bare walls.

Rizza gave me a tour of the brewhouse adjoining the taproom and poured me a glass of Funky Fresh, a barrel-aged fresh hop IPA that was brewed with Brettanomyces yeast. It was the most delightful beer I had all night, with big citrus flavors that mixed with a musty funk. As I was taking a photo of Rizza and his brewing equipment I asked how they ended up with Jellyfish as a name. He said the aquatic theme comes from their original plan to open in a location closer to the water, but the name stuck when they looked up a definition of the word.

“It said aimless, spineless, and bloodless,” Rizza said. “That sounds a lot like us.”

We'll see if Seattle's newest brewery aims its sights more narrowly, or remains on its meandering path. Either way, now that Jellyfish Brewing is open for business, it feels like they might stretch their tentacles far and wide in the Seattle beer scene.