GBC Brewer's Blog

Closing the Circle..

2010-06-13T19:51:00.000-07:00

Please indulge me a little.

Starting on this VERY strange and dynamic journey of opening and running a microbrewery in northwestern Montana, I was idealistic and more than a little naive. In the original daydream, the Glacier Brewing Company existed in West Glacier, Montana. This is the "west entrance" to Glacier National Park (nevermind the Camas entrance!). It has wonderful summer traffic but extremely sparce cold-month traffic. Primarily because of this, we (my wife, her brother, and myself) decided we would be more successful to open our brewery elsewhere. We did. In Polson.
Aside from our physical location, I've always wanted to see our products for sale in the stores of Glacier National Park. The thought was this "If we could get our beer in bottles (no small task, ask any brewer!) AND get it for sale in a store in a National Park, well, now that would be something to hang one's hat on!"

Well, this last weekend, I was fortunate enough, with my family, to spend some great time in the Northfork. On our way home, we swung through West Glacier and Apgar where we witnessed our little brewery's products for sale at not only the West Glacier Merc and Eddie's Gifts, but on the menu in Eddie's Cafe!
As my family and myself finished our lunch, we looked across the room and saw another family's table with one of OUR BOTTLES ON IT!!!!!
Let me tell you that for entrepreneurs, to have our "daydreamed" products for sale alongside other Montana breweries and industry giants was a very cool thing indeed!
This is what was in my original daydream, lo those many years ago, traversing the eternal straight-a-way highways of western Wyoming: To plunge, headstrong and full-force, into the northwestern Montana life and culture and start and run a brewery and bring our products to market!
We have been seeing our beers and root beer popping up in more and more bars, restaurants, and stores than ever before! We've been pushing and pushing for this for a long time now as this is not something that can happen quickly or all at once. It takes time and persistence and energy.

It seems our beers and root beer are being demanded in more places by a wider audience than ever before! I'd like to deeply and humbly thank all of the businesses that have chosen to provide our products to the public. Your support has provided our families with deeply appreciated support! Again, THANK YOU!!!

We are striving hard and happily to keep this pace going....

I feel fortunate.
I feel lucky.
(Some days, I feel a little self-imposed curse!)

I can say without conceit and for all who started this brewery, after these years of extreme hard work and personal sacrifices.....we love this!

"Life is a spectacle. A sheer festival of light!"

until next time,
your humble brewer

Forgive the Winter

2010-05-08T19:17:00.000-07:00

inevitable
sullen and thick
the flathead winter sky imposes and dominates
flowing and filling from sky edge to mountain ridge
impenetrable as wet wool

but the hope
to see the blue
tries to live

just a glimpse

yet unrelenting and uncompromising
the montana winter denies

snow falls
and unsure salvation follows
a softer world is laid down

brilliant white and blue
crisp and renewed
hearts swell and minds lift
artificial boundaries dissolve

reprieve is granted
forgiveness is given

A break in the clouds.....

2010-03-03T20:09:00.000-08:00

(CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO FULLY ENJOY THE GRAY!)

Here it is.......

Most didn't believe it would come this time but here it is.

The sky returned.
The clouds broke.
The sun is BACK!

To truly understand this, ya' really gotta experience a tough Polson winter and THIS was a "Tough Polson Winter"!!!
The picture at the top of this post is the view from Polson of Flathead Lake in the LOCK of this winter! Just wanted to let ya' know that we're not making this stuff up!
The gray; unyielding gray, permeated almost everything this winter. We did not get a whole lot of snow. But we did get cold, REAL cold. "Write Home" kinda' cold. It was best to find a warm, peaceful, happy place (like our tasting room) to weather the weather.
But, nevermind......the clouds broke!

Well, during the gray days I tried not to fall into the winter rhythm of cleaning guns and building dead-fall traps (don't ask!). Instead I strove to keep the beer flowing and specifically tried to keep unique brews on tap on the One Barrel Batch tap.
Hope I didn't fail you.
Currently, we have a barrel-aged Scottish ale pouring. It lived in the barrel for about four months! Wonderful collaboration between the smoked-malt and the oak wood of the barrel mark this unique beer! This one is a celebration beer: celebrating the return of the sun! If you're a pagan, like myself, living in northwest Montana, this means quite a lot!

We have some other fun beers on deck for the One Barrel Batch Tap. Not gonna tell you what they are now, that'd ruin all my fun! But keep a eye on our Facebook page as that's where I announce what is going on tap next.

As some of you may have heard, our assistant brewer, Will, left for home at the beginning of this winter. He was to return when the weather warmed and the production picked back up. Well, he has been offered a brewing position at another brewery. Actually, at two different breweries! I've yet to hear which one he picked but this is a testament to the skill, dedication, and work ethic of young Will. We wish him truly good luck, safe brews, and happy yeast. I hope he finds his way back here someday as I enjoyed brewing with him.
In other brewery news, Chad has moved into the Tasting Room Manager position due to his attention to detail, friendliness, and general moxie! He will be taking on all the duties to keep your tasting room visit enjoyable and comfortable. If you have any suggestions for him, please let him know!I'll close this post by letting everyone know that the barleywine has been moved out of the fermentor (after almost two months!) and is now resting quietly in the bright beer tank. It will stay in there for probably at least another three months or so. We'll see.

Oh yeah, I'm toying with the idea of making a Maibock now for service in May. Let me know what you think of that.

Until next time,
I remain
Your Humble Brewer

Into the Gray Days......

2010-01-14T19:53:00.001-08:00

Winter in Polson, Montana.....

"These are some bleak days!"
I heard this as I was walking to work one morning. I stopped, looked around, and saw....
nobody.

"hmmm, must be my diet" I thought.

Whatever the origin of this statement, the sentiment rang true with me.
Bleak days indeed.

For those who have never had the singularly unique experience of a winter in Polson, Montana allow me to serve you up a helping:
1. Cold, wet cold.
2. Occasional snow storm (wet or dry snow).
3. VERY cold temperature (5, -3, -32 degrees F) for several days (weeks) at a time.
4. Sudden, overnight melt so the next day EVERYTHING is wet, soggy, muddy and still frozen and very, very slippery!
5. COMPLETE and total overcast. The sky meets the ground, the ground meets the sky!!! Everything is monochromatic.
(every now and then though, the sky opens and slaps you across the face with its beauty!!!)
6. Back to number 1.

So this is the circle of life (strife?) up here in the glory of the Mission Valley!
Well, while a lot of the locals take this opportunity to clean their guns and practice their knots, I have taken this time to concoct a new (yes, BRAND NEW!!!) beer recipe for you, my loyal readers.

This beer recipe just happens to be a barley wine.
Please note: that's "w-i-n-e" not "w-h-i-n-e".
Seems necessary these days to point that out.
Anyway, this beer is a grain hog!
I mean, it puts out only half the volume of a normal batch but requires much more than the normal amount of ingredients!
It's designed to produce 5.5 barrels (that's 170.5 gallons to you and me, Timmie!!!) of 10% barley wine!!!!

(You may now fire off your guns.....I'll wait.......................)

I packed over 600 pounds of highly-modified two-row barley, munich malt, crystal malts, and a secret malt into our beloved mash tun, added the hot liquor and stirred! Then I carefully, slowly drained the glorious malt sugars out of the grain.

(LEGAL NOTICE: all water used in a brewhouse is referred to as "liquor". It is just water, but that's what it is called. Whadda' gonna do?!?)

This brew maxed out my hand-refractometer! (don't get excited....that's just a gadget I use to measure the sugar content of the wort and thereby, indirectly measure the alcohol potential.....pervert!)

Anyway it always strikes me as wonderfully unique whenever I brew a new beer, one that I have not done before, at least on a certain brewing system. Every brewhouse is different and reacts in a different way to recipes and procedures. It is actually pretty neat.
As I write this, the barley wine is chugging away in the fermenter; yeast consuming malt sugars, burping out carbon dioxide, excreting alcohol (I mean, why else ferment? HELLO!?!), and budding off other yeasty friends. This is where the alchemy takes place, in the fermentation vessel. Simple sugars converted to alcohol, gas, and a hell-of-a-lot of yeast!
Just cool.

Well, this beer should be ready in about.....oh.....maybe four months. AT THE SOONEST!!!
There are a lot of people who are of the mindset that any barley wine worth it's grain should not be served less than ONE YEAR after production.
Lucky for you, I'm not one of those nutjobs!

(I'll probably squirrel away a keg or two in my back yard!)

I'll keep ya' posted on this beers maturation but until then.....

I remain

Your Humble Brewer

Late Fall 09

2009-11-10T06:12:00.001-08:00

"Welcome to Montana"
I can still remember the first time someone said that to me. Me; still in college, full of knowledge and clueless, driving to Flathead Lake in late summer in a driving rainstorm that seemed to come out of nowhere. I stopped to gas up somewhere along I-90 and made a comment to the cashier about rain-soaked highways and apparently-insane/suicidal drivers (Montana was experimenting with no daytime speed limit back then). The comment I got back did little to sooth my jangled nerves, "Welcome to Montana".

Coming from Colorado, the land of perpetual blue skies, ski bunnies, and a sometime-nauseating level of political correctness, I expected a response more akin to sympathy for the weary traveler. What I got was an attitude closer to "THIS is Montana. It won't coddle you, it won't bend to you, it won't change for you. But, it will change you. Maybe, probably for the better. It's not for everyone. If you think it's not for you, well, you can still make it back to the border before dark!"

This was many years ago. Since then, I have traveled back and forth from Colorado to Montana to Colorado. I've lived in Montana a few times now, returning to Colorado each time. Usually for school (handy excuse to return to a "softer life"). It really was no use. Montana had her hooks in me, deep. Even when I would "move back" to Colorado, at some level in my over-educated gray matter, I knew I'd be back. I fit here.

I had always told my family that Montana is a wonderful place, mythical vistas, "charismatic mega-fauna" (bears, wolves, mountain lions!). But, I've written about this before, I also always told them that if you're moving to Montana, ya' gotta bring a job with you! In a state with less than a million full-time residents (967,440 July 2008), those who live here are here on purpose and they don't have a lot of extras jobs to go around. Well, that's what I did, brought a job with me. We (my partners and I) started the Glacier Brewing Company, oh, must be about six years ago. Not a heck of a long time, I know, but ask any small business owner and they'll tell six years feels like two decades. Ask a small business owner in northwest Montana and they'll tell you it can feel like a lifetime.

We walked into this business with VERY wide eyes and a lot of unreal expectations. We weren't really prepared for the savage seasonality that comes with owning and running a production brewery in northwestern Montana on an Indian reservation. The first few winters were exceptionally lean for us. The craft beer market is an extremely fickle one. It's also a very expensive one to compete in. While we've come to expect the seasonal slowdown, I don't think any of us running this dog and pony show have really gotten used to it. Please don't read this as complaining, these are the facts that we've come to accept. This is a fun business but some of the challenges can be daunting.

One of the pluses about the seasonal slowdown is it gives my assistant brewer, Will, and I time to play with new beer recipes on our newly minted ten-gallon pilot system. I built this thing earlier this summer/fall with the intention of experimenting with unusual beer recipes and styles. From this, we've launched a new rotating line of beers in our tasting room. We call them the One Barrel Batch beers. We're making just enough of each beer to fill one barrel (31 u.s. gallons), give or take. Sometimes, we'll have a true barrel's worth, sometimes only ten gallons. These beers go on tap in our tasting room for pint sales only. We don't fill growlers of the One Barrel Beers and we do this so we have enough for everyone to try it. Now this does not always work but that is the reason behind "pints only please."

For those of you new to our Brewer's Blog, I do try to make timely entries but, you guessed it, that doesn't always work. Please, please, please write me, call me, stop me on the street (I'm the guy walking two dogs!) and let me know what you like and what you don't like about this blog, the brewery, my beers, me, Montana, anything! I love the interaction.

