Located on an overpass bridge in Missoula, Montana, the new tasting room and brewery for the Kettlehouse Brewing Company is celebration of beer and brewing. The facility is welcoming and complete with a beertender wearing black cowboy hat. I was lead around by one of the brewers, Colleen Bitter – kinda of a proper name for brewer, you know dealing with bittering units all the time. The brew house and canning line are impressive. I am very much encouraged by craft brewers adopting the cans for a variety of reasons. First of all, most of us in Montana cannot recycle glass, so it all goes in the landfill. The aluminum cans are, however, easily recycled here. The second reason the portability of the cans. It is difficult to bring along a couple of bottles on the river or hiking, but a couple of cans are easily packed and when emptied the cans are crushed down in those flat discs for the trip out. I understand the romance of the bottle in both the wine and beer worlds, but I have had great beers out of the can like Kettlehouse Cold Smoke Scotch Ale and, recently, a great wine, Yellow and Blue Cab, out of a recycled materials box. It is time to change our thinking, and Kettlehouse has embraced the new paradigm.
While here I had a delicious Imperial Porter call the Brick and Mortar Porter, referring to the brick and mortar walls of this renovated warehouse. There will be a complete review of this brew in an upcoming post, but let me say this right now, this beer is amazing! UPDATE: Review here.
After visiting the new tasting room, I went downtown to the original Kettlehouse tasting room and brewery. This place oozes everything good about Missoula. A variety of different folks enjoying a pint or two with memorabilia on the walls. Music is thumping out of the soundsystem has I talk to someone I know from Livingston, who has made the trip to Missoula for the next day’s Montana Grizzly game. I had a Cask-conditioned ESB and the Garden City Pale Ale with fresh hops. Reviews of these are also forth-coming.
All in all, I truly enjoyed my time at the Kettlehouse Brewing Company, and I know that they continue to produce great beers for both distribution and on tap in the tasting rooms.
