I was planning to take a trip out to Lang Creek Brewing this weekend. Not just for the fact it is considered America’s most remote brewery, but for all the things I’ve heard about their beer.

Unfortunately, summer hours haven’t started quite yet out near Marion, MT. That means the brewery won’t be open this weekend, and I won’t be heading up there just yet.

I did get some info from the tap-room manager though. He said Lang Creek Brewing is just about to release its summer seasonal, Fishon! Summer Ale. Chances are you’ll have better luck finding it in Kalispell, but it’d be worth checking out a few Missoula bars and restaurants to see if Fishon! made it this far south.

Also, Lang Creek Brewing will undergo a remodel this month. The construction is scheduled to take 4 to 6 weeks, after which the taproom will have a larger capacity for those tour buses that travel down the wrong road and somehow stall out in the boondocks. They are lucky tourists that break down in front of a brewery.

The larger taproom should serve the Grizzly Growler well, as I plan to post a video tour of the brewery just as soon as things are dusted and shined.

Prost,

GG

Though he doesn’t address the hops or water specifically, I thought this comment from Brad Simshaw, a co-owner of Blackfoot River Brewing Co., is fairly informational about what it takes to become certified organic.

There is much more to an organic beer than just ingredients. In a truly organic beer not only must all ingredients be certified as organic but also the production process used in brewing the beer must be certified as an organic process. All parts of the process are scrutinized; the storage of the organic ingredients, the milling of the organic grain, the flow of the wort and beer through pumps and hoses, etc. The organic certification process is a rigorous inspection that even involves a check of sales records to determine if more organic beer is being sold than was produced. This inspection is completed annually. Only then are you allowed to declare that the beer is an organic beer. At Blackfoot River Brewing Company (which, for the record, I am part owner) we are glad for the strict regulations regarding organic beers. This guarantees an organic product for the consumer. Our organic beer does not come in bottles, but the tap handle does sport the USDA/Organic label, something allowed only if the beer has been certified organic. For those who would like to try an organic beer on tap I believe our organic porter is in the Missoula market.

Thanks Brad, and I’ll be looking for some of that organic porter around town.

Cheers,

GG

I’m often asked this question, and the answer is yes, you can.

There are quite a few beers labeled “organic” out there, and many are quite good.

Take the Green Lakes Organic Ale from Deschutes Brewing Co. It’s part of the Bond Street Series, the brewery’s rotating seasonal and specialty selection.

It’s one of my favorite amber ales, despite the organic label. The crystal and sterling hops really make this amber sing, while the malt sips along nicely and finishes smooth and with a hint of grassy sweetness.

Like I said, it’s a good beer despite the organic label.

I can agree that a brewery could get organic malts. I’ve seen organic malts advertised, and I believe they’ve been available for quite some time.

What I don’t quite believe is organic hops. One hop grower in Oregon told me that no organic hop has been developed because the plants are very susceptible to fungus. For the most part, hop farmers do not need to add much, in terms of fertilizers, insecticides or other additives, but they do have to add fungicide.

Because hops are one ingredient in beer, and do not constitute a majority of the ingredients, they do not have to be organic. Keep this in mind if you buy beer labeled organic. Chances are it is mostly organic, but if your conscience gets the better of you for the little discretions, you should know that the hops likely are not organic.

The good news is that farmers near Woodburn, Oregon have been experimenting with fungus resistant varieties of hops. The hope is to produce an organic variety within five years.

If you are concerned about the beer you drink, read the label carefully. The beer can say organic, and it might read like this: “Made with five types of %100 percent organic malted barley and balanced with Crystal and Salmon-safe Sterling hops, this auspicious amber ale is as easy to drink as it is on Mother Earth.”

No where does it say the hops are organic. Read your labels. Most organic beers will not say organic hops. I have seen a couple, and inquiries to the breweries went unanswered.

Prost,

GG

You’ve probably seen those fancy Bayern Brewing mini-kegs in the store. You might have even thought about picking one up because they’re nicely decorated and could add that finishing touch to your manly garage decorations. Something to go up next to your fly rod and collect years of cobwebs and dust.

Now, thanks to the magic of e-Bay and our obsession with making everything collectible, Bayern mini-kegs are in hot demand around the country. This according to Jürgen Knöller, who said he has seen the flashy kegs sell for as much as $50. This post, has a high bid of $22.00, which is not bad for two empty pieces of metal with beer logos on them.

Run, don’t walk, to the store and find yourself a keg or two of Bayern beer. Drink the beer. And put the keg up for sale. Let’s spread some Missoula love around.

Prost,

GG

Sorry for the delay. The Downtown Association just released the results of the Garden City Brewfest.

From the press release:

On Saturday, May 3, the Missoula Downtown Association held its 16th
Annual Garden City BrewFest. The event was a great success! Over 50
beers and 20 wines were featured and more than 4,500 were in
attendance.
Each year, the Zoo City Zymurgists, Missoula’s home brewers’ club,
coordinates and manages a beer judging competition. Award winners are
as follow:
Best Lager: Bayern Brewing’s Maibock
Best Specialty Beer: Glacier Brewing Co.’s Flathead Cherry Ale
Best American Ale: Flathead Lake Brewing Co.’s Whitecap Pale Ale
Best Light Hybrid Ale: Glacier Brewing Co.’s Golden Grizzly Ale
Best Belgian Ale: New Belgian Brewing Co’s Mothership Wit
Best IPA: Lagunitas Brewing Co.’s IPA
Best Dark Ale: Kona Brewing Co.’s Pipeline Porter
Best Hefeweizen: Montana Brewing Co.’s Stillwater Rye

Prost,

GG

On days when the sun beats down on Missoula after a long winter, on days when the blue sky promises to go on forever beyond the jagged mountain tops that frame our horizon, on days when the air seems to carry a heaviness born of the perfume of freshly mowed grass, those are the days when taste and thought collide to form a certain permanence.