We have recently launched the brewery's FaceBook page (GBC FaceBook Page) and that's where a lot of my mind-droppings have been landing. I'll make you a deal, though. You keep reading this blog and I'll keep taking pictures and writing in it. Deal?

I hope so

Until next time,
Your humble brewer

GABF 2009

2009-09-29T19:05:00.000-07:00

GABF Denver 2009

Well, today is the Sunday after the 2009 Great American Beer Festival in Denver, Colorado. We brought four of our beers down to be judged against the best brewer's in the country. 495 breweries, over 3308 beers, and three days later we're heading north, homeward bound. Back to our little corner of Montana. Unfortunately, we did not win any medals at our first GABF appearance. Always next year. We entered our Golden Grizzly Ale (into the Kolsch category), Glacier Select Oktoberfest (into the Marzen category), our North Fork Amber Ale (into the Alt category), and our Slurry Bomber Stout (into the Foreign Stout category). I was able to sample some of the beers that won the medals in the categories we entered.

The winning beer for the Foreign Style Stout category tasted almost EXACTLY like our Slurry Bomber Stout!! I was speechless. But it all came down to that “exactly”. It was just slightly, and I mean slightly, hoppier than ours. Man oh man, you could've knocked me over with a lite beer!

I had the rare opportunity to meet two of my heros: Charlie Papazian and Homer Simpson (Charlie more than Homer)! It is strongly because of this man (Charlie) that this festival exists! He is THE guru of homebrewing and therefore craftbrewing. Charlie, if I can be so honored that you are reading this: Thank You Again. Everyone should reread your books!

Kudos to Kettlehouse Brewing (bronze medal) and Montana Brewing (gold medal!). There were only about six Montana breweries at this year's festival. I was surprised by that as I expected more Montana breweries to attend. But, I'll be the first to tell you, it's a long way from Montana to Denver!

The medal ceremony notwithstanding, attending this festival was well worth the thousand-plus mile drive (one-way!). Christine and I walked out with several wonderful marketing ideas, I have a notebook full of beer ideas, and a deeper appreciation for my craft. I had attended the GABF once before but that was with another brewery; H.C. Berger Brewing in 1998.

This time, I went there with MY brewery! I can't fully describe the amount of pride I felt to see our very own beers pouring on the festival floor alongside industry titans like Ommegang, Sierra Nevada (beat us in the Kolsch division!), Pizza Port (huge medal winners!), ABInBev, Coors/Miller, and hundreds more. In the same moment, I felt deeply humbled by the scope of this event and the unique creativity shown by members of our craft brewing industry.

We even saw George Wendt!!!

We poured our Golden Grizzly Ale and our Glacier Select Oktoberfest at our booth. I'm proud to say that we emptied all the kegs we shipped down and received very positive feedback from everyone who sample them! We even got an offer to sell our beer in New York (not sure how we'd get it out there though). We also gave away hundreds of temporary GBC tattoos! That was quite surreal to see complete strangers clambering over each other to stick one of our “FILL TO HERE WITH BEER” tattoos to their foreheads! We were one of a handful of breweries offering tattoos. Fun to see the Golden Grizzly Ale tattoo on peoples arms, necks, cheeks, and, uh, “other places” along with other craft breweries. The crowds were amazing. We were standing in one of the largest rooms I've ever been in (outside of an airplane factory) and we were shoulder-to-shoulder at times! Some of the most bizarre variations of the human genome were encountered there. We saw a flock of penguins, several Oktoberfest girls, a gaggle of nuns, a cowboy riding an inflatable horse, Elvis, Hellraiser, two referees who threw their penalty flags every time someone dropped their glass, and more than a couple of, uhh, alternatively-clothed individuals! That's another funny characteristic of this fest; whenever someone dropped their sample glass (and it happened quite often), the entire crowd around that person would yell “WHHOOOOOO!!!” followed by “What an idiot!”. All in good fun.

I'm finding I'm surprisingly anxious to get back to my brewhouse and begin to further refine my recipes for next year's competition. Not sure which ones I'm going to work with but I'm pretty sure one of them will be the Slurry Bomber Stout. Can't let that one get away!

Until next time,

your humble brewer.

Fallin' into Fall

2009-09-07T09:24:00.000-07:00

Moving into fall. Life and times in northwest Montana are definitely moving towards cooler days (and colder night), dropping leaves and playful winds.
In the brewery, Will and I are STILL moving like crazy cogs in an insane machine to meet production demands. Our Kalispell distributor, Flathead Beverage, are moving our beers like mad! They are saturating northwest Montana with Glacier Brewing six-packs and draft beers. This is almost surreal for me. My family and I lived in the Flathead Valley when we were first starting our brewery. So we became very familiar with the businesses in that area. To see our Golden Grizzly Ale on tap at Woody's at Highway 2 and 35 or available in six-packs at the Blacktail Grocery in Lakeside is a very, very funny and neat experience for me.
I took a few days to explore some other beers available in our region of the country (it's always good to see what other brewers are doing). My family and I went from Polson to Seattle to Birch Bay (Google it!). I sampled some unique, imaginative, bland, overrated, underrated, good beers. Whenever I sample other brewery's beers, I always mentally put them next to mine; how is the malt/hop balance, how does the carbonation level feel, is the advertised style there, how would I make this beer? These sort of trips are always good to re-stoke the creative fires. And, I will admit, after a manic summer in the brewhouse, I love to get the hell out of Dodge!!! Even for just a few days.
We're heading back today, I hope to encounter a few more local beers along the way. We'll see.

Our Wild Wolf Wheat is pouring at a healthy clip in the tasting room but we are almost out of it! What specialty beer would YOU like to see in the GBC Tasting Room? I have some ideas but I'd love to hear from our drinking public.

until next time,
I remain,
Your Humble Brewer

Summertime, Summertime!

2009-07-28T09:21:00.000-07:00

Yes, you are correct.
It has been awhile since my last post. Well, this summer has been a BUSY one in the Glacier Brewing brewhouse.
Allow me to bring you up to speed: We hired a new Production Assistant and have been training him on our procedures and processes, we hired a new distributor in Kalispell (Flathead Beverage) and released six-pack bottles to them, I formulated and am aging in used-whiskey barrels two nano-brews to be released later this year, and we're trying to stay up with our pre-summer demand as well! Whew! No mean feat for a two-man production team.
We've been brewing like mad, bottling like mad, and kegging like mad. All winter, I was maneuvering around pallet-stacks (sometimes three high) of 1/2 barrel kegs waiting to be filled and sent into the market. Now, as I survey our production area this morning, I long for those wonderful stacks of portable beer storage; we have but a handful of empty 1/2 barrel kegs now! They are all out! This is a great situation to be in for the business but it is a bit worrisome for the head brewer. "Where am I gonna put all this beer we have in tanks?"
Well, I have a few more 1/2 barrels coming in from a closed brewery in Virgina but it's not nearly enough. Kegs aside, our six-pack market has exploded, as we knew it would once we released our bottles to a distributor. Flathead Beverage out of Kalispell has been selling our Golden Grizzly Ale, Slurry Bomber Stout, Glacier Select Oktoberfest, Flathead Cherry Ale, and our Glacier Root Beer in six-packs like they're survival packs on Y2K!!! Keeping up with their orders has been a real challenge for me. Not only making the beers but finding the time and resources to put it into bottles. I'm working on upgrading our humble four-head Meheen bottler. It does a great job but we just need something with a larger through-put.
So, this summer has been a great market-growth for good ole' GBC. I have a feeling that the growth isn't over yet. We still have some strong pockets in western Montana we're gonna get our beers and sodas into. Thanks for all the support you've given us and forgive me if I look a little haggard!
Until next time,
Your humble brewer

Where Do You End?

2009-06-21T19:16:00.000-07:00

Weird question, I know......Where Do You End?

Okay, here's the backstory......
I completed our local Relay For Life this morning. If you don't know what that is, the Relay For Life is a nation-wide program to raise funds to discover a cure for cancer. This culminates in a 24-hour, walk-a-thon event! Our Relay For Life was held at the Polson High School Sports Complex. First off, this is one of the most amazing high school football fields in the ENTIRE country!!! The field itself is kept in great condition, the track is wide and wonderfully.......reboundy (if that's even a word). But the view, OH MAN! The view is unparallelled! Remarkable views of Flathead Lake, the Missions, Polson. WOW!

Also, I'd like to extend a huge KUDOS to our new Production Assistant, Will. He jumped in and helped us serve several hundred Glacier Brewing Root Beer floats! THANKS WILL!

But I digress. The Glacier Brewing Team finished the Relay at around 7:00am this morning (Happy Father's Day!). At this point, I had been walking almost a solid 24 hours. I had walked off the track only for bathroom breaks, food snacks, and to help pour the Root Beer floats. After all was said and done, I had walked 22 miles. I collected a colored paper clip for each lap walked (seems like a bit of an uneven trade!). During the depth of the night/early am, there were only a handful of us walkers still on the track. We formed a loose fraternity/sorority of die-hards, all with our own reasons and motivations.
My own were several-fold. First, my business partner, Bob, is a cancer survivor and he had done the "round-the-clock" walk several years before. I wanted to do the same to honor his fight. Second, technically we had to keep a team member on the track at all times. Third, I wanted to see if I could. Yea, I really wanted to know how long I could go, where did I end? It struck me early on in this walk that very rarely are we given the chance to learn where our limits are. At least in a positive way. This was that chance for me. I walked and walked and walked. It got dark and darker and rained and rained and windy. At one point, something kinda neat happened: on each successive lap, the sky got lighter and lighter! Dawn was coming! The end was getting closer! The cloudy, rain-soaked morning arrived! I thought it ended at 6:00am but then thought "Oh, it ends at 6:30. Okay, I can do one more half-hour".

It didn't end until a little after 7:00am! Elegant torture.

I finished it.
88 paper clips later.
22 miles later.
I finished it.

I think, I feel I could have gone a little more. Nor sure, but I think so.
I have a real good idea of where I end. I know what that feels like. At least, what it starts to feel like. I know how that looks. It's good to know where your edges are.

I'm grateful.

Until next time,
Your humble brewer.

Slippin' into summer!

2009-05-30T08:37:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. I've been "neglecting" my Brewer's Blog lately. Before you pass too harsh of judgement on me, hear my excuse.......I've been busy. NO REALLY!!
In case you haven't heard, my intrepid Assistant Brewer, Jim, has left good ole' GBC so he can fully devote himself to his own business, ImageQuest. So I guess you can say I'm a victim of Jim's success; his business has grown to such an extent that he no longer can work at the brewery. I am sad to see Jim go as he is not just a solid, responsible worker, he was fun to work with.

So, I've been picking up my jobs and the jobs Jim would do, keeping me crazy-busy! But fear not, beer lovers! We have a gentleman arriving this coming week to step into the Production Assistant position. When you stop into the brewery to satisfy your craving for your favorite Glacier Beer, pop your head into the brewhouse and say "Hello" to the newest member of the Glacier Brewing family.
This coming Friday night, June 5, is "Ask The New Guy 20 Questions" night.

.......by the way, does anyone know of a place in Polson he can rent?

2009-05-05T18:06:00.001-07:00

Personal ethics.
We hear that term thrown around a lot. It's almost a buzzword, well, buzzphrase.
What about professional ethics?
I had a customer in our tasting room the other evening. It was just him and I and we began talking about the recent bill that passed to increase the amount of alcohol Montana breweries can produce and sell, HB400. This patron made his point that it was kind of silly to pass this since most breweries in Montana already product beers WELL in excess of 7% alcohol by weight (the current state limit). He even cited some examples into the double digits! I told him not all Montana breweries were thumbing their nose at the current law. He said to me "Name one that isn't currently making strong beer". I put my hand up. He pish-poshed me.

