Summer in the Tasting Room and Beer Garden

There is a lot going on at Bayern Brewing these days. The weather in the Northwest has finally become quite pleasant, which means more people enjoying delicious craft beers in their backyards, at the lake, on the deck, etc. So production has really increased to keep up with the demand. Things haven't just gotten busier in the brewhouse, "tank farm" and bottling line; the Bayern Tasting Room and Beer Garden are seeing a lot more visitors. Good-looking folks from all over are hanging out wearing shorts and sunglasses, soaking up some rays, playing some chess on the giant chessboard and enjoying all the light beers available in our Beer Garden. These include: Dump Truck, Kaiser Imperial Pilsener Lager, St. Wilbur Weizen, Dancing Trout and Pilsener (we still have some darker beers on tap too and Maibock has even made a brief reappearance). This happens every nice day we have here in Missoula, Montana, but there are some special events going on this summer you will want to know about.

First, every Friday there will be plates of quality food available that every German beer garden ought to have: brats, German potato salad and other sides. There will likely be more than one vendor providing this, so you will want to come back often to sample the variety.

On Saturdays, the Tasting Room is now open at 10 a.m. and, if you bring in an Ecopack full of reusable bottles between 10 am-4 pm, you can get 10% off your entire purchase in the Tasting Room (beer, food and merchandise).

Live music will be coming too. John Floridis is attempting to play at every brewery in Montana so Bayern is honored to host his talent at some point this summer. Other bands/artists and dates will be announced later on this blog, on the Bayern website and Facebook.

Everyone at Bayern hopes you have a safe, fun summer and hope to see you at the brewery sometime (and often!).

~ Prost!

Bayern's New Craft Pack

Bayern Brewing is becoming well-known for thinking outside the box but, lately, the folks at Bayern have been thinking about the box itself! After changing the Bayern mother case to a more reuseable design (which has been working great, with lots of boxes coming back every week - read the March 8th post to learn more), Bayern is now switching to a new container for its variety pack. This new offering is called a "Craft Pack".

The old variety pack was great-looking, featuring Monte Dolack's beautiful artwork portraying Montana. Perhaps that is why people liked it so much, besides the fact that it held 12 (3 each) of our best-known beers: Amber, Pilsener, Dancing Trout and Bayern's current Seasonal. However, in keeping with our sustainability efforts, and in order to be able to offer more of our growing number of beer styles in each 12 pack, Bayern redesigned this package to be more eco-friendly and versatile.

The new Craft Pack will hold 3 each of a variety of 4 different Bayern beer styles. It features windows cut in the box to see which beers are contained within, yet it is still sturdy. These windows accentuate the label art itself, which is often hidden on a store shelf by the 6-pack carrier. Like the old variety pack, it is a great-looking package. However, the Craft Pack design uses less ink and is made of partially-recycled cardboard thus making it more environmentally conscious packaging.

Look for the new Craft Pack in stores soon. If you can't find it in your market, let the Manager at your favorite store or your local distributor know that you are interested in this new offering. No matter which 4 beer styles are contained within, you can always be sure that each Bayern Craft Pack holds quality, authentic German beer from Montana's original microbrewery in Missoula.

Prost!

Bayern Wins Ecostar Award

In April, Bayern Brewing and 21 other Montana enterprises earned the Ecostar Pollution Prevention Award from a Montana State University Extension. Bayern is truly proud to be recognized for our efforts in waste reduction. The Ecoleague - Glass is Greener glass bottle reuse program, the 6-pack carrier and mother-case return for reuse programs were just a few of many businesses practices sited to achieve this award. To learn more about why Bayern Brewing is truly a leader in Montana (and the beverage industry nationwide) in sustainability and conservation efforts, please visit www.bayernbrewery.com

To learn more about the 2012 EcoStar award, you can read the official MSU press release by following this link.To learn more about the EcoStar Pollution Prevention Award Program and how you can be involved, please follow this link.

Accepting the award from Montana Lt. Gov. John Walsh at a ceremony in Helena were: Jürgen Knöller, Owner and President; Thorsten Geuer, Brewmaster; and Jared Spiker, Marketing and Sales Manager (Jürgen is behind the Lt. Governor and Thorsten is on the far left in the group photo). 

