Beers and Gears Blog

This Much Misery Must Always Be Followed by a Great Beer

By Bill Schneider, 5-28-10

	Tim Dolphin (left) and Christine and Dave Ayers. Photo by Bill Schneider.

It wasn’t raining when we rolled out of bed, but by the time we finished eating breakfast, it started falling kept on raining all day, all 78 miles from Missoula to Polson. And we rode it anyway, five hours in the rain.

Obviously, we didn’t stay long enough in Wisdom to let any sink in.

We rode U.S. 93 about half of the way, which means a lot of traffic, of course, but at least the newly constructed road has a large shoulder almost all of the way. We took one detour, turning west at Ravalli on U.S. 200, six miles over to Dixon, then north on U.S. 212 for 18 miles, through Moiese and Charlo to Ninepipes wildlife refugre where we joined up with U.S. 93 again. On a better day, we might have take a trip up the National Bison Range instead of just passing by the entrance road, but at least we stopped to check out the red-white-blue patriotic bison made out of barbed wire. 

This is a great alternate route--low traffic, great scenery--except the six miles on U.S. 200 where the Montana Department of Transportation has put a rumble strip on a small shoulder (about 24 inches), which makes it impossible to ride, so cyclists have no choice but to ride in the traffic lane on a road with a lot of fast traffic including big trucks. Interestingly, the MDT’s own policy dictates there must be at least a four-foot shoulder to install rumble strips, but the agency ignored its own policy on U.S. 200 as it does other highways in Montana.

About a half-mile north of Ronan, we got onto a terrific new bikeway that follows U.S. 93 all the way to Polson. If somebody knows why they didn’t take it all the way into Ronan, please let me know, because unless you know it’s there, you’ll miss at least part of it. And you’ll really miss something because it’s probably the nicest bikeway I’ve ridden, all 11 miles of it.

So, all in all, this is a nice ride, not counting the weather. Too many more of these days, and well, we might have to do the rest of the Great Divide Brewery Trail in August.

But when rolled into Glacier Brewing, it somehow seemed worth it. Owners Dave Ayers and his wife Christine greeted us, bought us a beer, and told us about the great success they’ve had in the past two years, the last time I was here. Glacier will probably hit 1,000 barrels this year, selling about half of that right here in the sizeable taproom. Glacier is just now putting in a new, faster bottling line and has significantly increased his bottled beer distribution, mostly in Missoula.

Asked about future plans, Dave said, “My future plans are to take a day off in the future, at least sometime this year.”

Christine nods with approval.

Glacier is up to seven employees now, with the newest being recently retired Tim Dolphin. After 23 years with the City of Polson, he “changed careers” and started working for Dave. And tonight is Tim’s retirement party at Glacier Brewing, so we crashed it. Everybody else did, too, so it was okay. 

They had a big gig planned out in the spacious beer garden, but the weather spoiled that idea, but the taproom was packed and people just got over the weather.

Tomorrow, we’re headed for Tamarack and Flathead Lake breweries, hopefully on dry roads.

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