Beers and Gears Blog

Day Six, Be Kind, Call it a Rest Day

By Bill Schneider, 5-29-10

	Two beautiful ladies, our traveling companions, Lynnie and Brownie. MIDDLE: Chuck (left), Will, Bill and brewmaster Craig Koontz having lunch at The Rack. BOTTOM: James Johnson of Flathead Lake Brewing. Photos by Bill Schneider.

To be kind, we’ve decided to call today a rest day, even though, sort of, unbelievably, we don’t seem to need rest, even after riding 276 miles in four days.

The truth is, of course, it’s another day of steady rain. Physically, we could do it. We could put on those moldy, stinky, “all-weather” cycling duds and ride all day in the rain, but mentally, well, I guess we really aren’t that dedicated.

So, we decided to do today’s brewery tour on four wheels instead of two, in the Winnebago. We can also call it a rest day--or as is often done on cycling journals, “a rain day.”

Incidentally, I should interject that, it has just occurred to me I should come clean about something. Chuck, Will and I aren’t traveling alone. We have two beautiful ladies with us, brown-eyed, always looking for love, named Lynnie and Brownie. Even though they sleep with us every night, they aren’t our (i.e. Will and Bill) friends; they’re Chuck’s two best friends, two high-energy German shorthair pointers. 

I also must “out” Will by quoting him as saying, that traveling around with Lynnie and Brownie, “just proves that beautiful women can’t keep their paws off us.”

We read and stewed in our parking space beside the Glacier Brewing beer garden (thanks, Dave Ayers, for letting us park there) until about 11 am, every minute of it under pouring rain. We could have put on our rancid gear and pedaled an easy 35 miles up to The Rack in Lakeside, but no, we couldn’t do it. We drove instead.

We had a great lunch, fish tacos and fish & chips, made with lake whitefish caught in Flathead Lake, with Craig Koontz, brewmaster at Tamarack Brewing. His big news is the signing of an agreement with Fun Distributing to distribute their beer throughout the Flathead Valley. He already has 25 handles out there, and this should jump Tamarack up to about 750 barrels/year in production. Craig has the capacity to do that, and plenty of space to expand.

The other big news is The Rack (the combined name for Tamarack Brewing and Tamarack Alehouse) will be opening a new location in downtown Missoula, perhaps early enough to catch the rush from this year’s Montana Grizzlies playoff games, which we will have again this year, right?

Craig said they have made an offer on an existing restaurant location in downtown Missoula. He couldn’t give the exact location until closing, but he did say that the new Tamarack Taphouse will be a restaurant only, not a production facility, and will have handles for every local brewery, not just his own brews.

We talked a lot about the other brewers and how different the Montana craft brewing industry is compared to many others. Montana brewers don’t really talk each other down, instead, as Craig notes, “We’re more of a fraternity, It’s not us against each other; it’s us against Bud.”

The Rack, incidentally, not only has some great pub fare onsite, but it also manages the food and beverage work at the nearby Blacktail Ski Area and Fazooli’s Restaurant in Somers.

From The Rack, we drove (yes, drove, not pedaled) over to Woods Bay to visit Flathead Lake Brewing where we had a nickel tour and a beer with manager James Johnson. 

Lots of news from Flathead Lake, which just re-opened in March. Brewmaster Tim Jacoby no longer filters his beer, and Flathead Lake now has a kitchen with a great menu specializing in local products like elk brats and bison chili--and fresh locally made cookies that Will couldn’t resist.

James also showed us his new mill that they’ve started using to grind their own grain instead of getting it pre-ground like most breweries, which, according to James, means that it has lost some its taste. Flathead Lake has also started a small bottling operation, but only for specialty beers and only in 22-ounce bottles.

“Our small taproom doubles in size in summer,” James noted, gesturing to the attached deck, which will have real sails instead of umbrellas over the tables this year. “We’re trying to provide a better experience. Instead of just having a beer, you can have some great food, too.”

From Woods Bay, we drove (yep, drove, not pedaled) over to Whitefish where we spent the night and did our last brewery visit of the day, Great Northern Brewing. We missed both manager Marcus Duffey and brewmaster Joe Barberis, so no news there, but we had a couple of great beers and a tasty sandwich to finish off a great day in Montana. 

Just think, we have been to seven breweries in three days. No bad for three old guys.

Tomorrow, hopefully, we can get back on our bicycles.

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