Bayern is very grateful for the recognition and proud to be an Eco Star Awardee!

Prost!

Bayern Trip to Eastern Montana

The "EcoPack": riding low due to all the beer and samples in the back!

Bayern Brewing recently went on a road trip to visit friends and fans in Eastern Montana. With stops in Bozeman, Billings and several other side journeys off I-90 along the way, the final destination of this road trip was the Bakken Brew Fest in Sydney, Montana. On Wednesday, April 27, Bayern Brewmaster, Thorsten Geuer, and Marketing and Sales Manager, Jared Spiker loaded up the Honda Fit nicknamed "The Ecopack" after Bayern's glass return boxes (it bears the name on the license plate and gets incredible gas mileage) and were on their way. Everyone at Bayern Brewing is grateful for our friends in Southwest and Eastern Montana. We always enjoy meeting them and appreciate your patronage. In addition, Jared and Thorsten had a great time on this trip and are truly grateful for the hospitality they received.   

At left, Thorsten holds an Ecopack with the husband and wife team that own/operate Triple R Recycling in Bozeman, MT. They are part of the Bayern EcoLeague, helping Bayern Brewing collect glass to reuse through the Bayern bottle washer. Remember: every bottle deserves another round!








First stop in Sydney, MT was to visit our friends at Blue Rock Distributing. Thorsten poses with Randy and Ron in front of their impressive collection of bottles and other memorabilia. 

Below is a panorama shot of the Bakken Brew Fest event. 700 tickets went on sale and 700 tickets were sold before the doors even opened. What a great night for Eastern Montana!



At the Bakken Brewfest, the people spectating the wooden barrel tapping were warned that they might get sprayed by beer. They didn't know how close they came to getting doused as the bung on the barrel (pictured at right) nearly pushed through while Thorsten was tapping it. Yikes!












Speaking of close calls...
"Watch out for horse poop, Thorsten!"
 










This was pretty much the view for the majority of the ride home. Sidney is 612.5 miles from Missoula and takes an average time of 8 hours and 52 minutes. Nothing like driving 9 hours across Montana in an April snow storm. Wonder what the weather will be like next year?...

Had to include this awesome photo of the cooler door at Red Lodge Ales. Sam and his crew are great people! Red Lodge Ales, as well as Madison River Brewing in Belgrade, MT, (another stop on this road trip) are helping Bayern collect reusable glass for the Ecoleague Glass is Greener program.

The one thing missing on this cooler door was a Bayern sticker.

...the Bayern boys took care of that.  

Prost!

Watch out for that Dump Truck!

The arrival of Dump Truck season couldn't be timed better, accompanied by the nice, spring-like weather we are having this weekend in the Northwest. It makes many of us eager for longer, sunnier days and warmer temperatures. These types of outdoor conditions are often accompanied by activities such as fishing, rafting, kayaking, camping, biking and all sorts of great adventures. For many of us, a day of outdoor fun ends with a barbecue meal with friends. No matter how you choose to enjoy the coming season, Bayern Brewing is pleased to announce that you will soon be able to add a light, flavorful, refreshing Dump Truck to your outdoor fun. How soon? Read on...

We've been brewing the first of many batches of Dump Truck Extra Pale Summer Bock the last two weeks, and Bayern is ready to roll it out next week. The photos included with this post show a Kombitank holding 112 U.S. Barrels of Dump Truck and also the bags of Sauermalt (acidulated, malted barley) and Spitzmalt (raw, organic barley) that we use as part of the unique recipe Bayern's Owner and Master Brewer, Jürgen Knöller, created three years ago. You can read more about why Dump Truck is so unique (and so delicious) while checking out the new Bayern Brewing web site: www.bayernbrewery.com

Bayern will be shipping to our distributors around the Northwest this week. They'll get it out into the market for you to enjoy at your favorite establishment, or pick up a 6-pack in stores very soon. There are some who simply can't wait though...we know how you feel. Everyone at Bayern is really excited for Summer! So we are having a Dump Truck Summer Sneak Peak on Monday. You can get some prerelease Dump Truck at our Tasting Room in Missoula and, if you show up in your summer gear (think river sandals, zinc oxide on your nose, Hawaiian shirt, PFD, etc.) you may win a prize! Prost!