The examples this man gave were well known. I'm sure there are many readers out there that know of at least two breweries who have or are making beer in Montana stronger than 7%.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not coming from the "Carrie Nation" camp (google it!). I'd love to make beer for sale 14, 15, 21%! Push the boundaries of malt and yeast!
Yet the fact remains: these are the rules we agreed to play by when we started this brewery, just like every other Montana brewer. You don't like being restricted to 7%? Lobby to change it! You don't like having to stop serving pints at 8:00pm? Lobby to change it! Don't just ignore the law and the rules and do whatever the hell you feel like doing. I guess the point of this little tirade is that these brewers could ruin it for the rest of us. The fallout of these callous actions could have a very real impact on ALL the Montana brewers. This is a tough enough business and we're restricted enough.

your humble brewer

Golden Grizzly Ale wins again!

2009-05-04T10:51:00.000-07:00

My fellow beer lovers, I am very proud to announce that our Golden Grizzly Ale has won the Best Light Hybrid category second year in a row at the annual Garden City Brewfest in Missoula this last Saturday! Thank you to all the people who turned out for this fun event and thank you for supporting YOUR local microbrewery!
PROST!

still,
your humble brewer

#500!

2009-04-18T06:54:00.000-07:00

Brewed batch number 500 yesterday!

Yup! Brew 500 is in the tank, fermenting (I hope) as I write this. I wanted to do something different with this one just because it is the arbitrarily significant number 500. So, bowing to sporadic public pressure, I concocted a very hoppy, American-style IPA! You read it here first! I know I've said in the past I'd never brew one of these, but I'm a push-over if harassed and badgered hundreds of times over a period of five years!
I really went overboard on this one. While I was crafting the recipe and researching the IPA style, I noticed that most "hoppy" IPAs had a bitterness "content" of around 40-60 IBU's (IBU stands for International Bittering Unit. This is a way to quantify how bitter a beer recipe will be. The higher the number, the higher the potential for a bitter, hoppy beer.). I then found some more "extreme" IPA beers that drove the IBUs into the high 60's and low 70's. Well, not wanting to be outdone and knowing how truly mad some of our local hop-heads are, I shot for the moon! This IPA (working title is Hoppy MoFo!) checks in with 80.6 IBUs! Triple-hopped! Extended boil! Alcohol around 6.9-7% by weight! I yelled and screamed at the wort as it boiled just to make sure I infused this sucker with plenty of attitude! This beer is scheduled to be racked (transfered into kegs) late next week or the next. I'll be tasting it as the fermentation progresses and will decide later if I need to dry hop it. Dry hopping is literally dropping more hops in through a hole at the top of the fermenter. This gives the finished beer more hop aroma. I did this on another very small batch of specialty beer I did in the past I called Stray Dog Ale. Whoo Hoo!
Oh yea, I'm still looking for a good name for this hoppy beer because Hoppy MoFo just might not cut it. So send me your name ideas to glacierg@centurytel.net.

In case you haven't heard, House Bill 400 (higher beer alcohol) passed and will go into effect October 1st. Huge thanks go out to Legislator Deborah Kottel (D) and Legislator John Brueggeman (R). If you run into either of these great Montanans, please shake their hand and thank them for carrying this bill through the houses so that it could be signed by our governor!

Until next time,
Your Humble Brewer

Back In The Saddle Again......

2009-04-04T07:28:00.001-07:00

(Waterspout offshore Flagler Beach (June 30, 1999). Courtesy of Flagler County Emer. Mgmt.)

Well, Howdy Hi all and warm Spring wishes to ya'!

That's all I can give is "warm wishes" because our Spring here in Polson is definitely NOT warm. We're still getting snow in the morning, the bird bath is still frozen, and I'm still grumbling about the weather. For those of you keeping score, I was gone this last week. Gone to western Florida, gone to the white sand beaches of Carillon Beach, gone to the beautiful Florida weather, gone to.....tornado warnings? flash flood warning? water spout warnings??!? Yup, had almost a solid week of extreme downpours! Got one solid day of sun, though. The funny dichotomy for me was that while all this rain was falling (almost a years worth in one week), I was in a drought of good craft beer. I was warned before I went down there that the pickins' would be slim, but whoa doggy! Couldn't find a brewery anywhere in that area. I'd be lying if I said it didn't get me to thinking; thinking about the potential of opening a small microbrewery in that area. True, real estate and rent prices are through the roof (1.6 million for a three bedroom "hotel room"), but still it seems that area is ripe for it. I dunno, maybe western Florida just doesn't have as sophisticated of a beer palate as Montana. We are so fortunate to have so many really good Montana-made beers and breweries. So, almost needless to say, it's good to be back!I did miss April Fools Day at the brewery, however. Bummer. I was gonna lock Jim inside one of the tanks in the brewhouse as an April Fools joke. Oh well, maybe next year. Speaking of fun in the brewery, we have a fun, new event coming up the 18th of this month. We'll be doing a Luau party at the brewery! We're gonna have games, fun, food, great brews and who knows what else. Wear your best beach wear, drag out your tropical shirts, put on your flip-flops, show off your farmer's tan! It'll be $5.00 at the door per person and this BENEFITS THE CHEMOTHERAPY DEPARTMENT AT ST. JOSEPH'S HOSPITAL.
So remember,the date is April 18th, a Saturday, from 2:00pm 'til 8:00pm. C'mon down and help us help the Chemo Department at the hospital.

Now, also apparently, while I was gone, Jim and Bill and Cynthia (the three tap-a-teers) exercised their independence by offering beer specials in the tasting room. If you missed out, well, you missed out. People responded pretty positively. The brewery faithful enjoyed the spontaneity of these three. Now, I've offered this before with little feedback from you, dear reader. I'll offer it again: If there is something you'd like to see in our little dog and pony show, shoot me an email, write it on a scrap of paper and leave it in the mail box, whisper in my ear in the tasting room, anything but TELL ME!!!! Keep in mind that this is actually a business so suggestions like "Give away free beer" probably won't get much traction (I'd like to continue feeding my kids!). But, beer specials, whacky events, special nights, game nights, trivia, whatever. Just let me know. Okay, end of rant.

Until next time,
your humble brewer

STRONG BEER BILL UPDATE!!

2009-03-16T20:32:00.000-07:00

House Bill 400 is up for a hearing before it goes to the Senate. This hearing will take place this Thursday.

BUT, before that hearing, please take a moment to contact the legislators and let them know in YOUR own words that you support HB400.

This bill properly expands the portfolio of traditional craft beers that brewers can produce and retailers can carry
It provides for greater use of Montana agricultural products
It meets consumer demands and expands market access within and outside of Montana
It helps small Montana businesses grow
It provides access to craft beers that are generally available in all surrounding states, and in most states nationwide
It does not create greater access to alcohol for youths in that traditional craft beers are generally highly priced (often $10 or more), and are marketed to adult beer connoisseurs, much like fine wines are marketed."

You can get a hold of your legislators in a couple of ways; 1. Call the switchboard at 406-444-4800 to leave them a message and 2. go to http://leg.mt.gov/css/sessions/61st/legwebmessage.asp. and fill out the online form.

After the bill passes this hurdle it's onto the Senate, then the Gov, then STRONGER BEER FOR ALL (with valid ID)!

your humble brewer!

New Outlet For Six-Packs!

2009-03-15T07:57:00.000-07:00

Wake The Kids, Call The Neighbors!!!

For those of you who know us at the brewery, know two things: 1. We've been talking for a long time about putting our bottled beers into stores. And 2. we tend to take slow baby steps. Well, your patience has payed off. We now have three of our beers available in six-packs in the Polson Super 1 grocery store! What this means is that you, our loyal customer, are no longer tied to the, sometimes bizarre, fluctuations of our tasting room schedule. You will be able to get your mitts on three of our more popular beers whenever Super 1 is open. They are currently carrying our Flathead Cherry Ale, Golden Grizzly Ale, and Glacier Select Oktoberfest. It's kinda' surreal seeing our products sitting on a shelf next to Sierra Nevada and Blue Moon. How far we've come. Another outlet in Polson for our six-packs is the Polson Liquor Store where you can build your own six-pack! Two great Polson business now carrying our six-packs.

Before I forget, join us at the brewery this St. Patrick's Day from 4:00pm 'til 8:00pm to enjoy a gourmet dinner! Isabel's Bistro (another fantastic Polson business) will be catering this event. For $13.00 a plate you'll get a heaping portion of Isabel's famous corned beef, Irish soda bread with honey butter (drool!), sauteed cabbage, and roasted veggies! Space is limited so get your tickets early at the brewery.

Until next time,
I remain, your humble brewer

Went to the Capital....

2009-02-18T08:29:00.000-08:00

I spent this past President's Day weekend with my family, touring around our great state's Capital. This is something I deeply recommend for anyone in Montana, regardless of your political affiliation. This gave my wife and I a wonderful opportunity to show our kids, first hand, how and where the state's laws are crafted. I wanted them to come away with the understanding that making laws, like making beer and root beer, isn't an automatic thing. It takes effort, time, resources, and it takes a passionate person behind it; a maniac-on-a-mission!
We got the opportunity to sit in on a meeting of the Senate, bask in the regimental meeting structure, and hear opening debate on a bill; this one was about repealing the death penalty. While the meat of the debate was very deep and serious, the process was truly amazing to witness. The speed at which these bill votes were made was dizzying. Compton rappers have got nothing on the people running these meetings!
My interest in our state's law-making process is, admittedly, selfish in origin. I have been following the evolution of HB 400, increasing the legal amount of alcohol in Montana-made beer. I listened to the sponsor "make her case" before the House of Representatives, I heard the bill's opponents make (what I thought) were unrelated and arbitrary arguments, I got to see some humor and humanity from other House members. Truly fascinating. This bill is headed for the Senate, hopefully it'll receive positive votes there as well.

Anytime I go to Helena, I have to make a stop and pay homage at the historical Kessler Brewery (now a food distribution company). This brewery is located in west Helena and, directly adjacent to the brewery, is the Kessler family home. Unfortunately, this wonderful landmark is in very bad shape having had numerous episodes of vandalism and a fire on the top floor. Nonetheless, it is truly a thing of beauty. There is a big part of me that wants to buy this tarnished building, dump in my life's savings ($23.42) and refurbished it to it's original grandeur. I could see myself and my family living very happily in Helena. Only problem is that Helena-to-Polson commute would be a killer!
Not many are aware of the fact that Nicolas Kessler also ran a very successful brick factory. The Kessler bricks are present throughout Helena, I found quite a few in the pavement of the walking mall of downtown Helena, Last Chance Gulch. These bricks are quite large by today's standards. They are also blond in color and have a neat cross-hatch pattern on them. If you're quite lucky, you might find a smaller, red brick with the initials "N.K." in raised relief on the face. Literally a piece of history in your hand!
Helena, city of many faces and times. It's always good to get out of Dodge for a day or two, gets my creative juices going.
Until next time,
your humble brewer

HB 400 UPDATE

2009-02-13T13:22:00.000-08:00

The higher-alcohol beer bill cleared another hurdle today: passing it's third reading before the House with a vote of 80-20.

Is anybody else singing to themselves "oh I'm just a bill and I'm sitting here on Capital Hill...."?

HB 400 Passes Second Reading!!!

2009-02-12T13:49:00.001-08:00

Just moments ago, beer lover, Montana House Bill 400 passed (83-17) it's second reading before the Montana Legislature!
HB 400 is schedule for it's THIRD reading tomorrow, February 13.

I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE YOU TO EMAIL OR CALL YOUR LEGISLATOR AND ASK THEM TO SUPPORT HOUSE BILL 400!

