BRONZE at GABF

Uh…. mmmm…………. we’re speechless. Cold Smoke^® was awarded a bronze medal at the GABF in Denver on September 26. For those of you unfamiliar with the GABF, you can check it all out here. Suffice it to say that there were GOBS of people, GOBS of breweries and GOBLETS of beers entered for judging. To have won is nothing short of absolutely thrilling. Owner Tim O’Leary, Brewer Colleen Bitter and Head Brewer Paul Roys were on hand to accept the award from Charlie Papazian.

Kettlehouse wins medals

At early June’s NABA brewfest, Kettlehouse won three medals: a gold for Cold Smoke^® Scotch Ale, a bronze for Lake Missoula^® Amber, and a bronze for Olde Bongwater Hemp Porter. Kudos to our brewers, Paul, Colleen, Caleb & Tommy, for once again crafting some of the best brew in the northwest and beyond!

The canner has landed…

at the northside. We canned at our Myrtle St location Wednesday and by noon on Thursday the canner was making its way through the streets of Missoula on its way to its new home at our northside location! This is good news for all you can fans. We’ll start pumping them out next week!

Oh yeah, #1 baby!

Hey!  Check out this story in our new favorite online travel magazine!

Progress on the Northside

Boy there’ve been some good rumors floating around about the Northside expansion.  One was that we were going to open on St. Paddy’s day and another was that we’d run out of money and weren’t going to open at all.  Both untrue.  We are however close to the end of our build so money is running tight.  But we’re forging ahead trying to get the production brewery open so we can stop running bars, restaurants, and stores out of beer.

So when ARE we going to open?  I love that question and I’m lucky because I hear it all the time.  My best guess scenario goes like this:  the week of March 30-April 5, work on getting final inspections done for the production side of the brewery.  Week April 6-April 13- finalize license requirements and start brewing.  Week after that,  start cranking out more cans of Cold Smoke^® and Double Haul^® out of the southside brewery in anticipation of moving the canner the following week.

As far as opening a taproom on the Northside, my best guess is a couple months.  We need to be caught up on all of our wholesale orders before we can think about adding more territory.  We are hoping to open it soon though so we can resume having our Wednesday night promos. They will all be held on the Northside as our Southside location is too small and the occupancy too low.

We’ve caught some flak from a few, very  few, local bar owners who don’t want us to operate a taproom at all.  Our taproom is the single best marketing tool we have to turn new customers onto our beer.  Without it we would have closed our doors years ago.  It is also an incubator for new and exciting beers.  Some beers don’t sell when first introduced to a market.  When we opened in 1995 there was not one single IPA on tap in Missoula.  Maybe even in all of Montana.  Now everywhere you go you can very likely find an IPA.

The craft segment is small, 4% of total beer sales, but growing every year.  Craft sales account for 6% of retail sales.  They are vibrant , locally produced, value added products.  We make ours with barley grown and malted in Montana.  Our hops come from the Yakima valley which is about as close in drive time as the barley we get is from the Eastern Front. Everyone of us small brewers has a unique and exciting story to tell.  We tell it best face to face.

Thanks for supporting our company and stay tuned.

Tim