GABF 2009

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

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!

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?

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!

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?

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!

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