Every year Bozeman hosts the Montana Beer Fest. I highly suggest anybody that can make it do so as there will be quite a few Breweries from around the state as well as some others from outside the state. For more information you can click on the link to their site.

I feel inclined to mention a few words about Beaver Creek as I visted Wibaux over the holiday break.

I was excited to visit Beaver Creek as it is so close to my hometown of Glendive and in such a remote area of the state. I never expected a brewery to open in the far east side of the state, but boy, am I glad they did! 

As Scott said, the brewery’s atmosphere is outstanding. There is plenty of open room and everything seems “just right.”

Now to the most important part. The Beer! 

They now have 4 brews on tap. An Expresso Stout, Pale Ale, IPA, Wibaux’s Gold and a Root Beer on tap that is a must try. I naturally started with the Stout which was pretty good. It didn’t have a strong expresso hint to it and seemed a bit anticlamatic on the first taste. After I had finished it though, I decided it was a good stout and it was my bias towards oatmeal stouts which was throwing me off. I moved on to the Pale Ale which was really good, probably the best of the three I tried while I was there. Jim said this is one of his best sellers. For my last pint, I had to go for the Gold. Sorry for the horrible pun. I was impressed by the taste, and the further I got into my pint the more I could see where they were going with trying to have a beer to get typical Miller, Coors and Bud fans. 

While I was enjoying my second round Jim Devine came over and chatted a bit about the brewery. It was really interesting hearing about how they started. Apparently him and two friends had a beer club of sorts that met awhile back every so often. They had a good showing where everybody would bring in their latest home brew, and they would sit around and talk about things. After a while, though, the turnout died off and they decided to try and open a brewery with some of the good ideas that came through the club.

Thanks for the good conversation Jim and best of luck to you, although I honestly don’t think you will need much luck as you have a magnificent brewery.

I’ve found a new favorite airline. I just flew into Portland last night on Horizon (parent company is Alaska Airlines). I was fully prepared to shell out $5 bucks appiece for a couple of drinks on the flight, because a cramped puddle jumper is always more fun when you’re getting a little buzzed, but my plans were foiled by some excellent flight attendants and an awesome company policy. It turns out that in addition to your complimentary peanut packet standard on just about every airline these days, Horizon will give you a free Northwest micro brew or wine. Nothing from Montana on this flight–the beer was Winterhook Winter Ale from Redhook in Washington (for the record, pretty good)–but it was better than having to pay through the nose for a Bud Light.

Micro brews on every plane… the future of flight is here!

I’m going to keep this relativly short.

The other day I was at work talking to another guy that I work with. We were talking beers and he mentioned the Pig’s Ass Porter from Harvest Moon in Belt. At first I was sceptical about the beer as it didn’t seem that he knew too much about beers. Wow, was I amazed that night when I happened to grab a six pack of it.

The beer is a nice smoothe Porter that definatly has the coffee bean hint to it. If you like porters and have not tried this, you will definatly want to find a retailer that has it in stock and nab a six pack.

I now feel that I need to make that extra effort to make it to the dessolate town of Belt just to try this straight from the tap.

You don’t need to crack open the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book to know that craft brews are typically more expensive than your everyday macro. A number of factors account for this, not least of which is the economies of scale that the SABMiller, Budweiser, and Coors are able to achieve. Another, more important reason craft brews cost more at the tap is what goes into making a micro.

Compared with macros, craft beers typically contain more of, well, everything good. Hops and malt especially are used in far greater volume per unit of craft beer than per comparable unit of Bud Light. The result: we get unique, bold flavors, and we pay more for them.

Hop heads have been especially hard hit lately, as a global hop shortage has resulted in fewer brewers even being able to get their hands on this critical raw material. In Montana, IPAs have been noticeably tamer of late; Lewis & Clark Brewing in Helena has even gone so far as to substitute a less-hoppy Peacemaker IPA for its wickedly good and very bitter Tumbleweed IPA that I fell in love with while in college. Other breweries have been a bit less extreme, but the response has been noticeable. The Doublehaul IPA at the Kettlehouse in Missoula tasted maltier than ever the last time I had one on tap. Along the way, prices have gone up too, as brewers with already slim margins continue to fight for survival amid a wave of overall inflation (brewing, incidentally, is an energy intensive process with the various heating and cooling stages involved).

