House Bill 400

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.....

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!!!

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

1. 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.
2. 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!

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

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

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....

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