Tim Akimoff's Grizzly Growler

Montana is a craft-drinking mecca, of that you can be sure. However, you can remove craft from that statement, and it would be equally true. Turns out that if you take all types of alcohol into consideration, the average Montana puts down 34 gallons of the stuff in a 2007 Times CNN survey. Just beer? Well, the average Montanan puts away 30 gallons of that every year. Both of those numbers are good enough to rank the state number 4 out of 51 states if you include the District of Columbia.

What’s that mean? Well, For our population size, Montana puts away a lot of beer, wine and liquor. But, apparently New Hampshire can clean our clock in the drinking department, the average Granite Stater puts away 40 gallons of alcohol every year.

Last on the list, and not surprisingly, is dear old Utah at about 14 gallons consumed annually per person. or at least the 40 percent of the state not part of the Mormon Church. But all this could change soon, as Utah’s legislature votes on whether to allow bars to open to the public without the club system in operation for the last 40 years. Also, on the chopping block according to a recent AP article, the so-called “Zion Curtain,” where a bartender must walk around a partition to hand an alcoholic drink directly to a customer.

Admittedly, Utah’s liquor laws make Montana’s look downright liberal, but Utah is doing it for a better reason than Montana is. Utah wants to improve on it’s already $6 billion-a-year tourism industry, and industry insiders and lawmakers know that to see change, they need to free up the bars.

Montana could follow this example and become a real tourism state instead of putting everything into the Superfund cleanup economy basket. Loosen the restrictions on breweries, and tourism dollars will flow all the way back to Helena and beyond. Shoot, Utah figured that out, and they were 51 our of 51.

Prost,

GG

I’m beleaguered by beer, if you can believe it. Oh, it’s not that I haven’t consumed some delightful nectar recently, and it’s not as if there is nothing new to write about here in the great white north. The craft-beer world moves along unrelenting and undaunted by those cheap, piss-poor pilsners of the mass market.

But, I’m nonetheless beleaguered by it all.

As I stated when I started this blog nearly two-years-ago, beer is a conversation. When it ceases to be a conversation, it is merely another beverage in a marketplace already saturated by gimmickry and neon advertisements.

For some time now I’ve ponied up the money to make this blog go round. It just didn’t seem right that real, hard-working reporters were being laid off while I’m turning in receipts for some fancy new brew to review. But, that in itself is not the problem. Beer has always been a labor of love for me, and so it will continue in one form or another.

No, it’s been more about the inability to connect with others in meaningful dialogue spurred on by the burst of bubbles, foam and the headiness of alcohol. A good beer conversation should not be hard to come by, but I’ve been out of sorts lately.

Take sickness, the economy and a general winter malaise, and you have a recipe for a tired, uninspired beer blogger.

However, no excuse is good enough for you my readers. I apologize for being out of sorts, and to remedy this, I’ve decided to head up to Tamarack Brewing Co. to attend their second annual brewer’s dinner this Wednesday. It’s a four-course meal that features Old ‘Stache Porter, a whiskey barrel aged beer that I’ve been dying to try.

Here’s to hoping that a little beer and food can stir up the beer conversationalist in me once again.

Prost,

GG

You wouldn’t know we’re in a recession if you walked into a Montana brewery right now. Not only are people out having a good time, breweries are expanding their line of craft beers left and right.
So, I thought I’d round up a list of new things you’ll likely see around town soon.
Bayern Brewing’s popular Dragon’s Breath, a dunkleweizen (a dark wheat), will be making an appearance in grocery stores as Jurgen said he plans to bottle the beer soon. This particular style of beer is a rarity in the craft-brew world, so it should be fun to see it available in six packs.
Down the road at Big Sky Brewing Co. they’ve been installing a new canning machine, which means we should be seeing cans of Moose Drool and Trout Slayer in grocery stores just in time for spring fishing.
And the brewery’s popular Summer Honey is back on tap as an early sacrifice to the weather gods in hopes of an early spring and a warm summer.
Still no word on Kettlehouse Brewing Co.’s plans to can Eddie Out Pale Ale, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed over here at the Grizzly Growler. However, they have a cool new can design for their Cold Smoke beer that is available now.
And there is a rumor about town that Missoula Brewing Co. plans to have its Highlander beer, currently brewed by Great Northern Brewing Co. in Whitefish, in bottles sometime this year.
So, to recap, we’re in a recession, but our local brewers are putting out new products like we’re in a bull market. That means that beer IS recession proof and that we’re lucky to live in a place like Missoula.