FIND A MONTANA LEGISLATOR

House Bill 400

2009-02-12T11:22:00.000-08:00

Well, blogites. Montana House Bill 400 is waiting in the wings at the State Legislature. I've been listening to and watching our legislators hear testimony all morning about workman's comp laws, firefighter hire age requirements, interesting bickering and some lame attempts at humor (mostly mine). The higher alcohol bill, HB 400, passed out of committee on February 10 with 14 votes for it and four against. So far, it's looking fairly strong. I'm not certain how many Montana brews overall will take full advantage of this law change but I do know that probably every brewery in Montana, including good ole' GBC, will make at least one brew that will reach the new alcohol limit. These brews would cost more to make therefore they will cost more to buy, but well worth it, methinks.

It's been exciting for me to watch the counter continue to climb on our new Point Of Sales download page (click here). I do wonder who is going there: is it curious consumers, salesman downloading imagery to give to accounts (I HOPE!), or what?

Well, we have a new specialty beer on tap in the tasting room; our Dunkel Hefeweizen is back! You remember this fantastic beer from last year and the year before that. Funny how I'm seeing other Montana breweries brewing these oddball styles only after we've been doing them for awhile. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then thank you. This wheat beer is dark in color, unfiltered, and made with a wonderful hefeweizen yeast we have imported from Germany. My source tells me this particular strain of yeast has been keep alive since the 1600's! Good stuff. Get in here before it gone!

I'll keep you update on HB 400.

Until next time,
Prost!
your humble brewer

Montana Beer Law Evolution.....

2009-02-02T09:12:00.000-08:00

By now you may have heard about the latest effort to evolve the Montana brewery laws. There is a movement underway to change the state's definition of beer, House Bill 400 (click here to read it).

According to Montana Code 16-1-106, (5) "'Beer' means a malt beverage containing not more than 7% of alcohol by weight." The bill is attempting to redefine beer as a malt beverage containing not more than 14% alcohol by volume, this translates to 11.05% alcohol by weight. Now to fully understand this, understand that there are two scales to measure alcohol in beer: alcohol by weight and alcohol by volume. The state limit of 7% alcohol by weight translates to 8.869% alcohol by volume. Potatoes, Potahtoes. Same amount of alcohol in both readings.

There are very few states in our fine country that have such restrictive language on their books regarding how much alcohol can be present in beer. Unfortunately, Montana is one of those states. There is a true desire from the purchasing public to have the legal opportunity to sample and purchase Montana-Made beers that, by their vary style designation, contain alcohol greater than 7% by weight. Brewer's across the state, also, have a deep desire to produce these rarefied brews. But make no mistake, these high-gravity beer styles are not about "getting drunker, quicker". There are plenty of products on the market already to fill that post-adolescent niche. These style are to be savored, enjoyed slowly. Most require they achieve room temperature to release all of their aromatic qualities.

This "7%" law was put on the books several decades ago and seven percent is said to have been a fairly arbitrary limit. There does not seem to be much resistance to this alteration from any one group. That, in and of itself, is a rarity whenever you talk about changing any alcohol law or rule in Montana. The brewer's are for it, MADD (Mother's Against Drunk Driving) states they have no problem with the bill ("As long as the packaging notes that the person is getting in effect, two standard drinks". Missoulian, Sunday Feb 1, 2009). Even the Montana Tavern Association seems to not oppose it, but they don't support it either.

Gold-Medal winning If, in fact, this does go through and becomes law, it will give me a chance to brew some of these recipes I have in my recipe book that I haven't done in quite awhile. Including my GABF,Maibock! Oh Baby! Or maybe a doppelbock or Eisenbock or even a Barley Wine!! These types of beer would be a very special brew, one we wouldn't be producing very often, or in very large quantities primarily because of the costs involved. But it would be refreshing to have the opportunity to produce them and be able to compete on a level playing field against the out-of-state breweries that can make these beers.

As always with these types of things, CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE AND ASK THEM TO SUPPORT HB400!
Let's evolve our brewery laws.

Until next time,
Your Humble Brewer

New stuff!!!

2009-01-16T12:24:00.000-08:00

Okay everyone. I have a couple of items I'd like to bring to your collective attention:

We now have a new page on our website that allows our retail accounts to create point of sales items themselves! No longer are you a slave to the periodic whims of the brewery!! Go to http://www.glacierbrewing.com/POS to see for yourselves.
Tim at the Grizzly Growler blog put up a really nice video of Glacier Brewing on his blogsite: http://grizzlygrowler.com/?p=510. I recommend you bookmark the Grizzly Growler and check it often. Good Montana beer news source.

There is some rumbling in the Montana beer world about some efforts to change/amend the current brewery laws. One I know about is based on the failed attempt by the Department of Revenue to change a rule about having a pint in your hand at the stroke of 8:00pm in a tasting room. As you remember, that got shot down (thanks again!). We know the new one is to keep no more on-premise sale after 8:00pm, but at 10:00pm, your (by now-warm) pint of beer IS removed from your meaty grasp. So the state wants to set it in the books that you have two hours to finish you last pint.

While we're at it, how about raising the alcohol limit breweries in Montana can enjoy. Currently, we are NOT ALLOWED to produce any beer that is stronger than 7% of alcohol by weight. It's even illegal for breweries to have even one bottle of stronger beer on premise, never mind selling it. There are many beer styles that, by their nature, are meant to be stronger in alcohol than 7%: Maibocks 8-10%, Barleywines 10-13%, Dubbels, Trippels, etc! All wonderful styles but we're not allowed to make 'em in the Treasure State. Are there some breweries making stronger beers? Probably. Are there stores selling stronger beers? Yup. Are there distributors handling stronger beers? Where do the stores get 'em from? I've always felt that this is one of the laws that need to be enforced or removed from the books. Preferably, removed from the books.
Well, that's my two cents.
Until next time, I remain, your humble brewer.

PROST!

Happy (FRIGGIN'!) New Year!

2009-01-06T18:42:00.000-08:00

This has been a Hell of a start to our New Year.
New Years Eve day:
2:00pm:
Got a phone call from my wife:
"Hate to do this to ya' on the last day of the year but our downstairs just flooded."

........what?

Yup, outside temps in the teens, our downstairs of our split-level house (read: our bedroom!) flooded. "From what?" you may ask.

THE CITY SEPTIC PIPES!!!!

Luckily, we only received graywater, no blackwater (read: POOP!).
We ripped out the carpet, carpet pad, drywall gone four feet up, and have had dehumidifiers and hepafilters running 24 hours a day. Happy friggin' new years.......
So that's what we've been dealing with. Luckily, we own a brewery!
Jim and I have been working on various techniques to stay warm in the brewhouse during the "cold season". We wear warm hats during the work day, we fill the sanitizing buckets with warm water, we put our pints of beer in the microwave! Cold mutha! Not much fun. But we keep at it. Why? you may ask. Well, we do it for you! Yes, you! We keep the beer flowing for our loving public! (you DO love us? Right?)

Our special yeast is on the way. The special "dunkel hefeweizen" yeast. This particular strain of yeast has been imported from Germany and has been kept alive since the 1600's! Believe it.....or not!
Please stop into the tasting room during this winter. We have several specials going: Monday is growler specials, Tuesday is pint specials, Wednesday is six-pack specials, Thursday is pint and "keep da' glass" specials, and Friday is just SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL BREWERY for beer's sake!!!

Until next time,
your humble brewer.....

December Brewing

2008-12-20T16:00:00.000-08:00

We've gone through a very cold patch, here in Polson. We felt air temps dip (and stay) in the 10-15 degrees below zero range. Add the gale force winds we were enjoying and you get air temperatures down to 30-50 below zero! Now, almost anyone living in colder climates will tell you, this is plenty cold enough to freeze your exposed skin very quickly. But, I hear you ponder, what will that do to my beer? Well, like a lot of brewers, I have a keg-r-ator at my home. I'm lucky enough to keep it in an insulated garage. It's a newer refrigerator so I don't really worry about energy loss. Well, these temps were severe enough to FREEZE MY TAPS!! (see above photo) Calm down, calm down. They're okay now, but we were all worried.

Our brewhouse is housed in an old racquetball court building. It was built in the mid 1970's to the tune of about $24,000. A whole building with land! Now what does this tell you? Yup, they didn't spend a lot on insulation, well, neither have we. The walls are cinderblock (no insulation), the roof is metal with 1970's insulation. Oh yea, our ceiling is about 26 feet tall! Pretty tough to heat. It's always cold in the brewhouse/cellar in the non-summer months. And I mean COLD! I think that brewers must have a sort of sadomasochistic streak; all the little parts we need in the brewhouse to facilitate the beer transfer from tank to tank, these little parts are stored in buckets of sanitizer that are on the floor all the time. These buckets achieve temperatures very close to freezing but don't because of the sanitizer that is in them. So when we need a part, we have to plunge our bare hands into these buckets of love! Then we cry.

We've gotten quite a bit of snow lately. Still snowing on and off. So far I think we've gotten around 6-9 inches, which is quite a bit considering we're sitting in the northwest Montana Banana Belt, blame the lake.

I'm working towards several NEW specialty brews including our very first beer brewed with local spruce tips. I'm shooting for mid to late February. I have to get the recipe approved by the fine folks at the Federal Alcohol & Tobacco, Tax and Trade Bureau. That could take a few weeks. So keep watching this blog, I'll let ya' know what's going on at good ole' GBC!
Approaching Christmas in Polson, 2008. Our roads are snow-packed, our yards are deep under a comfortable blanket of snow and our lake is frozen. Have a peace-filled holiday, keep your winter gear in your car, empty your growlers and refill them!
Until next time, I remain,
Your Humble Brewer

Markin' the Milestones

2008-11-14T06:30:00.000-08:00

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

Living the dream....

2008-10-30T20:38:00.000-07:00

Autumn is in full swing, here at Glacier Brewing. I'm never quite sure what kinda' weather is gonna greet me when I leave the brewhouse at the end of a day (I have no windows!! help me!). Some days, a little rain, some days, some snow. Lately, the evenings have been mythical! Warm, blue skies, light breeze, leaves on the ground.......just fantastic! It's definitely a season of change: weather's changing, daylight hours are changing, people's routines are changing, and the beers at the brewery are changing. If you haven't had the "Autumn Ale Experience" in the tasting room, you are missing out! This beer matches this time of year, perfectly! We have only a few more kegs of the Autumn Ale so you need to beat cheeks to the tasting room soon! The Brewer's Blog faithful may notice that this beer's name has suddenly changed. It used to be named after a certain patron saint of hop pickers and brewers. Well, a cease-and-desist letter from a law firm changed that. It seems a brewery in the southern U.S. objected to us using this patron saint's name since their brewery had the same name, so we dropped it. For now, it's called "Autumn Ale". Ahh, lawyers. What would we ever do without 'em?

So the other night, I'm at the brewery, closing it down. By now it's about 8:30 at night, it's dark out and I have about 16 blocks to walk home. No problem...usually. I say "usually" because earlier that day I learned of a SECOND mountain lion sighting in Polson! Now, I'm not a small guy; about 5'11", 210lbs, walking two dogs. But, I do not relish the thought of running into a mountain lion on the city streets. That was an interesting walk home! This lion is still at large. It's weird seeing the game warden parked across from the elementary school in the morning when all the kids get there. He's waiting for the lion!
So, do you have any thoughts on what kind of specialty beer you would like to see at the good ole' GBC? Drop me a line, give me a call, or get my attention to let me know.

