USA, MT: Mountains Walking Brewing opens its doors in Bozeman

There’s a teaching in Buddhist philosophy that compares humans to mountains. In order to understand your own walking, the teaching goes, you must first understand mountains walking.

For Gustav Dose, this type of introspection is what life’s all about. If you ask Dose, there’s nothing better than understanding constraints and conventions and then finding ways to work around them, The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported on October 1.

Which is what brings him to beer. Sitting in a booth in his freshly built brewery, Mountains Walking, Dose explained his love for the freedom and unpredictability of brewing.

There are several conventional styles of beer, but within those there are a million ways to experiment — brewing with old wine barrels, for instance, or fermenting the suds in an open container to allow in flavors from the air. And each batch, even if it’s the same recipe, will come out slightly different depending on the day.

In some ways, Dose said, “brewing and life are the same.”

“We have an infinite diversity of microorganisms to play with,” he said. “Every change creates a different product and nothing is staying the same.”

If brewing is life, then Bozeman’s newest brewery is the 42-year-old’s baby.

Dose purchased the Plum Avenue warehouse — part of an old Darigold distribution facility — more than two years ago. Born to a Japanese mother, Dose grew up in Asia, splitting his time between Tokyo and Taiwan. In the mid-2000s, his employer, hoping to capitalize on the growing craft beer trend, sent Dose to brewing school, and he spent the following years working in various roles at breweries around the world.

In the back of his mind, Dose had always wanted to design, build and run his own operation, so three years ago he started looking. Property values up and down the West Coast, where he has family, were out of reach. Montana, though, he found much more manageable.

“When we visited, we just loved it,” he said.

Since the move, Dose and his wife, Sarah MacDonald, have had a third child. Mountains Walking has become a bit of a family affair, with MacDonald helping coordinate the front of the house.

The owner is all about emphasizing the teamwork behind the brewery. From the design and buildout (Ensitio Design and CS Structures, respectively) the food operations, coordinated by Shannon Waters and Sidrah Gibbs, to the actual brewing, overseen by head brewer and Billings native Kevin Paquette, Dose is quick to deflect credit.

“Every step is so important,” he said. “Everything comes into play with the person tasting the beer.”

The beer, then. As of its grand opening on Thursday, September 28, Mountains Walking had three beers: a cream ale, a hazy IPA and a northwest-style IPA. But (complementing its 7,000-square-foot production facility) the brewery has 25 taps behind its bar, and Dose plans to eventually fill every one of them. The facility’s five, 10-barrel, gravity-fed tanks also allow Dose and Pacquette the flexibility to experiment with smaller batches.

“I want people who come here once a week to have a new beer or two every time,” Dose said. “But I also want something for everyone.”

The owner is also proud of the establishment’s food. The menu includes a handful of smaller options (hushpuppies with scallion aioli, smoked trout dip and sriracha and honey chicken wings) as well as a pair of wood-fired pizzas.

The wood fire, the open kitchen, the low ceilings and shared tables, all are part of Dose’s desire to create “an atmosphere that feels comfortable.”

And though last week’s opening was certainly a milestone, Dose said he still gets uncomfortable when folks offer him congratulations.

“I’m never at the finish line,” he said. “It’s all a process, and the reality is that it’s the blood, sweat and tears that really matter.”

03 October, 2017