Montana/NW Vacation Beers

Vacation was a blast, but like most good things it had to come to an end.  No lie Montana is BIG SKY country!!  Glacier boasted one of the best landscapes I’ve ever seen, hands down!  While in Montana TDY hiked all over Glacier National Park and even swam with a few iceburgs.  Pictures are up on our Flickr account if you care to browse.  In addition to hiking we sampled a ton of great Montana/NW beer.  Below is a list of what we tried.  Over the next few weeks we will post reviews of beers you see below.  If you have tried any of the beers on the list let us know what you thought of them.  More importantly if you know where to get any of these beers here in the PGH area give us a shout (I am most interested with the Deschutes beers).

Harvest Moon Brewing Company:

• Pig’s Ass Porter = This would be a “gateway” Porter in my book
• Charlie Russel Red

Glacier Brewing Company:

• Slurry Bomber Stout
• North Fork Amber Ale = Very typical amber ale, with a slight sweet malt taste…..can’t go wrong with this one
• Flathead Cheery Ale = Think Erie Derailer, but better

Big Sky Brewing:

• Moose Drool Brown Ale = You need to drink this beer to experience Montana
• Scape Goat Pale Ale
• Trout Slayer Ale = Miller/Bud clone……stay clear
• Big Sky IPA

Coeur D’alene Brewing Company:  Best Nachos of the trip!!!  All the beer here was great!!

• IPA = Typical NW IPA, with tons of hop taste……maybe ~70IBUs
• Stout
• Brown = Great take on an English Nut Brown, went really well with the Nachos….better then Newcastle
• Porter

Deschutes Brewing:

• Black Butte Porter = One of my top 5 beers of all time
• Inversion IPA
• Mirror Pond Pale Ale

Bridgeport:

• Hop Czar IPA = Great logo on bottle and about 90+IBUs OH YEAH!!!!

Blackfoot River Brewing:

• OPA aka Organic Pale Ale

Yellowstone Brewing:

• Black Widow Oatmeal Stout = Great minus the over carbonation

Bayern Brewing:

• Pilsener = Just like home brewin, Penn Pils!

Madison River Brewing:

• Copper John Scotch Ale
• Irresistible Amber Ale

Bitterroot Brewing:

• Sawtooth Ale
• Nut Brown = Best Nut Brown ever!  How do I brew this?!

Great Northern Brewing Company:

• Going to the Sun IPA
• Pils
• Good Medicine Imperial Ale

Ninkasi:

• Believer Double Red Ale = One of the tastier Red’s, nice bitter hop overtones

H.U.B.:

• IPA = Great solid NW IPA, great hop balance, can I have another?

Tamarack:  Sampler all around, plus two freebies

• Yard Sale Amber Ale
• Seasonal Amber Ale
• Bear Bottom Blonde
• Hat Trick IPA
• Rye IPA = Seasonal, very hoppy, with a rye bite
• IPA
• Wakeboard Wit
• Dockdays Hefe
• Coffee Stout = The coffee smell over took the sampler, very good coffee stout