Until next time,
Your Humble Brewer

FIELDS OF GOLD

2008-10-10T09:53:00.001-07:00

The Mission Valley has, most definitely, left summer far behind. Fall is here, maybe even an early winter. Maybe not. Our first frost seemed like it came kinda' late this year. But it did come and with it, cooler (dare I say "colder" (dare, dare!!)) daytime temperatures. You can also see in people's faces. An almost welcome melancholy has settled onto Polson. As fun and busy as the summer is here, it is nice when the cooler weather arrives and most things settle down.

[WARNING: SHAMELESS PLUG AHEAD!]

I say "most" because weekends at the brewery are anything but. In case you haven't been in to the tasting room in awhile, we are now dedicating Saturday and Sunday to football! That's right, Saturday is "COLLEGE FOOTBALL DAY" and Sunday is all about the NFL SUNDAY TICKET!
People have been coming in to root for their teams, enjoy some beer, and have a hot dog or bowl of chili. It continues to amaze me how cozy and warm the tasting room is even though it is such a large space. We have several comfortable recliners and couches so you can put your feet up and watch one of our five TVs!
We have our five regular beers on tap in addition to our Root Beer, Montana NRG(energy drink), Flathead Cherry Ale and Autumn Ale.
The Autumn Ale is a dark, smokey, Scottish-style ale. I use fresh peated malt in this beer. This is malt that has been dried over peat fires! Wonderful addition to any fall day! This saint is one of the patron saints of hop pickers and brewer's. He was known to advocate the consumption of beer instead of water due to the fetid conditions of most water sources in his time. Since beer is heated and brewed, that process would kill most of the nasties that would kill you! Note the mash rake in his hand!
"THROUGH MAN'S SWEAT AND GOD'S LOVE, BEER CAME INTO THE WORLD!"

Until next time, I remain your humble brewer.

Hop Shortage? GROW YER OWN!

2008-09-13T07:08:00.000-07:00

Howdy once more, dear readers.
I had a very rare opportunity this last week. As many of you know, hops are vital to brewing and said hops have become somewhat scare and very expensive. Well, a few years ago, I planted some hop vines around our brewery in Polson. I wanted them more for the visual impact than the actual hop cones. These vines have been, well, growing like a weed every summer. The oldest one achieving over a foot of growth per day at peak growing time! Well, these vines have also beer producing a respectable crop of hop cones every year so, of course, I thought "Why don't I harvest these and use them in a specialty beer?"
That's just what I'm doing. Before I use them in the brewkettle, however. I wanted to get them into a form that would allow me maximum utilization. Normally I use hops in a pelletized form. But I lack the equipment to force the whole hops into tight little pellets. I do have the ability to make the next best thing; hop plugs!
So, after I spent a couple of beautiful, Montana afternoons harvesting the hop cones, I began the process of converting them into plugs:
First. I dried the hop cones in my food dehyrators for about five hours.
Second, the dried hops needed to be pulverized into a powderized form for better access to the ever-elusive hop oils.
Third, the pulverized hops were loaded into the plug form (aka piece of PVC pipe!).
Fourth, I compressed the pulverized hops in the plug form using a custom-made hop plunger (I love my wood lathe!).
Fifth, a 12-pound sledge hammer gently compresses the hops in the form tighter and tighter.
Sixth, I left the plug form full overnight to ensure the hops would keep the shape.
Finally, the new hop plug is extracted from the form and vacuum sealed for future brews!

So far, this process, while being very labor-intensive, has yielded some surprisingly good plugs! I'm pretty anxious to get these guys into a brew sometime this fall or winter. It'll be like a pint of Montana summer in the winter duldrums! We're also planning on erecting some hop poles in our beer garden and utilize that space as a "hop garden". It's gonna be a lot of work but it'll pay off visually and hop-wize!
Until next time,
Your Humble Brewer!

State of our State

2008-08-14T18:40:00.000-07:00

Photo: Your humble brewer in front of the first brewery in the Montana Territory, the Gilbert Brewery, Virgina City, Mont.

Quite a last few weeks in the Montana brewery culture. We saw a staggeringly-proposed rule change put forth from the Montana Department of Revenue (affecting Montana's tasting rooms) rescinded at almost the last moment. For those of you unfamiliar with this chain of events, allow me to present my perspective:
The rule change was posted on the Department of Revenue's (DOR) website a little over a week before the hearing. Luckily, one of our state's brewers noticed this and rang the warning bell. The Montana State Brewer's Association (MSBA) began a very concentrated effort to inform the public, elected officials, and themselves about this rule change. Letters were written to the Governor, State Senators, State Congressman, State Representatives, reporters, editors, and any else that would listen. Petitions were started and filled with passionate comments at a record pace. Enough public interest was whipped up that Governor Schweitzer ordered a meeting between the DOR and MSBA. At this meeting, the brewers were told by DOR Director Dan Bucks, that the rule would be rescinded from the hearing and the director apologized for his staff not communicating with the brewers about this rule prior to the posting. Huge thanks to Director Bucks for having the strength to do the right thing regarding this issue. It was further stated that the Montana Tavern Association (MTA) had nothing to do with this. It is interesting to note that in newspaper articles when this issue first breached quoting DOR employees that they had "received numerous complaints from all-beverage licensee holders" (read: tavern owners). When these DOR employees were pressed to present these complaints, they stated that these types of records are not kept by the DOR. Whether the MTA was behind this proposed tasting room restriction or not is somewhat unclear. Bill Schneider of the New West online magazine gives a real nice synopsis of the whole "brew-ha-ha" (I hate that term!) at http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/score_one_for_the_brewmasters/C41/L41/.

Once the dust settled, I found out (from the DOR) that tasting rooms in Montana are legally allowed to remain open past 8:00pm until 2:00am. The restriction is that from 8-2 ONLY off-premise sales (kegs, growlers, six-packs) can occur; NO ON-PREMISE CONSUMPTION! The majority of Montana brewers were unaware of this little allowance.
This brings me to another rant/gripe/amazement/whatever: When you open a brewery in Montana (this has been my experience), you do not get a listing of the rules you must follow. This is also true at the federal level (we're also regulated by the Department of Treasury, by the way). Isn't it in every one's best interest if the rules of the game are known from the git-go?

At any rate, I was thankful and truly awed by the caliber and amount of support Montana breweries received from our faithful public:
THANK YOU!!!
Until next time,
Your Humble Brewer

Bit of a side note.....

2008-08-08T20:44:00.000-07:00

Ya' know, I wasn't always a brewer. There was a time in my life when I sported a mohawk. True, that was way back in high school wrestling (2nd in my division, senior year Thank You!) . But a mohawk all the same. It wasn't until my second year in college that I met James. I imagine the above picture is what he looked like as a baby.
When I met him he looked more like this:
or was it this:
or maybe this:At any rate, James was sportin' quite the mohawk. I met him playing pool. He was an intimidating 130 pounds. As the years rolled by, I ended up being a raft guide with him on the Colorado River in Glenwood Springs. He didn't have a mohawk at this time but he had not lost the "rebel" mentality.
I still have memories of him leaving his raft (full of paying customers) to commandeer my raft (full of paying customer) by pushing me off the end into the river!
.......Good Times!!!

Anyhoo, I recently heard from James.

Just one sentence.

But that was enough to send me into a novel full of memories. Real friends are like that.
They get it. They know you.

James, if you read this, thanks. I miss you. We had a lot of fun.

Your friend,
Rudolph The Red!

TASTING ROOM RULE CHANGE UPDATE....

2008-08-06T10:17:00.000-07:00

I just received notice that after a meeting called by Gov. Schweitzer between the Department of Revenue and the Montana State Brewer's Association, the DOR "have offered to rescind the proposed rule from the hearing tomorrow." This is GREAT news for Montana breweries and Montana beer lovers! For those of you keeping track; as of this blog entry, we have collected more than 900 signatures on our online and paper petition. A great number of the online petition entries carried comments supporting not only the defeat of this rule change but to expand our current hours of service.
THANK YOU ALL who showed support for your Montana Breweries!!

PROST!!!
Dave

THINGS TO DO IN POLSON.....

2008-07-24T06:50:00.000-07:00

MIGHTY KERR DAM!

Okay, this is a bit of a cheat of a blog entry. But I thought it was kinda neat. I went down to Kerr Dam recently and was treated to this show. Don't often get to see the gates open.

"AND THE AWARDS GO TO....."

2008-07-10T12:56:00.000-07:00

From the "Better-Late-Than-Never" department, we received our awards from the latest Garden City Brewfest in Missoula. This took place back in May. Good 'ole GBC walked away with two awards: Best Specialty Ale and Best Light Hybrid Ale. I enjoy brewfests, trouble is I don't get to very many these days as I haven't quite gotten the nerve up to chew through my leg because I'm shackled to the brewhouse! The summer is our busiest time of the year. If only we could spread some of the summertime business to the rest of the year!

In years past, I was the only brewer and cellarman. Well, those of you that know GBC know that we have been growing our Jim over the last couple of years. When he first started, all he had was a desire to learn more about the whole operation. He has endured many mind-numbing hours ensuring the kegs are sanitized, he has learned how to rack into the kegs, how to run our labeler, how to deal with me, and most importantly; Jim is becoming a fine assistant brewer. This provides a nice release valve for me. While I'm attending to one of the other thirteen-thousand details of this business (like writing the blog), Jim is able to continue with that day's brew. I give him a lot of grief (mostly about being from Wyoming) but I do appreciate him and his efforts quite a bit. Jim and his wife are in the process of opening up a storefront in Ronan, Montana for their screenprinting business, Image Quest. They do quality work, their prices are fair, and they have very reasonable turn-around times. Check out their website if you're in the market for custom-printed clothing: http://www.imagequesttees.com/.

Well, we have a new specialty in the tasting room, at least for a few more days. This one is called Sebastian's Select. I infused a few kegs of uncarbonated Oktoberfest with nitrogen gas. We pour it through a special faucet most people know as a "Guiness tap". What this does is to push the beer through small holes drilled in a disc inside the tap. The beer is agitated enough for the nitrogen gas to be "ripped out" of the solution. The nitrogen bubbles are much smaller and stronger than carbon dioxide bubbles. Also, since our atmosphere is composed of mostly nitrogen, these bubbles don't experience the pressure gradient that CO2 bubbles do and therefore are not as willing to pop. Bottom line is the bubbles form a thick, creamy head of foam. This action also pulls a lot of the hop oils out of solution so when you take a sip, you get a somewhat hoppy foam first and then a very smooth liquid body! YUMMIE!!! I put this on tap yesterday and every other pint I poured was the Sebastian's. Sebastian, by the way, is the name of our brewhouse. I didn't name it that. It named itself. As with all our seasonals, get in here soon or you'll miss out!
Until next, I remain your humble brewer.

State Of The State

2008-06-24T19:58:00.000-07:00

Unless, you've been living under a log lately, you have probably heard about the "HOP CRISIS" (I use capitals so you understand the importance!!). If not it goes like this: the hop suppliers have been sitting on a hop surplus the past few years, this surplus has artificially driven the price of hops down, breweries have been buying these cheaper hops, the hop farmers can't meet the payments on their John Deere so they either: A)Get our of hop farming or B)they stay in hop farming but don't expand their planted acreage. Either way, the surplus gets used up due to increased demand. Oh yeah, world-wide hop harvest get decimated by diseases, drought, too much rain, or all of the above. Once again, whatever the cause the result is the same: Crappy Hop Harvests! So now, the average price of hops (if you can find any to buy) has gone from about $4.80 per pound to about $39.00 per pound. Let me type that out so there is no misunderstanding: four dollars and eighty cents per pound to thirty nine dollars per pound!!!

WTF!!!

