Muddy Creek Brewery: Hot Break!

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Well, I don't necessarily promise much in the way of glamour, but I have been faithful in my transparency.

I don't pull any punches. I figure if folks want to know what it's really like - they have a right. Soon we'll have our 1 year anniversary and we're really really hoping to launch our official website by then. (That should give you an idea about how busy we are and what kind of perfectionists we are. 2 of the 3 of us are software guys and we STILL haven't gotten our official website up yet.)

But it will be a thing of beauty. Truly something magical to behold. However, again in being completely honest - the uber developer in the group has done the greatest amount of legwork on the backend. An entire database has been developed that tracks each of our sales and other transactions from the day we opened. We can tell you how many pints of IPA we sold on May 15th of last year, precisely. We can tell you how many "free pints" we give away per day on average to our "Fishin' Hole" members and whether or not the deal is making good financial sense for us. (It still is.)

We will have sections for each branch of the ownership to manage. The brewing side will be able to upload videos and various content for folks on what we're doing in the brewhaus. We'll be able to update our brew schedules so folks will know what beers are coming out and when. We will be filming bios on our malt and hops profiles and why we choose the combinations we do.

The taproom side will eventually have discussions of how different types of glassware can help release aroma and flavor from different styles. It will show bios of our beertenders, and have live pours etc. of our products. The website will show where we are distributed and what musical groups are coming up as well as clips of those groups from previous performances.

Oh ya. It's going to be and epic ass-kicking website.
 
MuddyCreek said:
Well, I don't necessarily promise much in the way of glamour, but I have been faithful in my transparency.

I don't pull any punches. I figure if folks want to know what it's really like - they have a right. Soon we'll have our 1 year anniversary and we're really really hoping to launch our official website by then. (That should give you an idea about how busy we are and what kind of perfectionists we are. 2 of the 3 of us are software guys and we STILL haven't gotten our official website up yet.)

But it will be a thing of beauty. Truly something magical to behold. However, again in being completely honest - the uber developer in the group has done the greatest amount of legwork on the backend. An entire database has been developed that tracks each of our sales and other transactions from the day we opened. We can tell you how many pints of IPA we sold on May 15th of last year, precisely. We can tell you how many "free pints" we give away per day on average to our "Fishin' Hole" members and whether or not the deal is making good financial sense for us. (It still is.)

We will have sections for each branch of the ownership to manage. The brewing side will be able to upload videos and various content for folks on what we're doing in the brewhaus. We'll be able to update our brew schedules so folks will know what beers are coming out and when. We will be filming bios on our malt and hops profiles and why we choose the combinations we do.

The taproom side will eventually have discussions of how different types of glassware can help release aroma and flavor from different styles. It will show bios of our beertenders, and have live pours etc. of our products. The website will show where we are distributed and what musical groups are coming up as well as clips of those groups from previous performances.

Oh ya. It's going to be and epic ass-kicking website.
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From and end user POV that site sounds killer.....

From the POV of the webmaster that site sounds like a lot to keep up to date, but sounds like it will be epic when it is up and running!!
 
Well, Techy - it's taken a year to get the back end infrastructure in place for it. ;- )

The lead developer is a architect / emerging technologies lead for HP. He gets to play with all the fun up and coming stuff and pick the brains of people who have opportunities to dabble both professionally and from a hobby perspective in upcoming technologies and trends.

We've also made arrangements with a local film production company to do all our film and post production work for beer. They like beer, we make beer ~ it's a good arrangement. They have ties with the film industry as well as the music industry and they like to foster some acts in town, particularly for the summer festivals. We do them some extra perk bonuses like throwing a keg or two to the band(s).

They also featured our taproom and a couple of our beers in their indie film coming out next year. It was fun. I think it will be pretty cool.

Anyway, the website management will be a ton of work mostly on the content management side, but as you are av'd TechyDork, I suspect you are well aware of the various issues involved with maintaining a large scale customer-facing advertising space as well as an e-commerce portal site.

We're excited and we hope (operative word there,) that it goes relatively well. I suspect early on there will be some hiccups but ideally those won't be noticeable to anybody but us as we work through the management issues.

