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

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