I love spring for more than sunshine and baseball games.

I love spring because there are tastes that are only associated with it. Chocolate bunnies for one. Chocolate just tastes different shaped like a fluffy bunny. Lamb is another spring taste. You can eat lamb any time of year, but it tastes like it should fresh in the spring.

The Big Sky Belgian Wit is another one of those tastes. Crisp and light, like a mimosa on Easter, the wit beer seems to cross the zones of your mouth like a wedge of Curacao sunshine.

The slight wheat sweetness is balanced by a delicate lactic sourness, which makes this beer a perfect spring salad partner. Throw a spinach and strawberry salad together with a balsamic vinaigrette, and you’ll have the most amazing splash of taste combinations celebrating in your mouth.

Prost,

GG

Is not as easy as you might think. It’s not like you sit down and drink some beer and pick the ones you like. Beer is judged according to rigorously defined style guides. Beer that meets those style guidelines perfectly receives high marks whether or not it is your favorite beer. Take, for instance, the light American lager category. We judged blind, only knowing the style the beer was in. The guidelines called for a straw-colored pale beer that is dry and has a taste of some corn and grain. The beer we tried fit the style guidelines perfectly, so it received high points. It was Bud Light.

Yes, it hurts me to admit that.

The most difficult situation is when you really like a beer, but it doesn’t fit the category well. You can score it high in one of the preference boxes, but color, mouthfeel, taste and other markers play high in the beer’s overall score. The system, as it were, works well enough with many traditional beers from around the world, but it does not work well within the craft-brew industry. Brewers who experiment and change existing styles might be brewing the best stuff on earth, but there is no way any governing body can adapt categories for all the new styles. So they try and fit them into existing categories where they often receive good preference marks and low marks on technical aspects.

Anybody have any good ideas about how the current judging system could better reflect the diversity in world beers today?

Prost,

GG

In case you missed it in today’s paper, here is the write-up on Highlander beer.

Prost,

GG

Australia, Bozeman and Cantillon to be exact. There was no order to this tasting, nor was there a theme. Conveniently, I found a loosely threaded theme to follow in a simple song my two-year-old sings.

My buddy Luke from Kettlehouse, grabbed a growler of schwarz beer from Bozeman Brewing Co., I threw in two bottles of Coopers and Luke kicked in a bottle of Cantillon Broucsella (1900) Grand Cru. I purchased the Coopers Sparkling Ale and Vintage Ale at The Good Food Store and I believe the Cantillon came from Worden’s Market.

We started with the  beer, which was nicely roasted with a hint of licorice and a bigger hop profile than most black beers.

The Coopers Vintage Ale had a heavy fruit nose with a ton of dried pineapple, green apple and green raisin flavors. The color left something to be desired. We decided it was a dishwasher brown, which didn’t flatter the beer. But the fruit nose and the warm full body with medium malt were very satisfying.

The Coopers Sparkling Ale was super light with a decent nose containing some floral hints and a little over-ripe grapefruit. I wonder if this beer wasn’t a little flat or perhaps old. With some effervescence or a little sparkle, this would be great summer beer.

And last, but certainly not least, the Cantillon Broucsella (1900) Grand Cru is fantastic beer, with a deep and complex sour well that seems to go on forever. This particular bottle went a little flat, so we were left with only a hint of what a great beer this is. Don’t let that scare you, if you find one of these, grab it and have a friend over to enjoy one of life’s great pleasures.

Cheers,

GG

Missoula’s legendary beer is back, albeit in a different flavor and brewed in Whitefish. Highlander, that Scottish-themed beer that defined generations of Montana beer drinkers from the early 1900s until the 1960s, is back, at least for this weekend. The beer, which is brewed by Great Northern Brewing Co., will be available at the Garden City Beer Festival on Saturday from noon until 8 p.m., unless they run out of course, and then Missoula and Butte will have to wait for the beer’s grand release in June, according to Bob Lukes, a Missoula attorney who owns the name and is in partnership with Great Northern Brewing Co. to produce the beer.

I was lucky enough to get a taste of this fine amber ale, and I have to say that it is a great take on Scotch-style beer. The original Highlander was a western light lager, and we can all be thankful that Lukes and Great Northern didn’t go that direction. Highlander is not a heavy scotch ale like a Coldsmoke but a lighter amber ale with a defined scotch maltiness that goes down like velvet. The beer pours a darker-brown shade of red, which produced a nice lacing on the fun Highlander pint glasses already available at Rockin’ Rudy’s.

Come sample the beer at the Garden City Beer Festival this weekend, and look for it around town sometime in June.

Photo by Michael Gallacher

Also, Lukes is looking for anyone with any memories, stories or photographs of the old Missoula Brewing Co., which produced Highlander beer. Got anything you’d like to share? Let me know, and I’ll forward it along until the new website for Highlander is up and running.

Prost,

GG