FIELDS OF GOLD

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!

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

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.....

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....

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.....

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....."

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.