Prost,

GG

Alix at Big Sky Brewing Co. turned me on to this story several months ago. I never realized how significant it could be, proving that if you ask the right question, you’ll often get a great story.

The number in the left-hand corner of the chalkboard in the Big Sky Brewing Co. taproom gets bigger every Thursday: 614, 615, 616.

Inevitably, patrons ask taproom server Alix Jennings, “What’s that number mean?”

“Let me tell you about Kimo,” Jennings replies.
Almost 12 years ago, Kimo Galland lost his close friend Mark Sowre to suicide.

“Mark and I were bicycle-racing buddies,” Galland remembers. “I didn’t know he had some real demons inside of him that were really haunting him.”

After Sowre’s death, Galland and a group of guys who’d been friends since grade school decided to check up on each other every Thursday.

In those early days, three or four guys would meet at each other’s houses.

“We decided to get together each Thursday, drink a couple beers, eat a good meal, play some games and sit around and talk and make sure everyone was happy with themselves and with everybody else,” Galland said.

They called it the Safety Meeting, and Galland offered to pick up a couple of growlers of Moose Drool beer each Thursday because he worked near the brewery’s former downtown location.

Numbers mean something to Galland.

Whether he’s counting the 400 people on his list of Missoula hockey enthusiasts, the 200 to 300 pairs of skates he sharpens each week during hockey season, the score of the last Maulers game, Wayne Gretzky’s 14 consecutive 100-or-more-point seasons, or his own streak at Big Sky Brewing, Galland is nothing if not meticulous.

On Thursday, he waited for a friend to pick him up from his job at Bob’s Sew & Vac - where he also runs the hockey store - for the weekly ride to Big Sky.

In the car, Galland and his former boss, David Gjefle, talked about the Safety Meeting.

“We’ve never really missed one, have we?” Gjefle said.

“No, we never have.” Galland said.

“You’ve been an absolute trouper,” Gjefle told Galland. “There were times when you didn’t feel well and you just went anyway.”

“OK, let’s see what Alix is up to today,” Galland said.

Galland has seen eight different servers since his streak began.

With a wet thumb, he smudged out the 6 at the end of the number and replaced it with a 7 as one of his six growlers was filled with Moose Drool.

Thus was marked week 617 in a streak that stretches back to the middle of the Clinton presidency, before Sept. 11, 2001, before Big Sky Brewing Co. built its state-of-the-art facility out by Missoula International Airport.

“I’ve always kept it,” Galland said of his number. “It started in the brewery downtown. Old Russ, every Thursday he’d know I was coming in,” he said of a longtime taproom server. “When they moved out here, they had a chalkboard, so I started writing it down in the corner.”

Galland has never missed a Thursday in nearly 12 years of coming to Big Sky Brewing Co. to get his growlers for the Safety Meeting.

The closest call came when Galland was so ill he had to sit in the car and wait for a friend to fill the growlers for him.

The number 617 represents a commitment to more than his favorite beer. It’s a commitment to the memory of a good friend, the commitment to a group of guys who faithfully look out for each other.

“In nine years, I think I’ve missed one,” Gjefle said, sipping on one of the brewery’s several sample brews. “I ditched my mother-in-law’s wedding for a Safety Meeting.”

Gjefle was not one of the original members of the Safety Meeting, but it’s been a huge part of his life since he joined.

“Well, you know how stress builds up in life?” Gjefle said. “Your stress just goes away after a Safety Meeting.”

Board games, hockey games, beer, steak, camaraderie and an endless list of topics characterize a typical Safety Meeting.

“Maybe somebody has a personal problem,” Gjefle said. “Everybody supports them. We get serious about things as well.”

If somebody runs out of money on a poker night, they can’t just say, “I’m out.”

“Nope, somebody throws them the cash,” Gjefle said. “You’re in.”

At the 260-week mark, Galland picked up some growlers as usual, and the friends went to a bar called the Lumberjack.

“They had a horseshoe pit, so we played horseshoes until dark,” Galland said.

That’s how you celebrate a five-year anniversary at Safety Meeting.

At the 520-week mark, the whole gang got together at somebody’s house to celebrate.

