Friday, November 14, 2008

Markin' the Milestones

Here's something you won't see everyday: our mashtun/hot liquor tank suspended over our heads. This photo is one of the earliest in the history of Glacier Brewing. As many of you have heard me tell the story before, this is where we stored our brewing system while we were looking for a piece of property to become the Glacier Brewing Company. I have all these "old" photos on my work computer and I flip through them from time to time. More just to remind me of how far we've come. I have a great deal of pride in that fact. We didn't start this brewery with a trust fund or any other huge pile of money. We've always done everything as economically as possible. We were told by industry veterans that starting and running a brewery our size would require AT LEAST half-a-million-dollars. We got up and running with less than 20 percent of that! No mean feat, believe me. We did most of the initial install ourselves; painting, demolition, construction. We've done most everything else since then ourselves, also.

I'm looking back because we've just passed another milestone: We have bottled our Flathead Cherry Ale! That's right, we now have our cherry beer available in six-packs from our tasting room. So now you can get a "mixed sampler" six pack of beer. This makes a wonderful gift for anybody! For those of you keeping score at home. We now have the following in six packs: Flathead Cherry Ale, Port Polson Pilsner, Golden Grizzly Ale, North Fork Amber Ale, Glacier Select Oktoberfest, Slurry Bomber Stout, and Glacier Root Beer! SEVEN PRODUCTS IN BOTTLES! Holy hat, what're we thinking!?! Try to find another brewery out there our size (with only two production workers), that has this many products in bottles. Why do we do it? We do it because, you, our faithful customers have demanded it. Now stop it!
We're also entertaining plans to expand the availability of our bottles throughout western Montana. This is still in the early stages and a lot of hurdles need to be overcome, but if and when this happens, you'll read it here first so subscribe to this blog and be in the "know".
Until next time,
Your Humble Brewer