(Just as a "bonus" for you Techy, the database includes functionality for inventory tracking as well so there will be administrative areas for us to manage our taproom inventory as well as our local distribution processes. We can also look up our current tax number data for the state as well as the Feds at any time.)
 
Just finished the other thread and now this one over the last 2 days!!! Was like "watching a documentary"

Thank you for sharing your journey with us!
 
MuddyCreek said:
Well, Techy - it's taken a year to get the back end infrastructure in place for it. ;- )

The lead developer is a architect / emerging technologies lead for HP. He gets to play with all the fun up and coming stuff and pick the brains of people who have opportunities to dabble both professionally and from a hobby perspective in upcoming technologies and trends.

We've also made arrangements with a local film production company to do all our film and post production work for beer. They like beer, we make beer ~ it's a good arrangement. They have ties with the film industry as well as the music industry and they like to foster some acts in town, particularly for the summer festivals. We do them some extra perk bonuses like throwing a keg or two to the band(s).

They also featured our taproom and a couple of our beers in their indie film coming out next year. It was fun. I think it will be pretty cool.

Anyway, the website management will be a ton of work mostly on the content management side, but as you are av'd TechyDork, I suspect you are well aware of the various issues involved with maintaining a large scale customer-facing advertising space as well as an e-commerce portal site.

We're excited and we hope (operative word there,) that it goes relatively well. I suspect early on there will be some hiccups but ideally those won't be noticeable to anybody but us as we work through the management issues.

(Just as a "bonus" for you Techy, the database includes functionality for inventory tracking as well so there will be administrative areas for us to manage our taproom inventory as well as our local distribution processes. We can also look up our current tax number data for the state as well as the Feds at any time.)
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Sounds like you have a pretty killer set up for maintaining fresh content on your website and that database sounds amazing. Can't wait to see the site up and running!!
 
You know what's fun?

Going back and re-reading these threads myself from the start. Holy Crap! The **** I didn't know.

Run! Run for God's Sake! ;-)

Just kidding. It's hard work and it costs money, and time and relationships. I noticed that I started this thread talking about how my relationship with one of my partners was a bit strained. The interesting thing is that we are both very good friends and we've always managed to divide business differences and friendship issues very well.

The Brewery has definitely challenged that dynamic. He's business / marketing and I'm product management / quality control. And we have a 3rd partner who's an engineer who's fully into systems management and quality control. All three of us quite often don't see eye to eye on things. Ownership of course is such that any 2 can make a controlling decision, but doing so can be a bit of a "pissing match" because sometimes whether you want to admit it or not personal relationship and politics come into it.

(Transparency, remember.)

It's all well and good to say, "We just do what's good for the business." But often it's really hard to know what's good for the business. Is it good to spend an extra $1000 a month on marketing? Particularly when you are having a hard time coming up with the money? On one hand, extra marketing can mean more people in the taproom. That can mean more income which in a few months means you make enough money to be flush again. On the other hand, that's a risk. But extra marketing can also help with distribution. But again, do you borrow against other accounts to push a marketing agenda in hopes that it will all work out?

What about expansion? One partner wants to expand rapidly, get into larger scale distribution. Can we handle that? Can we keep up with demand? What if we make a ton of beer and we can't distribute it all? What if we start distributing and suddenly a product takes off and a huge demand builds up and we can't meet it? How do we ramp up to meet this new demand? Do we disappoint people who want a product and we are unable to meet that need?

How much should we spend on live music? How much value does that bring to the taproom? Should tips be shared with the brewhaus staff? Or should they just get a larger hourly wage? If so, how much larger?

No, there are many many decisions to be made and they aren't always "clear." That makes it really difficult. Particularly when you have 3 distinct personalities. Fortunately we have a brewery mission statement. (That's important for you would-be brewery owners, btw.) When we got started we sat down as a group and defined exactly what we wanted our brewery atmosphere to be like, what our short, medium and long-term goals should be and even what kind of beer we wanted to focus on. (For the record we make exactly the kind of products we planned. I'm actually kind of proud of that. As we enter year 2, we're going to start pushing our boundaries a bit.)

