At 17x-Award-Winning Formula Brewing, the Perfect Party Is the One You Never Want to Leave

The formula for success at the only brewery in Issaquah (aka “the Quah”), WA, is pretty simple: “What makes the ideal party?” Formula Brewing Founder Danny Bohm says he asked himself before starting the business. “God damn, that was just a fun party. It wasn’t about drinking a lot or whatever. It was just like, what was so cool about that? And, okay, can you formulate that?”

In what used to be a block of storage units, Formula Brewing has turned nothing into the most respectably fun party in the town of around 30,000 people. “It was go bigger or go home,” explains Bohm, noting the brewery opened up two weeks into the pandemic in 2020. “We took the floor and bare walls and just ran with it.”

Four years later, with seventeen of medals for its beers and a buzzing taproom, Formula Brewing, we’d argue, has found the perfect recipe.

From Software to Silver-Winning Suds

Photography courtesy of Magic Muncie | Hop Culture

Bohm, who has a background in tech, moved up to Washington twenty years ago. “As of just a couple of weeks ago, I’m officially retired from tech and all in on pizza and beer,” Bohm says with a big smile as we tucked into the brewery’s signature pepperoni pie with hot honey and a pint of silver-awarded winning helles.

For Hop Culture and Untappd Social Media Manager Magic Muncie and I, Formula Brewing was the first stop during an incredible 48 hours in Bellevue, WA, courtesy of Visit Bellevue.

Photography courtesy of Magic Muncie | Hop Culture

Perhaps this tells you everything you need to know: We hung out for over three hours in Formula Brewing’s large taproom and beer garden and almost didn’t want to leave.

When he first started Formula Brewing, Bohm says he wanted to invest in something but wasn’t sure what. “When I saw this space, I realized there’s a gap here,” he explains. “Coming from the tech life, being in a cube all day working away … it was very different from what I saw in Europe [while traveling], how energetic, how fluid, how every age, socioeconomic class, how everyone is just together having a delicious beer that’s been made for centuries while in plazas or squares.”

Bohm wanted to recreate a neighborhood pub or beer hall in the Quah. “It’s timeless, it’s kids, it’s family, it’s pets, it’s lots of music, and it’s beer and good times,” he says, asking himself, “Why is that somehow hard here?”

He adds, “But I felt we could do it better.”

Which is why Formula Brewing is all about community.

During our time with him, Bohm often stopped chatting with us to say hi to many regulars. He pointed out a couple of guys in a singing group who come in every two weeks to drink beers before bursting out into random lyrics.

“They’ll huddle up and do a song, not for people but just for themselves,” says Bohm. “They’ll share, reminisce about some song, drink maybe a beer or two, and then they’re gone.”

He told us about a couple sitting under the TV who, since Bohm put power into the wall, pop in a couple of times a week to work while drinking. He also mentioned Doug, an ex-San Diego native with gray hair in the corner who comes in weekly for an IPA.

Even while we sat there, Lucky Envelope Co-Founder Barry Chan dropped by to give Bohm and Formula Brewing Head Brewer Jesse Brown a four-pack of their new release.

“There are all these personalities that you see over time, as well as the passers-by,” shares Bohm. “There’s this simple joy here.”

Formula somehow magically infuses old world essence into modern-day America.

And you’ll also find that philosophy in Brown’s beers.

Joy and Juxtaposition in Brewing

Formula Brewing Head Brewer Jesse Brown | Photography courtesy of Magic Muncie | Hop Culture

“We’re a mixture of old world/new world,” explains Brown, who worked at a cask ale brewery called Little Machine and Chainline Brewing Company before joining Formula three years ago. “When it comes to the classic styles, I like to tip the cap to the old world.”

Meaning most lagers are single decocted, a process that can extend Brown’s brew day to twelve hours. But he doesn’t care because it’s all for the sake of the beer.

So, if you’re drinking an American lager, you’ll find American hops, malt, and a mutated American lager yeast strain. But if it’s a German lager, it will have all German malt and hops.

“These beers should just be drunk and enjoyed and not pontificated as deeply as others,” says Brown, who, with his salt and pepper beard and glasses, talks about beer much like Bill Nye the Science Guy would about spontaneous combustion.

No pretentiousness. Just a joyous love of sharing his craft with others. The more he spoke about beer, the more excited he got, and we drank off his energy.

Photography courtesy of Magic Muncie | Hop Culture

Based on the empty glasses of helles and a leichtbier called Salmon Rodeo on our table, we’d say we enjoyed his beers. “It’s nice not to realize that your beer is gone until it’s gone,” says Muncie. “When you look down and it’s gone, you know that was a really good beer.”

That happened often to us that afternoon and not just with the lagers.

On the new-world side, Brown takes pride in the brewery’s newer West Coast-style IPAs, combining a Southern California style—super dry, unafraid of bitterness—with Pacific Northwest flair—softer texture, juicier.

Across the board, from light to dark, Formula has a beer for everyone.

Although Bohm says his favorite beer can vary from day to day, he’s particularly proud of the brewery’s award-winning English imperial stout—Touched by Chaos.

