On a bit of a lark, my beer-loving buddy Derek and I decided to take a day trip to Plentywood, MT to buy beer and experience the local flavour.
The drive was gorgeous, a beautiful day. We had a plan for our trip - hit the liquor store, and as many convenience stores and grocery stores as we could to find any interesting beer that we could. As we found out, Montana has a WIDE variety of state-brewed craft beers, and also offer some craft beers from further afield. But let's start the adventure..shall we?
We stopped at a gas station/convenience store as soon as we entered the town. I went immediately to the coolers and found 3 of my favourite brews..Alaskan Amber, Fat Tire, and Moose Drool Brown Ale. These are all darker ales that I LOVE..I left them there for the time being and we moved along to the...
LIQUOR STORE! The sign says "Liquor Store - Welcome Canadians!". Derek and I parked the Tercel and we went inside...anticipating the treasures within.
OK, firstly..in Canuckistan, where we live, MOST liquor is sold via the government outlet - the SLGA. Beer and liquor are both sold there. Private liquor/beer vendors are few and far between. The idea of buying beer in a convenience store still makes me giggle like a schoolkid...and the idea of a liquor store that DOESN'T SELL BEER is foreign. This liquor store did just that..it sold hard liquor...that's pretty much it. Derek and I are both huge tequila fans and rum fans, and I like scotch, so we were really hoping to find things we couldn't get at home, or maybe save a dollar or 5 on a bottle of something familiar. No such luck. The selection was poor and the prices high in our opinion. We left the liquor store and went to...
THE GROCERY STORE! It was right across the street. We went in with a non-beer shopping list consisting of bacon spray cheese and vanilla Coke from our buddy Randy, so we picked that up and headed to the substantial beer section.
We found a very helpful store employee who showed us about. Apparently she is asked to bring beer "back home to Michigan" every time she travels that way. We loaded up on Montana-based craft beers, the few others I mentioned above and a few others that looked really interesting. Derek and I generally prefer brown/dark ales, trappist/abbey ales and we are developing a taste for hop-forward beers - IPAs and ESBs. We found some really neat IPAs and brown/dark beers. Here is the LIST:
Alaskan Amber Alt Style Ale (Alaska Brewing Company, ALASKA)
Fat Tire Amber Ale (New Belgium Brewing, COLORADO)
Bent Nail IPA (Red Lodge Ales Brewing Co., MONTANA)
Bobo's Robust Porter (Big Sky Brewing Co., MONTANA)
Ranger IPA (New Belgium Brewing, COLORADO)
Bayern Dragon's Breath Dark Heff Ale (Bayern Brewing, MONTANA)
Red Chair Northwest Pale Ale (Deschutes Brewery, OREGON)
Bakken Bock Dark Dopplebock (Bayern Brewing, MONTANA)
Moose Drool Brown Ale (Big Sky Brewing, MONTANA)
Altogether we bought 11 6-packs, paid a total of about $98.00 USD for them and paid an additional $37.00 CDN duty and taxes at the border. The cost for the each 6-pack was about $12.75 or about the same price as a 6-pack of domestic beer at the SLGA. Not too bad.So after we bought beer, we needed lunch. We were hoping to go to this grungy pizza joint I found on the internet that was purported to be the hangout of the town's "colour", but it was not open at lunchtime. We opted for the Golden Dollar, a diner with excellent hamburgers that feature both bacon AND Canadian Bacon! TWO KINDS OF BACON! We had hoped to try the pie which was on offer, but there was no more room in the tummies. We paid the bill and made our way to...
CASSIDY'S! Cassidy's is a bar and lounge across the street from the Golden Dollar. We bellied up to the bar and ordered a beer. The barkeep brought us two Bayern Dancing Trout Ales. This is something that we didn't pick up earlier and we were game to try something new! I don't have a full review on the Dancing Trout, but it was a very tasty wheat ale. In hindsight, we should have picked some up for home, but alas we did not. Cassidy's runs a game called "shake-a-date" which we participated in. Shake-a-Date involves paying 50 cents for the opportunity to shake five dice. If you get five of a kind, you win the "pot". Nobody at the bar won the pot that day, but it was fun to participate in something that was definitely local flavour. Derek did buy a Powerball ticket though, so maybe the riches are yet to come! We also found that Cassidy's makes Caesars..which VERY few American bars do...and they make it with a splash of olive juice and a squeeze of lime..might have to try both! While Derek nursed his beer (he was driving), I had a Bayern Dragon's Breath. VERY interesting...a review will follow at some point. We left Cassidy's, went for a bit of a walking tour of the Plentywood shopping district, then went to...
THE BLUE MOON! The Blue Moon is east of town by a mile or so, and is a bar/lounge/event location? It is quite spacious with tons of slot machines, a dance floor, a side room and a long bar. Derek and I were two of only four people in the whole joint..plus the bartender. We bellied up to the bar, and I ordered a Shock Top Raspberry Wheat Ale. It was really good! REALLY good. It would be fantastic on a hot day. Since I ordered a "girly" beer, Derek made up for it by ordering a Michelob Ultra. Uh huh...*I* got the girly beer. While Derek drank his diet beer, I finished the Shock Top and ordered the bar's namesake..a Blue Moon Belgian White. Blue Moon is a solid Witbier..I do enjoy it. We threw some money into a slot machine, finished our beers and started back to Canada.
Derek and I had an excellent time and brought back some hopefully excellent beers! Stay tuned for the reviews as I get time to do them.
Salud!
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