Never before has the modern beer industry been faced with such an attack on one of their principles: hops! Toss into this whole mess the federal government's REQUIREMENT that breweries are to include hops in their beer for it to be considered beer at the rate of 7 pounds per 100 barrels (one barrel equals 31 gallons). Because breweries large and small are "allowed" to manufacture beer by the federal government and beer is defined by said entity as having seven pounds for every 100 barrels, it does feel like the small brewery's hands are somewhat tied. There are over 30 other plants besides hops that have been used to bitter beer but they have not be "recognized" by the feds as being an ingredient in beer. Myself, well, I'm looking at supplementing our hops supply by brewing a beer with some hops AND spruce tips. These are the new growth of Colorado Blue and Green Spruce Trees. I'm new in the whole "spruce tips" world but I'm very curious to see how my test batch of "spruce beer" turns out.
Oh yea, I'm also entertaining ideas for our next specialty brew. Please understand that it won't be an IPA or anything else really hoppy. Sorry, just not gonna happen. If you have any thoughts, tell me or email me or call me or slip a note under the door.
Well, the brewhouse has already started to heat up for the summer; freakin' roasting in there. So I guess we're on that seasonal treadmill once again!
Until next time,
Your Humble Brewer

HERE WE GO AGAIN....

2008-06-13T07:05:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, this picture was taken the morning of June 11, 2008. We awoke, here in Polson, to a building springtime blizzard. In a matter of 20 minutes, the rain turned to sleet and then VERY heavy snow. The trees accumulated a quick coating and, SNAP! Down came the bigger branches. One of the remarkable things about this weather was that it stuck around! The snow didn't melt that day or the next. The skies stayed overcast, low and gray. I was surprised with the tangible feeling that pervaded my attitude and almost everyone I meet those two days. We were all feeling more than a little cheated. We'd gotten through this winter weather already. Winter was over. We've earned our sunshine and warmth and singing birds! NOT FAIR!!! Well, yesterday the warm winds blew, the sun shone down and the snow melted, mostly. Our surrounding mountains are still locked in late-winter, snow-pack has returned. I guess the next event will be to watch for the rapid melt-off. Our ground feels extremely saturated. I understand the gates on Kerr Dam are already open and roaring. This was before this storm. If you're in the area, check out the dam. It's quite an impressive show when it's roaring the way it is now.
Until next time,
Your humble brewer

AHHH, SPRINGTIME, er, SUMMERTIME!!!

2008-06-04T06:08:00.000-07:00

It's finally here, SUMMERTIME! The trees are full of flowers, the flowers are full of bees, the bees are full of pollen. This year's seasons definately seem to be marching a very strange, start-stop, sort of progression. Our winter was long and very drawn-out. The springtime seemed to last about four days (interupted by more winter), now we're into summer but only in the afternoons, the mornings are still in early spring! Whatever, I'll take it! Diversity sharpens the senses, quickens the blood. You're never quite sure what the afternoon will bring, or the next morning or the weekend. Growing up in western Colorado, now known as eastern California, once winter and mud season was over, you could lay down a certain bet that the day would start with blazing blue skies, followed by white puffy clouds around 2:30pm and then building into isolated thunderstorms by 4:00pm. The evenings would always be gorgeous blue again. All my friends loved this weather. I grew more and more irritated by the endless blue days (not just summer, ALL YEAR!). I craved weather variety, the chronic "wonderful blue sky" was smothering me with sameness! This psychotic, helter-skelter weather of northwest Montana is truly WONDERFUL!

Until next time,
Your humble Brewer.

LUCKY ARE THE BRAVE

2008-05-26T06:32:00.000-07:00

MEMORIAL DAY 2008

We're staring down the beginning of a very beautiful day here in Polson. Current temperature is 50 degrees with a guess of rain today. But I don't see that now. Live for the moment, I always say.
I woke up this morning to an unfortunately familiar smell of dog poop. We recently switched our dogs to a "higher" quality dog food than they have been inhaling and one of the mutts' system can't seem to handle it, seemingly at random! So, I'm never quite sure, going to bed the night before, when I'll be waking up to "THAT" smell. Like I said, it happened this morning. My reaction was what you'd expect "GOD D*MN DOG, GET THE F@#K OUT! WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU?!?!" Or something like that. She's outside sulking, I'm inside fuming. I'm cleaning it up, grumbling to myself when this story comes on CNN about some US soldiers who are being deployed to Afghanistan but have a few days to visit their families. Problem is there is no money for them to make the trip! So citizens donated all the funds needed. I know, while this is a very real story, the timing of the telling of it was designed to generate solidarity, civic pride, etc. Well, it worked. But also, it showed me something else. It shook me out of my little, daily ego-centric bubble. While cleaning up liquid dog poop first thing in the morning sucks, I'm not being deployed to the other side of the world! It is far too easy for me (and others I suspect) to loose sight of things like this. I don't want to brand this rant as "Appreciate what you have-others have it worse-you don't know how good you have it!". Most of that is true however. But, that is human nature.

One thing I've stressed to my offspring is this: When you see a soldier and have the opportunity, STOP what you're doing, walk up to that person, politely get their attention, look them in the eye and just THANK THEM. Red state, blue state, white state, green state, republican, democrat, independent, pro-war, anti-war, pro-bush, anti-bush, morning-person, night-owl, WHATEVER!!! JUST THANK THEM! Okay?

Good ole' GBC will be open today. Jim and I will be at the helm. Today, we're gonna be brewing some North Fork or maybe Stout. Those two always seem to be a little tougher to brew than the others. Mainly because of their extended grain and hop bills. The amber calls for SEVEN hop additions and uses EIGHT different grains. I know, I'm getting lazier as I age. That's why I have a "JIM". Everyone should get one, it's great! Such a wonderful, labor saving device! You just point your "JIM" at a task and, before you know it, it's done! Alright, sometimes I have to point it at the task a few times. Just kidding, Jim. (Who am I kidding, he can't read! He went to the University of Wyoming.....GO CSU RAMS!!!)

It is my wish that our collective day passes with peace and harmony. Sounds too hippy-ish? Too bad. Maybe the hippies have something there. One more thing before I release you, yesterday NASA landed a very advanced craft near the northern pole of Mars, looking for water and evidence of life. Do yourself a favor, check out the recent pictures of the surface of Mars, sip on your favorite Glacier Brew, watch the sunset, be in the moment. Oh yea, pray for no more liquefied dog poop!

Until next time,
Your Humble Brewer

87 DEGREES IN DA' SHADE!!!

2008-05-15T18:55:00.001-07:00

Surfin' Safari

Ya' gotta love Montana. Last week, we were getting snow, freezing rain, could see your breath as you walked to work (just me? okay...). Now, we're staring down 87degrees on Friday and hotter this weekend! Great news, right? WRONG!!! Think "Glacial Lake Missoula", think "Noah", think "Washed out bridges!". I know, some of you are saying "Don't be such a nay-sayer!". Sorry, it's just the way I roll. I love seeing the power of nature (from a distance, of course). This coming week holds the promise of exciting events happening along our western Montana waterways. We have had a significant amount of snow this year. Even lately. Now, suddenly, we're hitting the upper 80's and possibly the 90's?!? Excuse my American but, WTF?!? It is rare in my memory of such extreme temperature swings.
I have family in Colorado and I've been hearing stories from them of rapid melting causing culverts to dam and flood and then the next couple of days they get three inches of fresh powder! This may be climate change due to human activity or maybe it's part of a much, much larger cycle. One that our "recorded" history has yet to document.

Whatever the root cause, the results remain the same: Surf's Up!

Photo courtesy of the Montana Historical Society

HERE I SIT...

2008-05-14T17:18:00.000-07:00

TICK, TOCK.....

Well, here I sit. In the tasting room on Wednesday night after 5:00pm. It's 6:20 in fact and no one has taken me up on my "Free Pint" offer. No one has said "MOLLYCODDLE" to me.

.......so sad.....

2008-05-13T16:03:00.000-07:00

AUGUST 2003
POLEBRIDGE, MT

When I came across this photo in my digital archive, the thought that struck me was "Amazing what extremes you do to accomplish your goals." The story behind this photo is we had an account in the North Fork up in Polebridge (if you've never been, get off your ass and get up there! AMAZING!), they just had a party or concert or something. Anyway, they had quite a few of our kegs and tapping equipment. So I volunteered to to get it. You can pretty much shoot the day to hell going from Polson to Polebridge and back so I was looking forward to some Montana windshield time and a visit to one of my favorite places, The North Fork/Polebridge. When I got there and I reconnoitered their empty keg stacks, it dawned on me how poorly I had judged how many of our empties were up there. Now, keep in mind that I'm the kind of guy that when I get home from the grocery store, I like to make only ONE trip from car to kitchen with the bags of groceries. I've been known to cut off blood flow to my hands from having too many bags dangling from them. It's just how I'm wired. So when I saw all those kegs, I was bound and determined to get them all back, come hell or high water! What you can't see in the photo is I also had kegs in the front seat as well. Funny what I thought was "normal" when we were trying to get this brewery off the ground!
That was also the year of the fires in and around Glacier National Park. On my way back down, I stumbled upon a firecamp and helitack. The helitack was offering public tours (or so the sign said). I pulled in and got out of the keg-wagon, securing stares from the ground crew. I looked around and saw I was the only "public" around! Hot Dawg! Well, they loaded me into a truck and took me out to where the Sikorsky Helicopter was parked. I love helicopter! I mean, I LOVE THEM!!! I was gonna become a helicopter pilot for the military but they told me my eyes weren't good enough, so then I was gonna become a helicopter mechanic. Well, a female sergeant yelled at me to remove my hat indoors (while I was taking the ASVAB test and all the associated bending and probing), I thought immediately "I'm not in your army yet, how dare you yell at me like that!" And so ended that dream!
But I digress! I got to talk with the crew of this helicopter, sit in the left-hand seat, and basically crawl all around the thing until they got a call to deliver some water onto the fire and they kicked my off this wonderful machine! That was a good day! I do believe that one very vital key to everyday happiness is to find "mini-vacations" during the day. Find something that gives your being release, joy, peace.
Until next time,
Prost!
Your humble brewer

2008-05-07T10:05:00.000-07:00

HELLOOO OUT THERE!!!!!

Alright, I'm not sure anyone is even reading these posts. So in the interest to determine the interest in this blog, I'm offering the following:

-One (1) FREE pint of beer on Wednesday after 5:00pm in the GBC Tasting Room to anyone who tells me (Dave the Brewer) the magic word:

"MOLLYCODDLE"

Yup! That's right. Just say that word to Dave the Brewer on Wednesday (between May 7 and May 14, 2008) after 5:00 pm and you'll get a FREE pint of beer of your choice in our tasting room!
That's it!

GBC IN SPRING!

2008-04-29T13:30:00.000-07:00

YIPPEE!!!

Well, I think I'm gonna go ahead and jinx it and say SPRING IS FINALLY HERE!!
We've had beautiful days lately. Perfect weather to indulge in my new specialty, WILD WOLF WHEAT! This is any American wheat beer that I filter to wonderful clarity! This beer is crisp, refreshing, and beautiful!
I haven't made this recipe in over two years so it's kinda fun to get back out again. Last time I made this beer, the filtration of it was a nightmare. It took me over ten hours and two-and-a-half sets of filter pads to get it clear! I swore I would never again make this recipe. Well, two years and a new filter later, this time around the filtration went like a dream: one set of pads and 40 minutes! Not only that, but I filter two other tanks of beer before I filtered this wheat, ON THE SAME SET OF PADS!! I LOVE MY FILTER!

Whenever you make a wheat beer, ya' gotta be careful during the mash. This is due to the wheat kernels, themselves. Any good wheat beer is gonna be made up of at least 50% wheat grain. The wheat, unlike barley, is huskless. The husk of barley, while basically inert in the brewing process, provides a very important anti-clumping action in the mash. The husks don't allow the wet, hot grain to clump up very easily. Now, when you reduce the husk content by at least 50% (remember the wheat), well, clumping and "sticking your mash" become very real possibilities. Sticking your mash means that the milled grains in the mash tun have basically loosely fused into a big dough ball on top of the mash screens. So tightly, in fact, that not even water can get through. NOT GOOD! So you must monitor your mash, stir it gently, talk softly to it, be nice.
If all goes well, you then get to run the malt sugars over to your brew kettle.