Even with the mission statement it is easy to forget our roots and want to push in directions we didn't originally plan on. Because frankly some of our original suppositions were wrong. We thought the taproom sales would pretty much support the brewery operations. That probably would have been true had there remained only 2 breweries in town, but there are 4 now and the distillery. There's too much competition and we NEED to distribute more aggressively to hit a decent profit margin. Since some of our initial ideas were off, that means a few of our guiding principles have to be "flexible" I suppose as well.

So, despite some tension and difficulty what we did manage to do was maintain respect for each other and for each others boundaries. All three of us add unique talents and passions to the brewery and that helps move us forward. While we still disagree on a number of things - we try really hard to listen to each others points of view and discuss everything fully before we make any decisions. I think that helps quite a bit.

We're also learning all the time and with a year under our belt we have a better idea what to expect going forward. I'm hoping (emphasis on hope) that we can navigate year two even better than we did year one. Our goal is to dramatically increase our accounts and develop a strong presence in the southwestern part of the state. We'd like our Porter to become a well-known handle around the state and we are really focused on getting our name out there.

I'm very hopeful that after this year, you'll know who Muddy Creek is.
 
I don't know of you've seen these yet...

Our labels.

Crazy Beautiful Pale Ale and Storm the Door Vanilla Porter.

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Storm The Door3.jpg
 
MuddyCreek said:
Well, Techy - it's taken a year to get the back end infrastructure in place for it. ;- )

The lead developer is a architect / emerging technologies lead for HP. He gets to play with all the fun up and coming stuff and pick the brains of people who have opportunities to dabble both professionally and from a hobby perspective in upcoming technologies and trends.

We've also made arrangements with a local film production company to do all our film and post production work for beer. They like beer, we make beer ~ it's a good arrangement. They have ties with the film industry as well as the music industry and they like to foster some acts in town, particularly for the summer festivals. We do them some extra perk bonuses like throwing a keg or two to the band(s).

They also featured our taproom and a couple of our beers in their indie film coming out next year. It was fun. I think it will be pretty cool.

Anyway, the website management will be a ton of work mostly on the content management side, but as you are av'd TechyDork, I suspect you are well aware of the various issues involved with maintaining a large scale customer-facing advertising space as well as an e-commerce portal site.

We're excited and we hope (operative word there,) that it goes relatively well. I suspect early on there will be some hiccups but ideally those won't be noticeable to anybody but us as we work through the management issues.

(Just as a "bonus" for you Techy, the database includes functionality for inventory tracking as well so there will be administrative areas for us to manage our taproom inventory as well as our local distribution processes. We can also look up our current tax number data for the state as well as the Feds at any time.)
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Sounds like a product you can sell other than beer. One that would not have the licensing requirements nor the production costs. Although higher post sales support.
 
Well, we're approaching our 1 year anniversary party. On Saturday we will have been officially open for 1 year. I'll try to post some Photos from the celebration.

We should also have our new pilot system shipping out sometime at the end of this week. It's a small version of the new brewing system. We'll use it to test out a new IPA recipe that we hope to scale up and launch on an unsuspecting public sometime in the upcoming months.

The electrician comes on Thursday to make the power modifications for the new brewing system, which should be ready sometime by the end of March or mid April. (I love how those brewing system readiness date predictions work.)

We are meeting with our regional distributors tonight to discuss increasing our reach. Ideally we can double what we're doing over the next month or two. As Navin R. Johnson once said. "Things are going to start happening to me now!"

Have a great day everyone. See you on Saturday!
 
Typical random victim brewer :0)


Oh come on :) You brought up Navin R. Johnson... Remember the sniper: "Random son of a *****, typical run-of-the-mill bastard."
 
This is Heather Lingle, She and her band will be playing at our anniversary party. She's a good friend and one of our top musicians.

Wonderful performer and one of those few folks who sounds absolutely extraordinary live.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7llMDcOfrc[/ame]
 
So we're doing something new and fun tonight. This is our "Ladies Night" and we're doing "Build a Beer".

We have 5 different fruit extracts and a couple bittering extracts that we are going to make available to our customers for our "Build a Beer" nights. Those folks who want to can request an extract addition for their beer. So, if your IPA just isn't quite hoppy enough, you can add a drop of uber bittering extract and melt your palate utterly if you so choose.