“I feel like it’s my adopted child,” laughs Bohm, who tried the beer as wort, through early fermentation, before it was carbed, and as the final product. “I didn’t make it, but it’s delicious. … I’ve had it through its whole little life, even before it had a medal, and I loved it.”

Bohm even has a keg of it at his house; that’s how much he loves this beer, which was actually something of a happy accident.

Sometimes The Formula Is…No Formula

Batman’s the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises” famously says, “Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It’s fair!”

Touched by Chaos certainly saw its share of anarchy.

What started as a barrel-aged project had to pivot when the company sending barrels to Formula totally ghosted them.

“It was like s**t, this beer tastes so good, and it would be great in barrels, but we’ll just put it in a World Beer Cup and see what happens.”

Sure enough, the beer won gold at the 2024 World Beer Cup in the “British-Style Imperial Stout” category.

And it wasn’t the only one.

Where the Best Beer Is the Next One

Photography courtesy of Magic Muncie | Hop Culture

Whatever Brown is doing seems to be working.

His beers have picked up seventeen state, national, and international awards. For instance, the helles, Chasing Trains, which won a silver at the 2023 Great American Beer Festival.

If we measure success by accolades, the Formula head brewer probably doesn’t need to tweak anything.

But that’s just not how Brown’s brain operates. Let Bohm explain: “What does the head brewer do [after winning? He said], let’s change it up. I can do better.”

This led to Chasing Planes, a tweak on the award-winning helles with a blend of two different Weyermann Pilsner malts—extreme pale premium and classic—and a new hop bill of Tradition and Hallertau Mittelfrüh. That beer won silver at the 2024 World Beer Cup.

Now Brown is on to Chasing Automobiles, completing the John Candy film trifecta. Luckily, he had this beer on tap when we visited.

We loved the beer’s complex simplicity. Again, empty glasses on the table should tell you all you need to know about this one.

“My mentality is on to the next award-winning beer,” says Brown, who often brews in these lucky red coveralls given as a gift from the well-known German malt company, Weyermann, anytime a brewer wins an award with their malt in the beer. “It’s like my lucky socks,” he laughs. “It’s a badge of honor and pride, but also a reminder to keep making good lager.”

For Brown, brewing is an endless pursuit, not of perfection but of perfecting. “I don’t know how to celebrate my wins because I’m as driven and motivated by my losses; it’s the life of a perfectionist,” he says. “Every beer I make, I want it to be a standout.”

As we looked at Formula’s tap list of twelve beers, he only praised three. “The helles and the leichtbier are legit,” he shares. “And I think we have a really nice session IPA.”

But the porter I tried? Well, he hates that one. (For what it’s worth, I enjoyed it.)

Brown just seems to be in this constant pursuit of finding the right formula.

“I don’t chase the dragon,” says Brown, at least regarding beer styles because he’s always hungry and eager to learn more. “Some of my babies aren’t going to win, but I just get excited because I want to get better.”

When I asked him which beer he was most proud of, he immediately responded in what I learned was classic Brown fashion, “That’s an easy answer: the next one.”

In our case, a fresh-hop West Coast IPA called Folded Early “slaps the base,” according to Brown, who pulled some fresh off the tank for us as he showed us around his fifteen-barrel brewhouse. “I’ve been obsessed with making award-winning lager, but this is my new obsession: West Coast IPA.”

Also, an incredible double-mashed, step-mashed Baltic porter collab with his friends at Grand Fir in Portland, OR. “That was a fifteen-hour brew day,” Brown says with a little grin.

The first few sips were delicious, from cold brew coffee notes and warming to sweet, rich molasses.

Next, Brown says he already plans to make a saison based on a West Coast IPA with some hop character.

For Bohm, the pairing could not be better. “Beer is so robust, elastic, and versatile,” he says, noting Formula has made around 230 beers in the last four years. “It’s absolutely limitless.”

The Limitless Future at Formula

Photography courtesy of Magic Muncie | Hop Culture

Limitless is the keyword at Formula.

Brown is always thinking about his pursuit of the next beer.

“I have a couple more decades working in this industry,” says Brown. “I want to leave it a better place than where I started.”

As he shows us around the brewhouse, we notice five award ribbons hanging up on the brew deck in bronze, silver, and gold. For Brown, above all, he hopes to keep making award-winning beer and making it better.

“My goal is to have a pair of Weyermann jumpsuits for every day of the week,” he says with a gleam in his eye. “I’m at five right now.”

Meanwhile, Bohm is constantly planning how to improve the space.

Next on the list is expanding the outdoor garden to accommodate more people.

But this doesn’t mean Formula plans to get too big for its britches. Packaging and distribution aren’t intentionally a part of the equation right now.

“We are truly a community hub and taproom,” explains Brown, noting the 650 barrels they hit right now are perfect. “This is something Danny has been rock solid on. Why should we be out in a crowded marketplace when we know we want people to come here and enjoy what we have?”

After talking and drinking with Brown and Bohm for hours, we felt at home in Formula. “I’m bummed you have to keep going,” says Brown as we looked at our watches and prepared to head to the next stop on our itinerary.

We couldn’t agree more.

If we could have spent all day there, we would have.

To us, well, that’s probably the best formula for a perfect party—the one you never want to leave.