Luckily, most micro drinkers don’t buy the beer with the intention of getting freshman-in-college drunk on it, so small quantities at the taproom or grocery store remain relatively affordable. On a unit basis, however, craft beers are incredibly expensive when compared with their generic macro cousins. The situation boils down to this: are you committed enough to craft beer to weather steep prices? Embedded within the answer to that question are two very important, silent considerations:

1) Capacity. Being gung-ho about drinking micros does little good if people just flat-out can’t afford them. And, frankly, if the choice is between a six-pack of Salmon Fly Honey Rye and baby formula, you probably shouldn’t be drinking beer at all. The truth is, however, that there are some people for whom the purchase of a micro over a macro (assuming that they can afford some kind of beer) is a material decision. This is important, because the last thing a growing micro market wants to see is everyday people being priced out of enjoying good beer.

2) Priority. I’ll admit, sometimes when I’m in the grocery store beer aisle I squint pretty hard at the price tag on a six pack of Bayern, wondering to myself if it’s really that much better than some Ranier and another pound of lunch meat. At $2 per can, enough Coldsmoke to keep the fridge stocked quickly adds up to a lot of boxes of Cherios. Hell, it’s half as expensive as a gallon of gas–and probably almost potent enough to waste by pouring into your tank. Again, assuming you’ll drink beer at all, when you choose a micro you’re making a priority choice.

Unfortunately, there’s no formula for making the choice to drink craft beer, despite the price. A number of considerations are factored in, including buying local, flavor, support of the market, and what other priorities you have for your money. My mantra isn’t a micro at any price–craft brewers need to be as efficient and competitive as possible, given their inherent limitations–but I’ve found the extra few bucks usually well worth it.

A little history of my beer taste evolution.

I had considered myself a beer novice until last summer when I was introduced to “real” beer at Madison River thanks to my friend Kevin. Prior to this I was drinking mainly Miller, Coors and the occasional Fat Tire or Moose Drool. Later I started drinking Fat Tire and Moose Drool more often and at the time I really had no idea that either was a Micro Brew nor did I realize that Moose Drool was even made in Montana. It was not until my first trip to Madison River that I found out. I made quite a few trips to Madison River that summer and when Scott approached me about going on the Brewery Tour it sounded fun and it definitely payed off.

During the Tour I felt a bit bias towards Madison as it is what I consider my home town brewery. I was pretty amazed to find that both Scott and Sean really liked it as well on our second leg of the Tour. Sure Bozeman has the Bozone, but Madison has a unique atmosphere to it that is far more enjoyable if you are willing to drive the extra few minutes out to Belgrade.

When you eventually find the tap room (its a bit hard to find as it is tucked away in a bunch of warehouses next to the frontage road) you will quickly notice that the atmosphere is very relaxed and the room is never really that packed, although it always has what feels like just the right number of people. What really makes the place, though, is the amount of quality beers that you can choose from. I’m quite fond of the Black Ghost Oatmeal Stout and the Salmon Fly Honey Rye, and although I’m not much of a lighter beer drinker, the Salmon Fly is usually what comes home in my growler. These are my personal favorites although from what I hear from our Hop Heads from the Tour the Hopjuice IPA is among the best they have had.

We’re kind of snobs… when it comes to beer, that is. Micro lovers, for the most part, believe that putting beer in a can is a sure sign of low quality, cost cutting beer. After all, what kind of beer comes in a can? I’ll give you a hint: certain canned beer may be purchased in a unit affectionately known to college freshmen as the “dirty thirty.”

Bottles are shiny, solid, differently colored, occasionally require an specialized tool to open, and are in every way not cans. Never mind that most macros can also be found in bottles; the micro beer drinker is not dissuaded from assailing cans as inferior beer vessels because they very often contain Bud Light. But what if–as your high school empathy counselor never tired of repeating–it’s actually what’s on the inside that counts? The Kettle House of Missoula is out to prove the can-hating crowd wrong.