Or, you can add some huckleberry to your blonde, or some cherry to your Vanilla Porter. Perhaps you'd like bit of Pineapple in your American Wheat. Whatever you're experimental whim ~ we're happy to indulge you on Build a Beer night. Free of charge, of course. We're not out to fleece you. We just want you to have a good time. And if you find something you just absolutely love, well, perhaps we'll consider making a true representation of that down the line without extracts.

Stay Handsome friends! And remember, our anniversary is on Saturday. We'd love to see you there.
 
Enjoy the one year! Wish Stef and I could make it out and celebrate with you guys but we will raise a glass and party with you in spirit!
 
MuddyCreek said:
So we're doing something new and fun tonight. This is our "Ladies Night" and we're doing "Build a Beer".

We have 5 different fruit extracts and a couple bittering extracts that we are going to make available to our customers for our "Build a Beer" nights. Those folks who want to can request an extract addition for their beer. So, if your IPA just isn't quite hoppy enough, you can add a drop of uber bittering extract and melt your palate utterly if you so choose.

Or, you can add some huckleberry to your blonde, or some cherry to your Vanilla Porter. Perhaps you'd like bit of Pineapple in your American Wheat. Whatever you're experimental whim ~ we're happy to indulge you on Build a Beer night. Free of charge, of course. We're not out to fleece you. We just want you to have a good time. And if you find something you just absolutely love, well, perhaps we'll consider making a true representation of that down the line without extracts.

Stay Handsome friends! And remember, our anniversary is on Saturday. We'd love to see you there.
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This is a great idea. Lots of market research accomplished and hopefully when word spreads about 'build a beer' it's a bit of advertising as well.

I never would have thought of something like this myself!
 
Well the purists, of course, are somewhat horrified at the idea of extract being added to finished beer at serving time. I can understand that. Even appreciate it.

However we are merely trying to accommodate a group of people who want to try something a bit different. We don't do it regularly. We'll only do it once a week at best. Possibly only once a month. It was very well received. Adding a bit of cherry to the Vanilla Porter was very popular. (Not particularly surprising.)

The simple truth is, folks add stuff to their coffee all the time. That makes your coffee go from .75 cents a cup to $4.75 a cup. We'll do the same once or twice a month and don't charge you extra if that's something you're into.

I'm also planning on adding a Randall soon. We'll probably only do that on specific nights as well. That will limit us to one flavoring, but it will be something fun we can do now and then. We did that in the past with a Hop Rocket, but that was more of a pain than it was worth. A Randall is easier to work with and has more of an aesthetic quality to it.
 
MuddyCreek said:
Well the purists, of course, are somewhat horrified at the idea of extract being added to finished beer at serving time.
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Sounds like a good way to weed out poser hipster beer snobs, to me.

Customer: Can I try the Bourbon-Barrel aged Porter?

Brewer: Sure, would you like to add any flavourings?

Customer: Uhm, OK, maybe a shot of the Cherry extract?

Brewer: That was a trick question. Get out.

*Trap door opens*

MuddyCreek said:
The simple truth is, folks add stuff to their coffee all the time.
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Right, and I add Frank's hot sauce to leftover pizza to make it palatable. It doesn't mean I'm also going to slather it onto a carefully-prepared chicken Cordon Bleu in a Michelin-star rated restaurant. The chef would (and should) be horrified!
 
It's true Kombat. I won't argue the merits or detractors of extracts in beer.

I would not recommend making an alteration to a barrel aged porter or stout. If a lifelong bud light or coors drinker wants to make an ammendment to a simple blond or a mild wheat beer - I'm not going to kick them out.

And if it brings in 3 more people who try one of those blondes or wheat beers and decide they like it and later in the evening move on to an amber - well I'm one step closer to winning somebody away from "Bucks" down the road.

It's a business and I need to compete with Karaoke and $1 beer night. It's all well and good to be elitist but reality demands that you also get your hands dirty and give people drinks they want, not just the exotic amazing ridiculously awesome beer you labored over for 3 months just to get it absolutely perfect that everyone thinks is a bit too "Gosh, I don't know...(as they flip their hair) Do you have any Bud Light?"

