I see where every graduating class of the University of Montana can now raise a glass of celebratory beer—“1901”—commissioned for the alumni association’s 125th anniversary.
The unique lager—brewed with Flathead Valley Hops—was born out of the university’s Brewing Science Program, “part of a six-class certificate in the Department of Chemistry in UM’s College of Sciences.”
And where was such a science curriculum when I plodded through academia?
My curriculum vitae, for what it’s worth, is atypical of a career journalist, having abided my entire life by the proven adage “you only go around once, so grab all the gusto you can.”
Beer included.
So 15 years ago, before I saw fit to juggle journalism with owning a restaurant (“What was he thinking?” one food critic wrote in his opening sentence) I became a founding partner of the Port City Brewing Company, the first production packaging brewery since Prohibition to operate within the Washington, D.C. Beltway.
What began with a few tanks quickly grew into a major regional presence, and with plenty of honors along the way, including Small Brewing Company of the Year (Pabst won the same year for large brewery) at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver.
Port City’s capable founders Bill and Karen Butcher, as an aside, paid me a visit here in the Flathead this past October when we happened upon the largest grizzly bear ever to roam Glacier National Park.
OK, but it was the most ginormous grizzly I’ve personally ever laid eyes on, and I tended to more than my share of Ursus horribilis encounters where outcomes—as with Florida hiker Anthony Pollio earlier this month—were never good.
One highly unusual string of fatal bear maulings I covered in Glacier during the early 1980s was prior to 2010’s change in federal law that allows outdoor enthusiasts who previously relied on bear bells and pepper spray for protection to pack legal firearms into the park.
Which is not to say that discharging your gun is permitted, but if it means surviving an immediate life-threatening grizzly attack you’ll at least be alive to argue self-defense.
My late-great mentor G. George Ostrom, owner and publisher of the Kalispell Weekly News, confessed years later to illicitly concealing a powerful handgun whenever he hiked through Glacier.
“With the thought we did not want to curl up and play dead while a grizzly killed one of our friends or family,” he wrote. “My .357 magnum was in a camera case labeled ‘Cannon.’ Not entirely deceitful.”
George, at the same time, knew to steer clear of unpredictable pockets of Glacier, especially the far northern reaches surrounding Kintla and Kinnerly Peaks, where he’d been hounded by bears.
“If you can get good grizzly photos without a telephoto lens,” reasoned the legendary newspaperman, “I don’t want to go.”
Back to the beer—brewed by students who mastered “chemistry, microbiology and laboratory science behind the fermentation process”—it’s “made by Grizzlies for Grizzlies,” said LeAnn Layton, associate vice president for UM alumni and community relations.
Light and citrusy, the hop-forward draft is available only in kegs and on tap in selected locations and consists solely of Montana-based products, including renowned Flathead Valley Hops, which if you didn’t know is Montana’s largest hop farm.
The tight-knit Riddle family of Flathead hopsters points out their farm is situated on the 48th parallel, the same latitude as the world’s largest European hop producers known for its temperate growing climate.
Even better, the farmland consists of “Creston Topsoil,” which is “famous amongst farmers in the Flathead for being rich, dark, high-quality and healthy soil.”
Sláinte!
And never hike alone.
John McCaslin is a longtime journalist and author who lives in Bigfork.