Want to watch cask beer being brewed? The Washington Brewers Guild is inviting the public to watch as Herbert’s Legendary Cask Festival Ale, honoring Northwest beer pioneer Bert Grant, is made.

On Feb. 6, from 9 a.m.-3 p.m., the beer will be brewed at Water Street Brewing Co. in Port Townsend. On Feb. 8, from 9 a.m.-4 p.m., it’ll be brewed at Elysian Brewing (Tangletown) in Seattle. The beer will be casked four to five days after the brewing sessions. It’ll be served at the guild’s spring cask

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Groundhog Day is a couple of days away, but there are only six more weeks until spring -– at least according to the Pacific Northwest beer festival calendar.

The Washington Brewers Guild’s spring cask beer festival takes place March 10 at Seattle Center. The Hop Scotch Spring Beer and Scotch Festival, previously known as Hops on Equinox, happens March 24-25 at Jonas Jensen Studios in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood.

The Washington Cask Beer Festival will showcase late-winter and early-spring beers. There’ll be two four-hour sessions, with 250 tickets available for each session. Tickets are $35 advance

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Comedy Underground has moved from its Taboo location in the Bowes Building at 9th and A streets in downtown Tacoma to the upstairs space at Varsity Grill on Broadway.

Comedy Underground’s old space is being renovated for an undisclosed project. Varsity Grill operating partner Jon Tartaglia told me two years ago that he wanted to put a pub or a burger joint in that space, but plans are still unannounced.

Comedy shows are currently running Friday and Saturday nights at 8:30 p.m. at Varsity Grill.

Wednesday’s post about dogs in restaurants (d)evolved into a discussion about kids in restaurants.

One reader nailed the connection and the consternation:

Inconsiderate parents of misbehaved children are indeed similar to inconsiderate pet owners and misbehaving pets…

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Co-owners John Fotheringham, left, and Ken Wolfe offer burgers, hand-cut french fries and fish and chips at their 12th Street Diner, which opened in December at the former Frank’s Drive-In site at 4008 S. 12th St., Tacoma. TNT photo by Bruce Kellman

I wrote about some new burgers in town today. Now I want to know who makes your favorite burgers.

Do you like the

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An Ed’s Diner patron asked a You Plate Special question about food-related reading.

Another patron recommended Jim Harrison’s “The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand.”

The book, published in 2001, collects Harrison’s food essays and columns, many of which I read in their original publications in the ’90s.

Harrison comes up again today, in a New York Times story.

Sure, the guy over-indulged with Jack Nicholson and went fork-to-fork with Orson Welles, but that’s not why Harrison’s worth reading. Here’s why Harrison’s worth reading:

Mr. Harrison, a self-described “food bully,” has very particular ideas about cooking. He thinks rosemary should be banned. He has no use for huge restaurant-style ranges: “Why should I spend $7,000 for a stove when I could spend $7,000 on food?” And he doesn’t believe that game, birds especially, should be tarted up with elaborate sauces. “As the French say, game birds taste best at the point of the gun,” he said.

… Then he declared: “Food is a great literary theme. Food in eternity, food and sex, food and lust. Food is a part of the whole of life. Food is not separate."

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“Mmm! Now that’s tartare!” El Gaucho’s steak tartare. TNT photo by Russ Carmack.

My story today about raw meat ravers steak tartare and beef carpaccio prompts me to share a passage from a book that’s been bouncing between my desk and the back seat of my car.

The book is “How I Learned to Cook,” a collection of 40 essays by chefs on their (mis)adventures in getting where they got.

Chef

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Here’s a story that interests me on three fronts: restaurants, bars and dogs. The Associated Press reports from Olympia:

If dog-loving lawmakers prevail, Fido could soon be sidling up to bar stools around Washington state under a measure that would allow well-behaved, leashed canines to join their human companions as they down their favorite microbrews.

The measure was introduced by Sen. Ken Jacobsen, D-Seattle, who got the idea at the Fish Tale Brewpub, formerly known as the Fish Bowl, a downtown Olympia staple where he’s a regular.

“I was sitting at the Fish Bowl looking at all

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