“We talked about Mark,” Galland said. “It had been 10 years, and he was our close friend.”

Alix Jennings looks forward to Galland’s weekly visits, too.

“Well, I mean, it’s one of those things, and I’m sure I had the question as well: ‘What does he do on holidays? What does he do when he goes out of town? What does he do when he’s sick?’ ” Jennings said.

On Thanksgiving, Galland visited the brewery on Wednesday instead of Thursday.

Other than that, he plans road trips to hockey games so they won’t interfere with Safety Meeting.

Meanwhile, the number in the corner of the chalkboard at Big Sky Brewing grows bigger and more meaningful.

“I’d say people ask about the number at least five times a week, if not more,” Jennings said.

Galland pays for his six growlers, up from the original two he’d pick up every week because Safety Meeting has grown to 15 or 20 people.

He looks down at the growlers in their wooden carrying case.

“Six hundred and seventeen,” he says. “That is a long streak.”

“I thought the first couple of years were great,” Galland said. “We were going to everyone else’s house for dinner. I thought, ‘OK, couple of years down the road it will be over,’ but it’s kind of hung on. Now it’s so big it’s unstoppable.”

Prost,

GG

For all of you high-gravity beer lovers out there, there is news about HB400 as it collects dust before a probable early March hearing and then an appearance in the senate.

Brian Smith, of Blackfoot River Brewing Co., has some intimate knowledge of legislative activities from years of working in the leg. Who better to explain the situation.

From a comment left by Brian:

HB400 has passed the Montana House on a 80-20 vote and has been referred to committee in the Senate. It will probably come up for the hearing sometime in the first or second week of March.

The amendment that Don referred to was negotiated by the Department of Revenue and the Montana Brewers Association (MBA). The amendment essentially states that in order for a beer to exceed the 8.75% ABV it must have a fermentable malt base of 75% or greater. The DOR has great concern with high alcohol, inexpensive products in 24 oz cans being marketed in C-stores. The Department was adamantly opposed to HB400 until we crafted this amendment. Essentially, the amendments means only beers that are “almost” all-malt will be able to be sold with a higher alcohol content. The 75% fermentable base was chosen to allow some traditional beer styles such as Belgian, English, & Scottish strong ales that
may use refined sugar or adjuncts such as candy sugar, brewers crystals, brown sugar, etc. as part of the fermentable base.

Please do contact legislators and ask for their support on this bill. In particular, the committee members on the Senate Business, Labor & Economic Affairs.

The MBA’s support is the primary reason this bill is going forward. Our association’s decision to increase our dues by 500% and hire an enthusiastic Executive Director/Lobbyist (Tony Herbert) has been instrumental in gaining support for this bill. The sponsor of the bill, Rep. Deb Kottel (D-Great Falls) has been a real champion for this issue as well. Beer drinkers of Montana should be very proud of the job she has done - you should have heard her speech on the House floor - very inspiring!

Visit http://www.montanabrewers.org to see who the Montana craft brewers are who are committed to improving our beer loving community!

Do what he says.

Prost,

GG

Great has been the debate about drinking beer while fighting a cold, as master Yoda would say. But, I don’t see what all the fuss is about.

The health affects of beer are noted here, and it’s not the yeast, the malt or the hops that cure what ails you, it’s the alcohol that tends to have the greatest impact on your health.

Still, what do you do when you’ve got a nasty headcold, and you still want to enjoy a good beer? Is this even wise? Which beers do you recommend oh sick one?

Well, to start, if you want to drink a beer while you’re fighting off a nasty headcold, then go ahead and do it. Too much beer will lower your immune system’s already flagging libido, so try to stick to one or two. And, since you cannot possibly taste or smell anything, try to pick a beer with some added nutrients.

Our own Kettlehouse Brewing Co. puts out an elixer known as Ginseng Pale Ale. This brew, available only in the tap room, has the benefit of added ginseng, which is known to have health-giving properties.

If you can find it, Wisconsin brewery BluCreek’s Zen (Green Tea) IPA might give you a health dose of catechin polyphenols, particularly epigallocatechin gallate or EGCG. I could explain what this is, but I’m a beer writer, not a green tea writer. Suffice it to say, green tea in your beer can’t hurt you, and what can’t hurt you only makes you better, right?