This town is working it's way toward a craft-beer town. Slowly the people are developing a palate for better beer, but it takes time. And while that development continues, It's a simple truth that we need to accommodate as many of our customers as we can.
 
You know what always cracks me up about purists? They love quoting centuries-old Reinheitsgebot, but when you go over to Germany you'll see people adding syrups to Berliners, making radlers, mixing soda/sparking water into beer to make it more sessionable etc.

I've never tried beer syrups but if you have a greatfruit juice one I'd try it in your blonde for sure.
 
As I said, I understand where Kombat is coming from. I was pretty concerned about the whole thing and how it would be received from our more hardcore crowd.

But we're not "making" anybody do it. It's an occasional event at best. We tried it out to see how it would go and not surprisingly in our town it went very well. I suspected as much. Do I personally advocate altering all my products? Of course not. Am I so arrogant as to believe that each of my beers is completely perfect in and of itself and should be "experienced" as intended by the brewer?

Ya. Ok. It's a beer dude. Relax. We're a relaxed, go with the flow kind of place. You come here to have a good time with your friends. If you're taking **** too seriously here, well - you're taking **** too seriously. I DO want you to enjoy the beer. And I DO have some great beer. We've won an award and I fully plan to win one or two more this year. But I'm not nearly enough of an ass-hat to believe that you shouldn't be able to come in and put a little salt on your steak if you want to. You paid for it man. Do what you gotta do. Just come on back and bring a friend.

We'll have a band on the weekends, Open Mic on Thursdays, Ladies Night on Wednesdays and Fund Nights on Mondays where you can support your favorite local causes. And there's ALWAYS Clothing Optional Tuesdays... (That's not a real thing, but it ought to be.)
 
MuddyCreek said:
As I said, I understand where Kombat is coming from. I was pretty concerned about the whole thing and how it would be received from our more hardcore crowd.

But we're not "making" anybody do it. It's an occasional event at best. We tried it out to see how it would go and not surprisingly in our town it went very well. I suspected as much. Do I personally advocate altering all my products? Of course not. Am I so arrogant as to believe that each of my beers is completely perfect in and of itself and should be "experienced" as intended by the brewer?

Ya. Ok. It's a beer dude. Relax. We're a relaxed, go with the flow kind of place. You come here to have a good time with your friends. If you're taking **** too seriously here, well - you're taking **** too seriously. I DO want you to enjoy the beer. And I DO have some great beer. We've won an award and I fully plan to win one or two more this year. But I'm not nearly enough of an ass-hat to believe that you shouldn't be able to come in and put a little salt on your steak if you want to. You paid for it man. Do what you gotta do. Just come on back and bring a friend.

We'll have a band on the weekends, Open Mic on Thursdays, Ladies Night on Wednesdays and Fund Nights on Mondays where you can support your favorite local causes. And there's ALWAYS Clothing Optional Tuesdays... (That's not a real thing, but it ought to be.)
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I think the build a beer thing is brilliant, myself. In small town breweries especially (although Butte is a big city in MT, it's a small town to most), a large percentage of the clientele aren't going to be hardcore craft beer aficionados. Hell, the hardcore crowd might be the minority. At the local brewery I frequent (Crow Peak), their biggest seller is their cream ale, which is also their lightest, most BMC-like beer (but still worlds better than BMC). There are a lot of people who prefer the atmosphere of a brewery to that of a bar, even though they may not be hopheads or fans of big, dark beers (not yet, anyway). Stuff like this seems like a great way to get people in the door and maybe help them expand their horizons. And, if they decide they just want to drink a cherry flavored wheat ale once a week, that's great too...at least they're in the door.
 
I think the build a beer idea is a great one and it goes right along with the craft beer movement out there. He is offer everyone that comes in to try something they may have never had. Which means next time they see that cherry porter on tap or in a bottle somewhere they would be more willing to try it. Or even a double or triple ipa if they added more hops to there beer. Keep it up Muddy. If I ever make it to Montana I'll swing by. Love the tread.
 