This is known as your first runnings of wort (pronounced "wert"). This is some very sugary hot liquid. As the hot water continues to sprinkle over the grains, more and more sugars are leached out and into the brew kettle. Once the kettle is full, the wort is boiled, hops are added (if you can find any!), and the hot, hopped wort is crash-cooled on its way to the fermenter. The fermenter is where the magic happens! The yeast is added and eats all the sugars. It then excretes (yup, pees) alcohol! After the yeast is done peeing in our beer, we filter it, carbonate it, and package. Last but not least, we drink it!
So, get in here quick because the Wild Wolf Wheat always goes quick. I'm not sure when I'm gonna make it again since there are so many other beer styles I want to try out.
Until next time,
Prost!
Your Humble Brewer!

2008-04-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

Yup, here it is again!
EARTH DAY! This is the time for all of us to gather around our good intentions, turn off the lights, turn down the heat, recycle our newspapers and plastics (no glass, remember we're in Montana! No Glass Recycling Here!), make sure the dishwasher is full before running it, walk instead of driving, and on and on and on.
Except, is it really possible to reverse several hundreds of years of out and out environmental sodomy by taking these small steps? Is it possible to have any real-lasting effect on this enormous system we call "the environment"? I'm not sure.
I know, I know, "At least it's something." This is true. But the lifestyle changes needed should be all-encompassing and long-long-term.
Basic things, like when you use your car, need to be changed. The car, it seems, has become an extension of the body and this extension needs to be severed. Driving the car should become a unique thing.
Light usage: Next time you're in a grocery store, look up and try to count how many light fixtures are up there. I'm betting you get tired of counting before you get them all. Now think of how many stores use this many lights in your town, county, state, country?!? Holy Waa! How much light do we really need to compare two brands of pork rinds?
Excess is the credo of our society. I guess $3.50 a gallon and up is the price (literally) we pay for following this credo generation after generation.

So, what do we do? How about fuel rations? Everyone gets 35 gallons a month. Do with it what you can. When your tank is dry, you have to wait until the new month. I'd really make sure my "quick trip" to the store is worth it if this was the case. What else? How about sensors on lights so they can only be turned on when it's dark enough to need them? Graywater systems standard on all new construction. Municipal photovoltaic, hydro, and wind power-generating systems to supplement grid. Community food gardens instead of shipping food across the hemisphere. Ban NASCAR!
Oh, and everyone must fill their growlers at the Glacier Brewing Company!
P.S. In this vein, I'm thinking of collecting our beer bottles back so we can smash them and maybe use the crushed glass for landscaping or offer it to local builders as fill material. What do you think about this? Post a comment, email me (info@glacierbrewing.com) or come into the brewery and talk to me about it.

To know the future, look to the past....

2008-04-05T12:25:00.000-07:00

Howdy all,
When I was doing some spring cleaning, I came across this old photo of my great-great grandfather (that's him with the mallet in his hand and the white beard) posing with the crew from the first Glacier Brewing Company. It was located on the lake where the old mill used to be before it burned down. His name was Otto Schaefer. He started the brewery two years after he arrived in the area with his old business partner, David Polson. They were originally going to start a business of hauling east-coasters around the lake in traditional dug-out canoes. But after miserable experiences with sinking canoes, Otto decided to pursue his grandfather's passion, brewing beer. His brewery saw much greater success than did the canoe venture. He was best known for hauling his beers over the Mission Mountains in the winter to the Swan Valley to keep the government elk-breeding researchers supplied. It was on one of these trips when he encountered a lost and starving group of hunters. He was able to get their fire going and got them fed with a bark stew. If not for his efforts and good timing, the whole group of fifteen hunters would have perished! This is where Schaefer Ridge got it's name.

Years later, he decided to sell the Polson brewery to his brewery manager, Derk Cleaveland and head out to eastern Montana. He reopened the Glacier Brewing Company and stage stop near Crows Bluff, Montana. He operated the brewery and stage stop singlehanded for many more years before dying at the ripe old age of 107! The family story says that he was too stubborn to die.
His original brewery in Polson met a similar fate at the hands of Derk Cleaveland. For years, Mr. Cleaveland had been scooping out dirt from under the brewery to mix in with the grains. He had scooped out so much, in fact, that one day during a fierce storm, the entire brewery collapsed into the lake! What little there was to salvage was used to build the Klondike Steamship. One of the kettles was recovered and used as one of Polson's first water towers.
I hope you've enjoyed this little-known family history as much as I've enjoyed telling it.

SPRINGTIME IN THE ROCKIES!

2008-03-20T08:35:00.000-07:00

Howdy all,
There are few times of the year more soul-satisfying than the break of winter in the Rocky Mountains of the west. Life in Polson has been warm and peaceful. I've been spending this last week enjoying the vices of western Colorado, visiting with family and getting a few turns in on the mountain. I also got a chance to visit with the fine folks at the Aspen Brewing Company located (wait for it!) in Aspen. They have a 7bbl system with a couple of fermenters; a modest but attractive tasting room and plans to pour several different types of beers. They are located in a "working-man's" part of Aspen.
I know, that seems like an oxy-moron. But, beneath the glitz and fantasy-land persona, the gears of Aspen (and similar resort towns: Whitefish) are lubed and turned by people who do the manual labor jobs, the trash-hauling, the food-serving, the beer-making. Without this work force, these high-priced destinations would be nothing more than the ultra-rich standing in a field, throwing their money at each other. Okay, enough of the soapbox. The ultra-rich, and rich, and moderately well-off also contribute quite a bit to these areas. They provide the funds that provide the grease! Very important.
But I digress. The Aspen Brewing Company faces a challenge. Due to where they are located, the powers that be in the Town of Aspen have decided that the Aspen Brewing Company will be allowed to serve their patrons one pint of their beer in their tasting room, a restriction that any Montana brewery can understand. A specially-zoned area was created by the Community Development Department in Aspen to provide businesses with lower rents to facilitate more small, local enterprises. In the creation of this area, bars and restaurants were prohibited. Even though microbreweries in Colorado are not restricted at the federal or state levels on how much product they can serve in their tasting room, the Aspen powers have decided that a tasting room looks too much like a bar and have therefore placed the "one-pint restriction" on them as well as prohibiting the display of sporting events on their televisions!
Now, the principals of the Aspen Brewing Company are not taking this lying down. They will be attempting to change this ruling on the 24th of this month. They are asking for as much positive public comment to the Aspen City Council as they can get.
If there is a villain in this, it seems to be the Community Development Department. This department's aim, when they are placing the restrictions on the brewery, is to preserve the character of Aspen. Now, this gets a sarcastic-laugh out of me. I grew up in this valley. I attended first-grade through high school down-valley in Basalt. Most of my early jobs were in Aspen or Snowmass. The "character of Aspen", the true character of Aspen was bull-dozed, rebuilt, painted, bull-dozed again, rebulit again, and again and again. The "CHARACTER OF ASPEN" is "remodel-rebuild-inflated pricing". Any old-time Aspen charm is very difficult to find in town. Aspen is less a town and more of a corporation.
I wish Duncan, Brad, Rory, and Terry the best of luck with their venture. They have a great idea, pretty good location (zoning not-withstanding), and seem to have a lot of the true old character of aspen, the character that keeps this town running.
Prost!
Your humble brewer

(Photo courtsy of PlumTV: http://aspen.plumtv.com/stories/new_brew_town)

REMEMBER WHEN.....

2008-03-06T13:31:00.000-08:00

This picture was taken back in February of 2003. This is the brewhouse and cellar vessels arriving at their new home via flatbed truck. Notice the yet-to-be-painted-white wall of the brewery. For those of you who have never heard the story, here goes:
The idea of the Glacier Brewing Company began several years ago, maybe almost a decade now. At that time, my wife (then she was my girlfriend), Christine was employed as a seasonal Ranger-Naturalist in Glacier National Park. The rest of the year, we both lived in Fort Collins, Colorado. I would drive up to Montana with Christine every May from Fort Collins to get her ready for the summer season in the park. For the rest of the summer, I would stay in Colorado and work at my job; keg washer and bottler for the H.C. Berger Brewing Company. It was on one of these trips up north that we were driving through Wyoming (just outside of Rock Springs, I think), Christine was asleep and I was trying to find something redeeming about Wyoming when, like a bolt from the blue, I suddenly had the idea of opening a brewery and restaurant (I didn't know any better back then!) outside Glacier National Park and call it........(wait for it!).........the Glacier Brewing Company!!! Now, not only did the name come to me right then, but also some of the beers: Golden Grizzly Ale, North Fork Amber, Back Country Bock (we can't legally make true bocks in Montana), and several others that either died a quiet death or were reworked into today's beers and sodas.

Well, upon returning to Fort Collins after that trip, I quickly set about to record my ideas on paper, including a full sketch of the outside of the brewery/brewpub and a layout of the inside. I still have them around somewhere. I would dust off this idea through the years and share it with those who are near and dear to me. The deeper I got into brewing, the more tangible this vision became. It wasn't until I had been brewing at a brewpub in Telluride, Colorado for a couple of years that "THE IDEA" really started to kick. It was early spring. The town was almost empty and Christine's brother Bob came for a visit as he was going on trip to Death Valley (if you know Bob, you understand) and he was going through some life changes, as well. Christine, Bob, and I were having lunch at the brewpub and were talking about the future. One of us brought up the idea of the Glacier Brewing Company and "what would be truly involved?" (in hindsight, none of us had a CLUE!!!!) After talking about it in detail for awhile, a strange quiet fell over the table. Then, one of us then suggested: "Why don't we just try it?"
Why, indeed.
I began to work on the business plan and started the search for a brewing system. The brewing system project was finished first. I found one on the Internet and we ended up buying it sight-unseen, as is said. I gave notice at my job and two weeks later, Christine and I had our house rented out, the moving truck loaded, our two-year-old strapped into her car seat and we were off to Montana!!!
We arrived on a Thursday, unloaded the truck that night, fell fast asleep, and I was on a plane for L.A. the next morning. I arrived in L.A. (my first trip to California) just in time for Friday rush hour! I made my way to Huntington Beach, found the brewpub (closed for almost a year), it was locked up. So, I found a cheap hotel and planned to meet the seller the next morning.
He assured me that two guys could remove the entire system in two days. A week and two rented grunts later, I loaded the system onto a drop-deck flatbed semi. I gave the drivers directions to the Flathead Valley and got on a plane for Montana. The system arrived in Montana about a week later and we stored it on my father-in-law's Christmas tree plantation in Creston. It sat there for almost a year as we scoured the area for a building to start our brewery.
Eventually, Bob called me one day to say he thinks he found our building. I drove down to Polson and had a look. This building was built in the mid 70's as a racquetball court and had since been used by a printer. His bus-sized printing press was still in it. This building was dirty, dusty, oily, and needed a lot of work.
IT WAS PERFECT!
Well, we started to move the equipment in around Halloween and almost five months later, we were brewing our first batch of beer, a very hoppy Golden Grizzly Ale.
We were soon picked up by Earl's Distribution in Missoula, now known as Summit Beverage. Since then, our market has been growing and undulating in some fun and unexpected ways. We've increased our product line beyond our original business plan, we've added bottle product to our line-up, we've added a beer garden, we've expanded our tasting room to an unbelievable size. Who knew that road trip all those years ago would yield such wonderful fruit!

I know it is a very corny thing to say, however, it's true: the longest journey begins with a single step.