Or, you could try and add some berry into your beer consumption. Berries, especially blue ones, are known to have a lot of incredible health attributes. So, it’s no stretch to think that berries in beer might be a good remedy for a head cold, or at least a good excuse to drink a beer while you’re sick. There are many blueberry beers out there, but if you want real taste, try some of Montana’s huckleberry beers. I’m thinking maybe Lang Creek’s Huckleberry N’ Honey or Great Northern Brewing’s Wild Huckleberry Wheat Lager. On a side note, neither of those breweries have a working website, which I think is cheesy, but I put the link in in case they get around to fixing the problem.

Nazdrovya,

GG

Hey, Grizzly Growler fans, my friend Chuck, who tends bar as Soggy Coaster over at Beer at 6512, was good enough to write up a beer review for us. Spend some time on his blog.

Review: The Czar Imperial Stout (Avery)

Enter The Czar, an oppressive imperial stout from Avery Brewing Co. in Boulder.

The Czar is brewed with plentiful Hallertau hops, English yeast and imported malted barley.

This beer’s massive profile (11.7 percent ABV, 70 IBUs) puts it in league with The Abyss (11 percent ABV, 65 IBUs), a stout from Deschutes Brewery in Oregon that is among the best beers ever to have passed Soggy Coaster’s lips.

Soggy Coaster found a 22-oz. bottle of The Czar at Liquor World for $6.79. Star Liquors also stocks it.

The Czar pours an inky black. A small head recedes quickly. This beer’s aroma asserts itself before the first taste. A lot of coffee and something toasted dominate the smell.

At first taste, one notices The Czar’s carbonation, much more present than in other imperial stouts. The coffee taste jumps to the front, followed by a little hop bitterness at finish. The hops seem to outweigh the malt.

The last sip tastes much as the first. This beer lacks the complexity to develop different flavors during the course of a session. A nice red tinge does develop, however.

Soggy Coaster found this beer to be disappointing. Imperial stouts should be fantastic. They should be complex, flavorful and decadent. Given Avery’s successes with other beers, The Czar’s substantial price and Soggy Coaster’s personal inclination toward imperial stouts, he expected to be wowed. He was not.

The brewery promises complexity comes to The Czar with age. Yet some of us don’t want to age our beers. Some of us want to drink them. Other imperial stouts are born with more complexity than The Czar would accrue after years stowed away in a cellar.

Judged by the standards of all beer styles, The Czar is still impressive. But it would not take the imperial stout slot on Soggy Coaster’s brewing all-star team. B+

Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is a double post, but I’m working on some heavy duty reporting stuff regarding asbestos and such. I didn’t want you to think I’ve forgotten you.

If you live in Montana, please remember to call your congressman and tell him or her how to vote on HB 400. It will reach the floor either tomorrow or Friday. This bill needs to pass just to get us on the right track for our breweries in Montana. Without this, it’s another two years of wrangling with the diminishing, yet surprisingly virulent, MTA.

If you want breaking news updates on the vote, please follow the growler’s twitter feed at www.twitter.com/grizzlygrowler. I post the newest, shortest news pieces and the places to find beer or where I’m drinking here.

Secondly, but not leastly, I’m posting a link to the great New York Times drink writer Eric Asimov. He’s done a brilliant article on barrel-aged beers. You’ll find it here.

Prost,

GG

This just in from Bjorn Nabozney at Big Sky Brewing Co.:

House Bill 400 has passed out of committee on a 14-4 vote, and will be hitting the house floor later on this week or early next week.  So, we are one third of the way to being able to legally brew and sell stronger beers to our distributors and through our taproom.  If any of you have friends/relatives etc. in the legislature please let them know that this is an important bill for Big Sky Brewing Company.

This bill is important for all Montana’s craft breweries. It’s time to send a message.

Get involved, make some calls. Let your legislator know how you feel.

Prost,

GG

The popularity of canned beers is soaring around the west. After trying aluminum bottles several years ago, Big Sky Brewing Co. has returned to the idea of canned beers. The company purchased a canning machine, one of only two sold in the U.S. so far. The other machine is owned by New Belgium Brewing Co.

Big Sky Brewing Co. will produce Moose Drool and Trout Slayer in cans for the time being. It is this blogger’s hope that other styles, like the IPA and Scape Goat will follow suit.

Keep an eye on GrizzlyGrowler.Com for more information on when you can get your hands on a Big Sky beer in a can.

Prost,

GG