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SCENE & STORY

Located on the southern end of Flathead Lake (at 192 square miles the largest freshwater lake in the United States), Polson is a town of some 4,000 year-round residents and is part of the Flathead Indian Reservation. It’s also home to the nation’s largest fiddle competition, and in the summertime the town becomes a major tourist thoroughfare. From the ground up, Glacier Brewing Company has a wonderful Old West feel, with swinging saloon doors and a historic brewery sign over the entrance (which came out of Montana’s first brewery, the H.S. Gilbert Brewery in Virginia City), antique brewing posters, and wooden truss rafters. The owners expanded the taproom a few years ago, and today there’s ample room for beer drinking both inside and out, in addition to a small wooden stage in the beer garden for all those fiddlers.

PHILOSOPHY

Unfussy and stylistically simple, hitting several major beer styles from Kölsch and pilsner to ältbier and stout, with friendly, smiling service.

KEY BEER

Cherries grow in the area, but the very popular, very sweet Flathead Cherry Ale is made with a grenadine-like cherry additive, which seasoned craft beer aficionados might have difficulty enjoying. Also try the Slurry Bomber Stout, at 5.5% ABV, a dry roasty sipper, and the Glacier Select Oktoberfest (6.7% ABV), a dark amber with some spicy hop character that is, despite the seasonal-sounding name, one of the company’s most popular year-round beers.

TAMARACK

BREWING &

TAMARACK ALE-

HOUSE & GRILL

105 Blacktail Rd., Ste. 1 • Lakeside, MT 59922

(406) 844-0244 • tamarackbrewing.com • Established: 2006

SCENE & STORY

Heading along the west side of Flathead Lake, it’s a short drive onto Lakeside, with the turn for “The Rack,” as locals call it, at the beginning of town. In the winter, this is a popular spot for skiers at nearby Blacktail Mountain Resort. The attractively modern two-level facility is situated on the side of Stoner Creek, and out back there’s a shady patio that beckons in the summer months.

The operators, Craig Koontz and Joshua Townsley, sought to incorporate a number of touches from breweries they admire into Tamarack, such as an open viewing area from the second floor looking into the brew house and the lack of a barrier between the brewery tanks and the bar area itself (a feature borrowed from Four Peaks Brewery in Tempe, Arizona, where Northern California-raised brewer Koontz met business partner Townsley). With the beautiful copper-clad kettles and seven shiny fermenters, there’s a cheery confidence about the place and a hum of activity even on weekday afternoons. One of the best features is a wood-burning indoor-outdoor fireplace with seating on each side—on the patio and inside the restaurant.

And while the Alehouse & Grill area is technically a separate business from the brewery, it’s really only on paper that the two are distinct from each other. “You can hear it, and you can smell it,” says Koontz proudly of the open-plan design. The food menu is extensive, from burgers to pizzas made with handmade beer dough and even a few Southwest items. Several beer dinners per year stretch the kitchen’s repertoire with local Willow Spring Ranch lamb shanks, seasonal vegetable tortes, and cured meats.

PHILOSOPHY

Koontz is an eager experimenter with his ten-barrel facility, with recent forays into making pilsner with Sorachi Ace hops (developed in Japan), which have a distinctive lemongrass quality. But most of the beers are true to style. “There’s stuff that sells for a reason,” he says. With that in mind, the ten standards hew to familiar styles such as amber, wit, hefeweizen, and stout.

KEY BEER

Yard Sale Ale. “We describe it as a robust amber ale,” says Koontz of his 5.6% ABV top seller. “It’s bordering on a brown if you look at it in the glass, which separates it from the Fat Tires and Alaskan Ambers out there on the shelf,” he says. “It’s got heavy amounts of chocolate malt and a little roastiness to it, as well.” Ask if Old Stache is available; it’s a super limited-quantity porter