Slaking the Soul's thirst.....

2008-02-19T16:45:00.001-08:00

I feel that annual rebirth beginning. This magical time in northwestern Montana. This, after months of the clouds lowering, the temperatures skid-skittering, the light, the sky, the ground, all becoming the mono-palette of blue-gray. This wonderful time of the clouds thinning and breaking! The temperatures easing (a little), and the sun refilling the hope bucket! This is when the payoff begins. Nevermind the Snowbirds, flittering south when the first omens of the Montana winter begin (can't blame 'em, might do it to if I could. Naw, I wouldn't). This is when we "year rounders" start getting paid back for stickin' it out through the Montana winter. The fantastic dichotomy of the sun-filled, blue sky. The Mission mountains wearing a fresh coating of powder sugar, while basking in the evening light of alpine glow. This is when you can feel everything coming back to full. We know it's not Goldentime (summer) yet, but at least we're out of the grays. I always forget how many color are hidden or gone in the winter. Mono-palette: sky-is-cloud-is-mountain-is-ground-is-lake-is-air... Whew, not sure if it's getting harder to take, year after year, or if this year just hit me harder. That's the thing about the Montana winters: it's not the physical manifestations of the season, it's the mental game. Keeping some sort of light bright and hot inside your core. I do love it when the temperature free falls and the snow comes down so hard it swallows all sound. But the long term bleakness also erodes something. It gets hard to remember the days of long light in the summer, the never-ending cycle of mowing the lawn, harvesting cherrys, raspberrys, peaches, cherrys again, more raspberries. There's the full payoff. If you haven't spent a round year in state, I invite you to try one. Makes the colorful months that much sweeter when harvested!

'til next time,

your humble brewer

The Flu Sucks!

2008-02-16T12:10:00.000-08:00

Sorry I haven't posted for awhile. As of late, I've been sidelined and bed-(couch)ridden with the flu. Sucks royal! What an amazing equalizer. It started earlier this week with a subtle round of body aches and this cough, cough, cough! By Wednesday night, the velvet hammer came down hard! It is now Saturday afternoon and I'm starting to crawl out of the hole! I went outside on our back deck earlier today and sat and just smelled the air. Wonderful. After over two days of flu-induced seclusion in the bedroom and living room, I didn't realize how stuffy they were.
Well, I feel like I lost two days in the brewhouse with a full schedule. So, I'm hoping this next week I can get back into the saddle and get some bottling done and brew some batches!

I'm looking for ideas for a new specialty brew. Keep in mind that we won't be brewing any highly hopped beers due to the hop crises. But, I would love to get imput from our customers (and also find out if anybody is reading this).

Speaking of the hop crises, one bright spot is firming up. Boston Brewing, a.k.a. Sam Adams, a.k.a. Jim Koch has offered up their excess hop inventories to the U.S. craft brewing community at their cost, NOT MARKET COST!!! Quite the show of commaradarie and community! Would be nice if some of the bigger players would do the same but there are those who claim this "crises" has been caused by the biggest players in the brewing world. War of attrition, cut the supply lines and watch your enemys whither and die!

Okay, back to bed.........

WHO WANTS IT MORE?

2008-02-02T10:19:00.001-08:00

HERE WE GO, AGAIN!
On the eve of Super Bowl XLII (that's 42 for those of us who went to public schools!), the question is asked: "WHO WANTS IT MORE?" Really? That's the best tagline the mega-marketers could come up with? "WHO WANTS IT MORE?"!?!
Well, I guess I shouldn't be too hard on them, maybe they spent all their mental budget coming up with a football carrying a football!!! As you can probably guess, I'm more that a little disappointed at the apparent lack of creativity here. The Super Bowl is one of the (if not "THE") marketing, hyped, spit-and-polished events of the year! Multi-millions spent for scant seconds of airtime. This year the average 30-second spot will cost $2.7 MILLION! There are 63 spots that are already SOLD! By my math (remember: public schools), this is $170.1 MILLION DOLLARS!!!! This does not include the pre-game and post-game ad revenues. Toss that onto the pile and you get $275 MILLION DOLLARS FOR ONE AFTERNOON OF PROGRAMMING!!!!

-If there are small children reading this, please visit pbskids.com now.-

WHAT THE F*%#!!!!???!!!?

That's almost one dollar to EVERY CITIZEN in the United States! WOW! I had no idea before I started to write this blog. As my Father-In-Law would say, "Umbleevble!"
I know, "This kind of money wouldn't be spent if it didn't work." Maybe that's what gets me the most: I wish this type of "megalomaniac marketing" didn't work on us, the citizenry. I'm sure there are some good points, but they escape me right now. Maybe what it's really about is I'm jealous, sour-grapes.
At any rate, the show will go on. Christine has made her way to Tucson, Arizona to enjoy the spectacle with her dad and two of her sisters. As you probably know, she is a New York Football Giants fan like few others. She drove from Polson to the Spokane airport in a driving blizzard, over the passes, tailgating snow plows and sand trucks, swerving around jack-knifed semis! All for her beloved Giants! I guess I admire that kind of passion.

The brewery tasting room will be open this Sunday for business. So please make your way down and get your fair share of our beer. You can still enjoy 48 ounces on premise, you can buy as much as you want to take out as long as the containers stay closed until you get off the property! So remember, if you've had your three and you're burping as you walk out the door, that's an open container!

Again, in the interest of domestic harmony,
GO GIANTS!!!
Sing with me! "Plaxico, Plaxico, Eli ta Plaxico" Repeat!

Is that a poisonous snake in your pocket......

2008-01-27T11:00:00.000-08:00

Wouldn't it be great if all the dangers in life came with such obvious warnings? This is a sign I saw across from the parking area at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida when we went to watch the Space Shuttle launch (it didn't launch, still hasn't). It struck me as amazing how close people down there life with creatures such as the poisonous snake, alligators, snapping turtles, and all the other life-ending animals. On the heels of that thought I had another (I know, TWO in one day!), I wonder if Floridians feel the same amazement at how Montanas can live so close to grizzly bears and mountain lions. Both populations feel that their personal living situation is normal, with the other living situation being out of whack! I guess this is the basis of why microbreweries can provide such a unique and necessary niche: people from different backgrounds, living in different areas, do not share a homogeneous appetite. I know this flys in the face of the "McDonald's" business plan ("The exact same hamburger no matter what McDonald's you visit."), but I do believe that local populations thirst for, well, local flavor! I try to make a point of seeking out the breweries of any area I visit. I've found some wonderful beers in some out-of-the-way places, I've also found some horrible swill that the brewery claims they can't make quick enough. Either one is always an adventure and offers me some strange insight into that local culture. I wonder what people visiting Glacier Brewing think about Polson's culture?

A couple of summers ago, I got the honored and unique opportunity to accompany Steve Lozar (a.k.a. Bubs) on a very early morning trip to Helena to examine several boxes of "recently discovered" letters from Nicholas Kessler, founder of Kessler Brewing of Helena and the Kessler Brickworks of Helena. Not only was the quantity of the artifacts unusual but the subjects they covered. We found letters to Nicholas Kessler from bar owners, other brewery owners, brewers, friends. We even found a poem that was written on the backside of letterhead for the Montana State Brewer's Association. This poem was written by Nick Kessler's young son and it was about why his dad was so much fun! What a fantastic glimpse into the day-to-day from over one-hundred years ago!
This letter from Horsky, Miller & Co. caught my eye on Ebay. One reason is because of the wonderfully ornate letterhead. But also because it was written in 1896 and above the letterhead it reads "Miller & Co.". Before that trip, I had no idea Miller had such humble roots or such old ones. Kinda' makes me wonder what GBC is gonna end up as!

Yeastie Beastie!

2008-01-22T10:51:00.000-08:00

Jim finished kegging out the rest of the Dunkel Hefeweizen yesterday. At the end of the tank we had a generous deposit of hefeweizen yeast that had settled out. It never ceases to amaze me how much influence this little yeasty character has on the final product of beer. I could brew two beers with EXACTLY the same ingredients, process, and methodology but change just that one variable: the yeast strain, and we'd end up with two beers that look the same but taste entirely different. I've always believed that happy yeast are one of the keys to a successful brew.
We get our yeast from this great little lab in Colorado Springs, Colorado call The Brewing Science Institute. I've been using them as a yeast supplier for pretty much my entire professional brewing career. When we need a new batch of yeast (we use the same batch for about 15 brews), the kind folks at BSI begin to "grow" our order volume from a microscopic sample they keep in liquid nitrogen. It takes about five days to get it propagated up to the volume we need. Then it is packed in cold-packs and overnighted to us. When our new yeast gets here, it arrives in an expandable plastic container the size of a little red dodge ball and resembles a mocha latte! We pitch this slurry into a freshly-brewed beer and let the magic of fermentation run its course. One of the neat things is we start with about a quart of yeast slurry but when the fermentation is complete, we have probably 15-20 gallons of it in the bottom of the fermentation vessel! During fermentation, the little yeast cells eat the sugar from the grain, burp out carbon dioxide gas, excrete alcohol and grow more little yeast buddies!
(sing with me) THE CIRR-CLE OF LIIIFFFE!!!!(okay, okay, stop singing! let us never speak of that again!)

If you happen to see Bob today, wish him a HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I'm not really sure how old he is now, let's just call him "OLD!" Well, I guess we could cut him in half and count the rings but then we would've ruined a perfectly good "Bob".

WINTER IN THE BREWHOUSE

2008-01-19T08:01:00.000-08:00

Dave and Jim prepare for another winter day in the Brewhouse

Well this last week in the brewhouse has me testing my cold-weather coping skills. Due to the age and construction of our brewhouse (and original tasting room), whatever the temperature is outside is pretty much the temperature inside, with a little buffering. It has been quite a while, though, since I've been able to see my breath on the brew platform. Nonetheless, it is still "butt-cold"! It is fairly invigorating when I'm actually brewing a batch because the boiler, steam kettles AND physical activity of brewing get you warm and keep you warm. We use dozens of small rubber washers and stainless steel fittings to facilitate our brewhouse tasks. We keep all these little parts in five-gallon buckets that are filled with a sanitizing solution. This keeps all the parts that touch the beer clean and sanitized. However, this also leads to one of the most agonizing parts of the brewery worker's day at GBC: reaching into the frigid buckets to retrieve parts! The water/sanitizer mix, I swear, must be just above freezing! You can keep your espressos, double-lattes, give me a near-frozen bucket of sanitizer to stick my hands and arms into for a effective morning wake-up!
Working in this brewhouse throughout the seasons is quite a schizophrenic existence. In the summertime, the summer heat is intensified by the same characters who make the wintertime tolerable; the steam boiler and steam kettle! I know, I know "Poor, poor me (and Jim)." I still love what I do. Even with the extreme temperature conditions, I am hard-pressed to think of another career where I could be so happy. Having said that, now you know why I have that distant, dopey look when I walk into the warm, cozy atmosphere of the tasting room. It's like jumping into a warm shower after a January dip in the lake!

If you've spent any time around my wife, Christine, then you know what an intense (read: RABID!) New York Giants fan she is. Well, this year the Giants are on an upswing: playing fairly smart and actually winning games! When you see Christine around this next week, please remember that what the Giants do this Sunday against Green Bay may have a lot to do with her mood! She tells me that "It will be a wonderful week because the Giants are going to win!" Okay, we'll see.

In the interest of domestic harmony......GO GIANTS!!!

Howdy and welcome

2008-01-17T13:28:00.000-08:00

THIS IS IT!
The first ever, interactive Brewer's Blog for good ole' GBC!
Let me know what you think about us, our beers, and my razor-sharp wit!!!
Tonight is Acoustic Thursday. Get to the brewery around 5:30 to enjoy some good, local musical talent!