It’s not like Missoula, Montana is in the middle of nowhere and we get a great selection of beers thanks to the likes of Worden’s Market, The Good Food Store, Pattee Creek Market and The Rhino, to name a few. Unfortunately, we’re just not in the distribution area for a number of beer’s I’d like to have regular access too, like Troeg, Bell’s, and Weyerbacher.  That’s why I was a little surprised to find six packs from Louisiana’s Abita Brewing Company on shelves at Pattee Creek Market the other day when I was stocking up for the 4th of July. Maybe it has been around Missoula for a while, but I just now noticed it.

I picked up a six pack of Abita’s Turbodog, almost passing it over due to the name before realizing it is a brown ale, a style I tend to enjoy. I still haven’t figured out the name. There’s no explanation on the bottle or website.  I opened one up while spending the 4th of July up at Flathead Lake and quite enjoyed it.  Turbodog pours a very dark brown with a good, off-white head.  I couldn’t get the aroma which was very slight. It has a classic brown ale base with a bit more malt presence than some. I detected a slightly nutty finish, but that might be from my preference for nut browns over your traditional english browns. There is a very light hop bitterness presence in the finish. It’s got 5.6% abv with 28 IBUs.