In fact, you can’t find any of the Kettle House’s spectacular beers in bottles at all. The brewery only distributes its Double Haul IPA and Coldsmoke Scotch Ale to retail outlets, and both come in pint cans. Nothing will ever beat sipping a beer after work in K-House’s decidedly blue-collar tap room, but if you can’t make it, consider the benefits of a canned micro:

1) You can take it places. And by places, I mean somewhere more exotic than your own couch. Cans hold up to abuse on hikes, floats, and mountain bike rides that would destroy bottles. My buddy and I flipped a raft earlier this season with a cooler containing Coldsmoke and Double Haul on board. While sifting through the carnage after washing ashore, I was pleasantly unsurprised to open it up and find completely intact beers floating inside. Had we been floating with bottles, there would have been glass shards everywhere. An outing need not be quite that intense for cans to have an advantage. Try getting caught on a golf course with a bottle of beer–you won’t keep the bottle long. Because they don’t break, cans are allowed places bottles will or should never go.

2) Cans keep out more light. Try this experiment: get a can of beer and any colored bottle of beer and put them next to each other, turn off the lights, and hold a flashlight up to each. I’m not a physicist, but I hypothesize the can will block all of the light and the bottle won’t (the exception might be one of Rogue’s wildly expensive bottles which are made of Kryptonite or something). Light is beer’s enemy. It changes a brew’s flavor properties, and over time with enough exposure it will make the best beer chokingly undrinkable. “But I keep my beer in a dark fridge until I drink it.” Great, most people keep their car in the garage until they drive it, but that doesn’t mean you want completely untinted windows on a sunny day. If you’re drinking micros, you by naturally want the best in beer, so get the best in light-blockage too.

3) Cans are easily recyclable. Yes, bottles can be recycled too depending on where you live, but we’re in Montana where recycling is still a nascent industry. ‘Round here, cans are by far the easiest item to get recycled.

4) Cans allow better branding. This one is for the brewers. A can is one giant label that also happens to contain your product. No one is going to peel the side off a can while they sip your beer like they might a label off a bottle. Cans may be as colorful or plain as you want–consider them a blank canvass for your brand. Not to go all corporate on you, man, but you are in business after all, and micros are all about establishing a strong brand backed by excellent beer. If cans help you do that more effectively, then cans are good for business.

5) Cans are different. Far be it from me to endorse one thing just because it’s not like the other, but if you’re the one person at a gathering drinking your micro from a can, it just might get attention (unless you’re in Missoula, but then you probably wouldn’t be the only person quaffing from a can anyway). If you’re the brewer, it makes your product stand out more. Both good things.

Kettle House is currently the only Montana brewery canning, but hopefully others will follow soon. I’m not giving up on bottles completely, and the truth is that for small breweries to change their system from cans to bottles could be prohibitively expensive. But for brewers just starting to think about retail distribution, strongly considering cans would be a wise move in Montana’s outdoorsy culture.

The Boston Beer Co., the business behind  the “Sam Adams” line,  is now the largest American – owned brewery.  Pretty remarkable considering the company only has a one percent market share.  It is even more remarkable that the largest brewery in America is a craft brewer.

What I love about Boston Beer can be summarized in this quote from their CEO, Jim Koch, when asked about capitalizing on their newly acquired and patriotic title:

Our destiny is to remain very small. We don’t make a mass-produced or mass-marketed beer. We make a very flavorful beer that really only appeals to 5% of beer drinkers. If we were a car we’d be a Porsche. Everyone is familiar with it, but the market share is probably what ours is. We make quality, and that’s really the American beer drinker’s only hope going forward: to take pride in the quality of American beer because the quantity is owned by foreigners.

I’ve long said that Sam Adams produces the only beer commercials that make me more likely to drink their product because in all facets, Koch’s message remains consistent: Boston Beer Co. cares about quality beer.

It may seem strange that for a person who consistently encourages individuals to support their local, Montana brewery that I would be giving such a positive pitch for a corporate, out-of-state brewery, but the fact is, Boston Beer Co. is also supporting your local, Montana brewery.

Due to a severe hop shortage this past year, many small breweries across America were left without a significant supply of beer’s bittering component.  Boston Beer and Jim Koch secured 20,000 pounds of hops that they provided to these breweries at cost.   In Montana, Great Northern and Harvest Moon where both recipients.   Think about that for a second: Boston Beer Co. was supplying its competitors with a critical ingredient.  Class, all the way.

Cheers to Jim Koch and Boston Beer Co.  for being such strong advocates of craft brewing and for holding true to quality.  I have a new found respect for the man and the brewery.

