Kettlehouse to Expand into Northside Warehouse
By TIMOTHY ALEX AKIMOFF of the Missoulian
His voice echoes as it bounces off the brick walls in the vast emptiness of an old warehouse at 313 N. 1st St.
“We want to secure our future,” Timothy O’Leary said, almost dancing around the dusty floorboards in what may soon become Kettlehouse Brewing Co.’s second location in Missoula.
The long warehouse along the railroad tracks is an A.J. Gibson design that once was a fruit depot. Its most recent incarnation was the woodworking shop of Abbott Norris.
“He (Abbott Norris) found us at Myrtle Street and said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a great place for you guys to buy,’ ” O’Leary said. “I was like, ‘You should’ve talked to me six months ago.’ ”
At that time O’Leary was struggling just to keep his fledgling microbrew-in-a-can experiment afloat.
“It was way beyond what we could do,” O’Leary said.
Turns out putting good microbrew in a can was a stroke of genius for western Montana where words like summer, floating, fishing and rivers are synonymous, and chilling cans in glacier-green rivers is not only more appealing than doing it with glass bottles but a whole lot more legal.
It wasn’t long before O’Leary was in a heap of trouble. Good trouble.
The canned beers were flying off the shelves faster than his hand-canning operation could handle, and the draft beer at the popular Myrtle Street tap room was exploding in popularity.
“I thought we’d sell another 300 barrels worth of beer,” O’Leary said. “Meanwhile, the draft took off, too, so I would have postponed the canning if I knew the draft would take off that well.”
But he didn’t, and now Kettlehouse Brewing Co. will triple in size, from a 3,700-square-foot sardine can to a 12,000-square-foot brewery with a cooling cellar, an elevator, loading docks – the works.
“Without the canning we wouldn’t need to be here,” O’Leary said.
So goes the law of supply and demand.
And like other entrepreneurs out there, O’Leary didn’t get where he is today by listening to the experts.
“We really did talk to experts,” O’Leary said of the explanation printed on cans of Double Haul IPA and Cold Smoke Scotch Ale.
But the consensus about canned beer was that he shouldn’t do it.
“Canned beer is perceived to be a lesser value and craft brews by segment are considered to be a high-value product,” O’Leary said of the economic mumbo jumbo spouted by naysayers.
“It was discouraging, but I still wanted to do it,” O’Leary said.
O’Leary likes to talk about convergences, like the convergence of positive indicators for craft breweries right now, which is industry-speak for microwbrew is popular and getting more so every day.
One of those convergences is where the hot growth in the microbrew industry is coinciding with better high-end equipment for craft brewers.
Until recently, beer in cans was inexpensive domestic beer brewed in batches so large they might have filled Glacial Lake Missoula.
To can a quantity of beer that large required sophisticated assembly line canning equipment.
“There is a Canadian company that developed this equipment that makes it affordable for craft brewers,” O’Leary said. “Previously you had to spend close to a million dollars on a canning line because they are built for the large Budweiser-type breweries.”
And packaged beer is popular beer these days.
“In Missoula, three out of 10 beers are sold in a bar or restaurant,” O’Leary said. “And seven out of 10 are sold in a convenience store or grocery store.”
That means a majority of beer drinkers prefer to take their beverage of choice home with them rather than drink at a bar.
O’Leary already has a dedicated following for his draft selection, and the canned stuff is hot and getting hotter.
All of that bodes well for Kettlehouse, long perceived as the neighborhood pub in a town with an abundance of good beer.
“We’ve got the treat of having two German-trained brewmasters in this town, a very large successful craft brewery and a small neighborhood craft brewery,” O’Leary said. “I’m proud to be a part of it and even to be in the same town as those guys.”
The best part of Kettlehouse’s move to the Northside is that it really isn’t so much a move as an expansion.
Nothing will change for the patrons of Myrtle Street so long as the lease is renewed when it comes up in two years.
But what is the impact of Kettlehouse building a new brewery on the Northside for those who live there?
“I could see it becoming really gentrified and becoming a funky old warehouse district with galleries and breweries,” said Bob Oaks, director of the North Missoula Community Development Corporation.
And that’s saying something about a neighborhood Oaks said hasn’t had a bar since the late 1800s.
“That warehouse is a nice feature of the neighborhood,” Oaks said. “It’s one of the first things people see when they come to town.”
In fact, the whole neighborhood along 1st Street smacks of urban renewal.
“It’s funny,” Oaks said. “Northside is really becoming uptown. It’s a place for neighbors to walk to.”
Not all Northside residents like the urban renewal going on on 1st Street, but at least one resident loves the idea of a Kettlehouse Brewery in the area if Lavender Lori is any indication.
“There’s not one person on the Northside (who) won’t be excited I can think of,” Lori said. “I think it’s the best damn thing to hit the Northside in a long time.”
Lori said she is dismayed at having to look up at the old motel’s transformation into high-end condominiums.
“So many things are going to hell over here,” she said. “But while I’m looking at rich people in condos, I’m going to be sipping a cold beer.”
The new Kettlehouse facility won’t be what Myrtle Street is, at least not right away, O’Leary said.
He would like to see the new brewery operational by next spring with a production of Kettlehouse’s hot-selling Cold Smoke, popular Double haul IPA and the newest edition, which could be Eddie Out Pale Ale.
“The pale ale has a potential to dwarf our IPA,” O’Leary said.
And while O’Leary doesn’t want to lose out on what he’s got on Myrtle Street, he’s a realist and an opportunist with a nack for making it work.
“We’re plum full at that facility,” O’Leary said. “We’re overdue to get a better facility that’s built for our purpose.”
Missoulian online reporter Tim Akimoff can be reached at 523-5246 or at tim.akimoff@lee.net.