Muddy, I apologize, I meant my post to be tongue-in-cheek, I wasn't making fun of you. I understand the realities and pressures of trying to compete in a ferociously competitive market like craft beer.

I guess what I was trying to ask was, are you trying to be Sam Adams (bland beer but wildly popular) or Dogfish Head (innovative, creative, delicious beer, and still pretty successful, but no Sam Adams)? I guess that's a decision you can make once you have the luxury of a few more shekels in your wallet and no longer have to worry about stretching to meet your expenses every month. But I hope you stay true to your craft beer roots. :)
 
No offense taken Kombat.

Actually when we began talking about the business plan (and this may be in the other thread, if it isn't it ought to be) we actually purposefully PLANNED on brewing really safe, made to style beers in the first year. We did not intend to be particularly bold.

Our reasoning was that Butte was not a highly innovative Craft Beer town. There was one established brewery which serves some good stuff, and has a very loyal following, but they have a very specific niche of beers and styles. We wanted to really focus on drawing the BMC crowd over and beginning to slowly work them in to the craft brewery experience. To that end, we literally have "The lineup". We have a blonde, a couple American Wheats, an Amber, a IPA in the 75 to 80 IBU range, a Porter and a Stout. Those are our cores. We rotate in lots of other things, but those are out "go-tos." We also have 3 nitro taps, some soft drinks etc.

But we basically try to get people in and transition them away from Bud, Bud Light and Coors and start working them in to the Wheats, the new Hefe, the Amber and down toward the Porter and the Stout.

Now, we've hit our anniversary and we have a very loyal following. We sold out our "Fishing Hole" of 250 members within just a few months and we had a waiting list for renewals that had over 65 people on it. We have a core of faithful followers who are ready to move with us to the next level.

So NOW we can start doing some things that we'd like to do. We can work on that double IPA. We can have some fun with a Scottish Ale. We can roll out my Extra Special Bitter with Orange Peel and Coriander. We can move away from the 5% and 5.5% stuff that has made up the bulk of our lineup and start making more of our rotators some really big beers.

That new brewing system that is a bit smaller - well it will allow us (among other things) to put some 4 bbl rotation stock in so we can send new things through the taproom that we don't have to be completely married to.

In the meantime, we'll be stepping up production on our distribution beers in a huge way. The porter, pale and IPA will be produced on a large scale so we can kick it out to meet our new account goals. We'll spend the rest of the year trying to bring our core customer base up to speed on more innovative beers (while we keep some of the stand-by's around... we DO have something like 16 taps on hand...)

Through ALL that, we'll try (try is the operative word) to submit for a couple awards and see if we can compete. We have great respect for the breweries in town as well as around us in the state. It's never easy to go head to head, but we are confident that we can go toe to toe with them and give it a shot.
 
We had ourselves a party! (Saturday was our 1 year anniversary!)

Heather Lingle and her band kicked ass! No two ways about it. The beer flowed, the merch flew off the shelves and the food was enjoyed by all. It was all around a great evening. We had a fine time and even toasted our patrons and shared some cake!

Here are some of the promised photos.

(Note, I included a photo of Morgan, one of our Beertenders who came downstairs for a day to help us out brewing.) She's moving to Portland and wants to get on with a brewery in the taproom and she wants to get all the experience she can at the brewery so she volunteers with us. The girl is flat out a TREASURE!) If there are any Portland brewers out there, Remember Morgan Evanson!

She's amazing!

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It was a fun evening. The distillery in town opened 4 years ago on the 29th. so they celebrated their anniversary as well. We did a cross-promotion with them. One of our drink tickets taken there got a discount and one of theirs got a discount with us.

They also used a keg of our ginger beer for their Mules and other ginger-beer flavored drinks. It was a good partnership.

We are very happy to be working with them so closely. They've been hugely successful and you can read about them in last month's popular mechanic's mag. (Headframe Spirits.)
 
Hey, been thinking about you, wanted to check in and see how you're coming along!

We had a pretty extraordinary day yesterday. Of course we expected as much. St. Paddy's day in Butte is something of an epic adventure, particularly as it gets closer to the weekend. (If you can get here next year when it falls on a Friday, you should definitely do that).

