E-Malt.com News article: USA, MT: Beaver Creek Brewery brewery becomes year-round business

Budweiser was always the king of beers in this Wibaux. That was until a few local guys got together and joined the craft beer movement by forming Beaver Creek Brewery, Prairiebizmag.com reported on February 17.

What started as a craft beer club based out of nearby Glendive, MT, has turned into a popular regional brewery whose products can be found at restaurants and bars throughout eastern Montana and western North Dakota.

“Our motto is that we educate one palette at a time,” co-owner Jim Devine said. “That’s why we made the Gold. … The Wibaux’s Gold we brewed specifically for opening the brewery because we knew we would need what we call a ‘domestic transformation beer.’”

In the late-1990s, Devine started Beaver Creek with his friend and fellow social worker Sandy Stinnett, of Glendive.

Over the years, the men talked about opening a brewpub. In 2008, the dream became a reality.

“The legend goes that we had too many pints and wound up opening a brewery,” Devine said with a laugh.

Devine and Stinnett were operating Beaver Creek full-time within two years, leaving their social work jobs behind.

“Our initial thoughts were that Sandy and I thought we’ll run this place and keep our other jobs for about 10 years and then maybe we’ll retire to it,” Devine said. “That lasted a year.”

In 2009, its first full year of operation, Beaver Creek brewed 279 barrels of beer, or about 8,600 gallons. That increased to 791 barrels, or 24,500 gallons, by 2013 — all in the Wibaux brewpub.

“I distributed by myself, self-distributed in Montana only for about a year, year-and-a-half,” Devine said. “Things are spread out so far I could only do like — I think I had 12 accounts — because I could only go to them every other week. They were so far away. It wasn’t very cost-effective.”

Beer from the brewery is distributed between Billings, MT, and Bismarck.

Beaver Creek Brewery is only available on tap, and the only way to bring it home is to purchase a growler, a half-gallon glass jug, from the Wibaux location. Growler owners are encouraged to bring their jugs back for refills.

“We’d have to probably triple our production or more in order to package the beer in cans or bottles,” Jim said. “That means we’d have to have another building (and) a million dollars in equipment.”

The brewpub is open four days a week — Thursday through Sunday — leaving the other three days, and the hours not spent open, for brewing.

“When we first opened, Sandy and his wife would bartend two nights a week, my wife and I would bartend two nights a week, and then Sandy and I would do all the brew work on weekends or at night,” Devine said. “So we were doing 80 hours a week.”

The brewpub was once a grocery store, but before it became Beaver Creek Brewery, co-owner Russ Houck used it for storage. It took 4,000 hours of labor over 18 months to turn it into the brewpub.

There are always six beers on tap at the brewpub, plus two seasonal brews and a special root beer that can only be purchased in Wibaux.

Beaver Creek’s success has hindered its creativity a bit.

“We get so busy providing our distributors with beer sometimes we can’t — we don’t make all the beers we want to make,” Devine said.





19 February, 2014