Add one more Montana tap room to your tour list with the opening of the Beaver Creek Brewery in Wibaux. And yes, their slogan really is “Our Beavers Taste Better.” The new brewery opened up last Saturday, and my dad, my wife, and I received the very first pints poured in the establishment.

Though I was at first very skeptical of a brewery in Wibaux being successful, many of my fears where alleviated when one of the co-owners and brewers, Jim Devine, told me the only beer they currently had on tap was their “Bud Light Transformation Beer,” a.k.a. Wibaux’s Gold.

Beaver Creek owners from left to right: Jim Devine, Russ Houck, and Sandon Stinnett

Their strategy of starting with light beer is really smart. Generally speaking, individuals are integrated into the craft brewing culture by starting with light beers like blonde ales and hefeweizens, move onto ambers, porters and stouts, and round out the craft drinkers palate when they can enjoy a hoppy IPA. Grabbing the Bud Light and Miller Lite crowd will be critical to the success of this Eastern Montana brewery and Wibaux’s Gold is the beer to do just that.

Wibaux’s Gold is a golden ale. It has a filtered, lighter body with just a slight bitterness. It is slightly sweetened using local honey, is highly carbonated, has good head retention, and has a very clean, dry aftertaste.

It’s a very good beer, especially for a first brew. New breweries take some time to grow accustom to their new equipment and work out the kinks. After tasting Quarry Brewery’s (of Butte, MT) beer after they first opened, I was underwhelmed, but 8 months later, felt their beer had the top to bottom consistency to be considered one of the best breweries in the state. I had a similar experience with Carter’s. Based on Quarry’s and Carter’s drastic improvement, I will be excited to see if Beaver Creek will be able to improve on a good first attempt.

Soon, the brewery will adding a Pale Ale and Stout for the more sophisticated palettes.

One of the more interesting features of the brewery is its fermenting tanks. Rather than purchasing the traditional, large vertical fermenters, Beaver Creek is using old dairy storage tanks. The tanks hold as much as 400 gallons, but currently, they are only filling them up to 200. According to Sandon Stinnett, the other Beaver Creek brewer, the horizontal tanks make for a better brewing process because the yeast has less distance to travel.

One aspect our contributors use for judging breweries is the atmosphere, and Beaver Creek has one of the best in the state. The old building housing the new brewery has been superbly redone, with the reconstruction being completed by the brewers themselves. The old wood floors are original and various items they found during the remodeling including an old shoe and a Pepsi sign are mounted on the walls. Additionally, “the dairy tank” fermenters offer a unique Wibaux touch to the brewery. The place manages to be very classy while still keeping the character of a small, Eastern Montana town.

I wish the best of the luck to Beaver Creek, and would encourage anyone in the E-Mon area to check out the new tap room.

Front of the tap room.

Full view of the tap room.

When talking with new friends at a tap room my favorite question to ask is “How did you find or get started with micro brews?”. The stories are as varied as the beer you can sample. I have heard stories that range from the benign to the outright crazy.

 As a student at Carroll College we are all blessed with a great tap room right across the street. I found it in a peculiar way.  While at a party during college I was drinking my usual Bud Light/Coors Light/Keystone Light or whatever cheap beer was available at the nearby grocery store. As a country boy I had grown up on things like Coors/Bud. I never really heard of micro beers and was not interested in expanding my tasting.

This all changed when a friend of mine approached me with a growler of some yellow beer. He said that I just HAD to try it. I told him I was not interested in anything but what was coming out of the keg.  After being forced into trying that concoction I lifted my lips to the growler and took a swallow.

Wow. What is this? This beer tastes good?! There is actual flavor and it is unique. Immediately I asked what this was and where it came from. The beer that popped my micro cherry was none other than Miner’s Gold from Lewis and Clark Brewing (though it was Sleeping Giant at the time…wait did I just date myself?)

From this point on I put to and end my macro beer drinking days. It was Lewis Clark or Blackfoot. Even if I went out to the bars I was sticking to Sam Adams or local brews. This in itself has created me more friends than I can count. When you sit at a normal bar and order something that people have not heard of they get interested. Many a long (drunken?) conversation has started from it.

Leave us your stories on how you got started! We would love to read and possibly publish them!

Pete