In a couple weeks we have a festival down the road in Livingston which I'm thrilled about. We always have a good time at Livingston - they're good folks over there. Tap into Montana!

We have a few more upcoming festivals planned as well. Other than that, the new system is being fabricated, our pilot came in, but as often happens, there are some bits and pieces missing so we need to get that sorted out so we can work on it.

We just put together a batch of one of our seasonals that's very popular. We'll be releasing that in about a month, give or take.

Other than that, our new brewer is really stepping in nicely. He's doing a great job as I expected. He's a great worker, his biology degree has proven a strong asset and his brewing background has also been a great help. He's eager to try a couple test batches on the pilot system once we get it up and running. While I have somewhere in the zone of 23 beers registered with the state now, he has quite a few he'd like to try out on the pilot system in order to see if they're something we'd like to develop down the line.
 
For your viewing pleasure:

A friday evening, followed by our Black and Tan featuring Muddy Creek Chocolate Stout underneath Dirty Blonde Ale. Next up you see our own Butte Original I.P.A.

Then you have a couple shots from last yesterday's St. Paddy's day festivities.

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I'm going to be in the Livingston/Ennis/West Yellowstone area for a week in July. Any recommendations for 1-2 brewery's that I should try. Seems like there's several choices in the area and I'm going to be limited in time.
 
VV_Wildcatfan said:
I'm going to be in the Livingston/Ennis/West Yellowstone area for a week in July. Any recommendations for 1-2 brewery's that I should try. Seems like there's several choices in the area and I'm going to be limited in time.
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In Livingston, you have Katabatic Brewing. They're great! Not only are the owners really amazing folks, but of course the beer is top notch as well. We're heading off to their 2nd annual "Tap Into Montana" festival in a couple weeks and I expect it's going to be as wonderful as the first.

If you're in West Yellowstone / Ennis it's a wee bit of a drive, but you may want to go into the Bozeman / Belgrade area. You'll find Madison River Brewing co. there. If you're a fan of Scottish Ales you will NOT be disappointed. Most people are astonished to find that Montana has quietly been DOMINATING the Scottish ale competition market over the last few years. (Ya, I said it.) You may have heard of Cold Smoke, a Scottish Ale out of Kettlhouse in Missoula. It's won a Gold in the past at the GABF, well this year it was supplanted by Copper John from Madison River.

Not to worry, Montana had TWO medalists in the category last year.

So. If you have the time, it would be worth a trip. We're becoming quite the beer state. Quietly but surely. Turns out those Montanan's like them some beer!
 
We are doing good..........duh duh duh we are signing a lease tomorrow.......remember that first building i sent you pictures about and said was right on the main road out of town. Well as life often does an opportunity came up and a space is available on the next street over (coming INTO town) and its a corner spot right next to a wine shop ( which we are good friends with ) and a craft beer taproom. Also the main theater in town is down the block and there is more parking in the area then we know what to do with. Its pretty much the main hub in town. Only drawback is its small.....like SMALL...haha but i see it as half the fun of being able to squeeze a brewery in there and also be able to run it with me and the wife.....seats about 40 people so it should be fairly manageable. Another plus is that its a former resturant so its already setup for most things that i dont have to pay for unlike other spaces ive looked at.....WHooo!
 
Man I am REALLY happy for you!

40 people is a little small, does it have space outdoors so you can have an outdoor seating "cafe" type vibe going? Is there any kind of space for a 1 person acoustic setup? We find that people really seem to like acoustic sets on Friday or Saturday nights. (Also licensing music can be a bit of a pain in the ass.)

I'm so stoked for you!

With the restaurant setup will you be doing some food items as well? I don't know if the reqs in your area are different from ours. We've just started offering a little bit in the way of food. Simple stuff really but the menu may grow over time.

I can't WAIT to see you guys in Denver. Be sure to sneak some beer over this time. We'll do the same. I might just road trip it this year, although that will extend the trip by 4 or so days. On the other hand, you can't put a price tag on a good time. We ought to see if Cape's going. We can get together, mock the big guys and compare our medals. (one can dream, can't he? ;-)
 

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