St. Patrick's Day Events

Lots of fun events happening the next few days with St. Patrick's Day on Sunday. Don't bother to point out the irony of the Northwest's original German brewery getting in on the celebration of a very Irish holiday. The truth is: there is a very strong Irish influence on Montana's culture and Bayern Brewing, the oldest brewery still operating in Montana, is part of Montana history. In 1988, Owner and Proprietor of Bayern Brewing, Jürgen Knöller, even created the first Irish Red beer in the USA (Killarney Red Lager) to honor Montana's Irish heritage. Plus, a lot of people enjoy good beer around St. Patrick's Day so we are happy to oblige them.

If you haven't personally witnessed the ceremony of  tapping a wooden barrel or tasted Killarney, Jürgen's original Irish Red Lager, from a wooden barrel, then you shouldn't miss one of the opportunities listed below. We hope to see you!

• March 14, 7:30 pm @ Lucky Strike (Missoula, MT) - Tapping wooden barrel of Killarney during Beer Trivia Night
• March 15,  5:15 pm @ Depot (Missoula, MT) - Tapping wooden barrel of Killarney
• March 16,  7:00 pm @ Litz's Bar (Spokane, WA) Killarney Wooden Barrel pre-St. Patty's day party
• March 17,  4:00 pm @ Bayern Tasting Room, Killarney Wooden Barrel St. Patrick Day Celebration featuring a live pipe band!

Bayern's New, Re-useable Boxes

Hello friends! As part of our ongoing efforts to reduce the brewery's impact on the environment while using good sustainable business practices, Bayern recently made a change to the design of the new mother cases (boxes that 6-packs ship in). Since there are currently no stores where you can buy Bayern beer by the case,  most of our friends and fans don't see these boxes. That is all the more reason to point out what is so special about them: they are re-usable!

When breweries (and other beverage manufacturers) ship 6-packs to their distributors, they are usually packed in cases. After these cardboard boxes are used to get the product into the stores, they often get recycled. Sometimes, they just end up in a landfill. To reduce this waste, and promote actual REUSE of Bayern's boxes, we had our new ones constructed of sturdy, partially recycled cardboard with a design that does not require glue or tape to keep contents secure. Besides the lidded top, the bottom also folds/unfolds easily so they can be collapsed and shipped back to us flat. Another design feature that promotes reuse is the small window revealing the contents (beer style) contained within, eliminating the need for labeling. To see a picture of the new box, please read our latest Brewsletter available on Bayern's website or by clicking here.

Bayern Mother Cases stored flat

Here are a couple of pictures you won't see in our Brewsletter. At one of our distributors' warehouses we saw how the boxes are already being stored to ship back to us for reuse. Note the other bin of boxes nearby that will probably be recycled or "re-purposed", requiring them to be cut up, pulped and processed in various other ways.

Saturday Feb. 23 Events

Bayern will be part of three great events this Saturday. Bayern is sponsoring the Gelande Jump at Montana Snowbowl ski area: always a wild time as a spectator or participant. You can also join Bayern in supporting Montana Trout Unlimited at the Westslope Chapter banquet & auction at the Missoula Hilton Inn. If you will be up in the Flathead Lake area Saturday, you might be interested in sipping some Bayern beer (and others) at the Bigfork Brew Fest. This event puts the "fun" in fundraiser, supporting quite a few local causes and organizations. Come prepared for some wild Montana weather, though, because this is an outdoor event in February!

New Bayern Brewing Website

Hello Bayern fans! How fitting that the first post of this Bayern blog would be to announce the new Bayern website. Basically, two digital means to accomplish the same goal: inform the public about all things Bayern. Whether you want to know about Bayern beer, sustainability and environmental impact efforts or current events, the new website and this blog will provide you with information. Of course, Bayern friends could Follow us on Facebook, but not everyone has a Facebook account (or looks at it) so we want to provide other means of staying connected. The website isn't live yet, but should be shortly. In the meantime, here is a screen shot (sneak peek) of what we are working on: