A warm welcome. That’s an image that goes hand in hand with the holiday season. It evokes “over the river and through the woods” kind of imagery, though my grandmother’s house never had any craft beer in it. So, for Day 11 of the Growler Fills 12 Days of Christmas Cheer we popped open Ridgeway…
Day 10 at Growler Fills’ 12 Days of Christmas Cheer is a beer from Red Lodge Ales of Red Lodge, Montana, named for a run at the local ski resort. Originally brewed in celebration of Red Lodge Mountain Resort’s 50th Anniversary, Widow Maker Lager is available in 22 oz. bottles for the first time this…
Okay, so a double IPA might not qualify as a typical holiday beer, but we’re featuring it anyway because we can. Plus, there’s something about the rich, warming flavor of Flathead Lake Brewing Co.’s IPA2 that just tastes so good on these cold, snowy cloudy days that are in abundance in Western Montana this year.…
We’ll head west for Day 8 of the 12 Days of Christmas Cheer for a couple of brews with lots of roasted malts. First up is the third beer we’ve tried from Winthrop, WA’s Old Schoolhouse Brewing: Rendezvous Porter. We’d previously enjoyed the Ruud Awakening IPA and Hooligan Stout. Rendezvous Porter pours a solid black…
For Day 7 we’re staying local again with beer from Blacksmith Brewing Co. in Stevensville, MT. It had been a while since we’d taken the drive down from Missoula and a couple of extra days off to start the New Year’s Eve weekend seemed like the perfect time. As is common for Blacksmith, the place…
Ahh . . . the holidays. The perfect excuse to overindulge and only feel slightly guilty about it. Though it does tend to make the reality of January suck a little bit more. The Christmas weekend brought meals of crab, steak, country ham, warm apple crisp and lots more. With the new year’s weekend on…
For Day 5 of the Growler Fills 12 Days of Christmas Cheer we’re keeping it local with an awesome sipping beer from Missoula’s Kettlehouse Brewing Co. I stopped in at the Myrtle Street location while running errands to try a couple of new ones on tap. Sadly, I was a day late for Kettlehouse’s Nutt-Cracker…
I’ve been waiting for over a year to try this one I picked up in 2009. With a “best after” date of October 2010, I figured I was just about right on time. Deschutes Brewery calls Black Butte XXI a “masterpiece” and a “tribute to Black Butte Porter, the revolutionary Deschutes Brewery beer that has…
Sure, I’ll admit it. Sometimes all it takes for me to try a beer is a great name. Not that it is ever a challenge to get me to try something new. One of my favorite beer names is Montana Brewing Company’s Custer’s Last Stout. In addition to being a great name, it is a…
Day two of our 12 Days of Christmas Cheer brings us two brews from Ridgeway Brewing of South Stoke, United Kingdom. For years, Ridgeway has been brewing up some creatively named brews for the holiday season that are fairly widely available. We picked these up at Worden’s Market in Missoula. First up was Reindeer’s Revolt,…