A Toast to the Harvest
Author Brent Zundel
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
October 25, 2012
As the year’s first snows blanket Bozeman, it’s time to pause for a minute and toast a special time of year: the harvest. While the end of the summer growing season has historically been important in brewing various beverages, today the dropping temperatures signal a new round of seasonal beers and a shift in many people’s drinking preferences.
Crisp, lighter beers cool us off during the hot summer months, but many folks want a different kind of drink to warm their bellies and ward off the nip of cool fall nights. Here are a few options to consider. Read More…
Atomic Ale
Author Brent Zundel
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
October 11, 2012
Quick: What would you do if a nuclear bomb exploded over Bozeman? After the shock wave passed, what would you do amidst the roiling chaos that surrounded you? Futilely wish you’d joined the Church Universal and Triumphant so you could live out the rest of your days in their underground end-of-times bunkers near Corwin Springs? Drive as fast as you can against the prevailing wind?
What about cracking a cold one, sitting on your porch and just watching the world go to shit? Read More…
Beer Floats
Author Brent Zundel
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
September 27, 2012
I’m going to share with you one of the greatest discoveries I have ever made. I’m not sure you deserve this paradigm-shifting information without any effort of your own, but it’s so seductive I can’t resist.
Beer floats. Read More…
Harvest Moon
Author Brent Zundel
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
September 13, 2012
“This is an aggressive ale. You probably won’t like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth.” Read More…
Introducing The Brewponent
Author Brent Zundel
By Brent Zundel and Matt Kennedy
For the MSU Exponent
September 6, 2012
Don’t worry, we understand why you did it. Why you drank Folgers this morning and why you’re already looking forward to that Coors Light later today. Sure, other beer and coffee is expensive. Anyway, the only people who like specialty beer and coffee are snobs. They strut into the coffee shop or bar, with their thin moustaches, loafers and stylish scarves, and order something you don’t understand. Maybe you can pronounce it, but you don’t know what’s in it, and you certainly don’t drink it with a smugness only appropriate for English royalty and AKC dog shows. We get it. If you have to look and act like that, it seems better to continue buying the 24 packs of PBR.
Lucky for us, Bozeman’s drinking culture is not populated by snobs. Read More…
Great Beer from a Great State
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
June 8, 2012
Beer is one of the most culturally important aspects of growing up, perhaps at no time more so than in college. While finding someone to buy a 30-rack seems to be the most pressing need for some freshmen, beer’s importance in Montana transcends those concerns in a number of important ways.
Unlike wine, beer suffers from often unfair stereotypes. While some beer drinkers earn their frat boy reputations, many others simply enjoy partaking in one of mankind’s most ancient rituals. Oftentimes, the ingredients — water, barley, yeast and hops — are cultivated very differently just one valley over, which makes beer from every small brewery unique.
Montana is one of the best places in the world for beer lovers, with a variety as big as our sky. Per capita, Montana has the second most breweries in the nation — ahead of Oregon and just barely behind Vermont. Moreover, Montanans consume the third most beer per person in the country.
“Montana is one of the best places in the world for beer lovers, with a variety as big as our sky.” Read More…
Montana Beer Fest Comes to Bozeman
Members of the Red Lodge Brewing Company, dressed in kilts for the occasion, show off their wares. Photo by Brent Zundel
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
April 19, 2012
Nothing brings together a community like good beer and a good cause. With 38 breweries serving 110 beers and $1,000 donated to charity, last Friday’s Montana Beer Fest had plenty of both ingredients.
The sixth annual event brought primarily Montana breweries to the Gallatin County Fairgrounds, but also included larger craft breweries from across the Pacific Northwest, like Oregon’s Deschutes Brewery and California’s Sierra Nevada. Read More…
Local Beer on Tap
Local beers at the Brewers Festival. Photo by Brent Zundel
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
September 15, 2011
Note: This piece was originally published as the feature in the Sept. 15, 2011, print edition of the Exponent.
Twenty-two different breweries brought a few beers each to the third annual Montana Brewers Festival last Friday, allowing Bozemanites to sample over 75 different brews. Held at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds, the event allowed attendees to sample as many beers as they wanted during the five and a half hours of general admission.
The most interesting aspect of the festival was its focus on high-quality craft brews made right here in Montana. Except for Missoula’s Big Sky Brewing, all of the larger, expected breweries were present.
Well-established breweries like Yellowstone Valley from Billings, Bozeman Brewing and Kettlehouse from Missoula served up their beers, but smaller breweries turned out strong for the event as well. While many Montanans regularly enjoy brews from the larger companies, this festival presented an excellent opportunity to sample hard-to-find beers.
Breweries from small towns like Wibaux and Red Lodge brought kegs of their beer to the festival. Due to limited distribution, these beers are often difficult to find even inside Montana. Beer from Glacier Brewing in Polson, for example, is available only in towns at about a three-hour radius from Polson.
Photo by Brent Zundel
The variety of breweries attests to the importance of beer in the Montana economy. Billings, the state’s largest city, hosts four microbreweries, but even tiny Wibaux, with a population of 589 people, opened up a new brewery in 2008.
Bozeman Brewing Company has called Bozeman home since 2001, while Madison River has been operating in nearby Belgrade since 2005. The 406 Brewing Company started up in Bozeman in January 2011. All three local breweries brought their beers to the festival. Read More…
Mikeservations: Mike is Missing
By “Mike” Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
March 24, 2011
Note: Mikeservations, written by ex-Exponenter Mike Tarrant, was a weekly social commentary column run by the Exponent. Former Editor-in-chief Eric Dietrich remarked that the column “inspired both more complaints and (I’m told) more devout readership than almost any of our other content.”
At the Exponent, we are a dedicated bunch of student-journalists. That’s why the due date for all the articles in this week’s opinion section was, as always, the Thursday of the previous week.
Last Thursday, March 17, however, was different from every other Thursday. It was St. Patty’s Day.
As everyone who has met him already knows, Mike Tarrant enjoys a good beer, regardless of the time of day. He’s also from Butte.
With that evidence, understandably, no one has either heard from or seen Mike since he missed his St. Patty’s deadline. Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the Exponent office. Mike is easy to identify: He will be the one standing in the corner of the bar or party, drinking either Scotch or a Moose Drool, and glaring judgmentally at everyone else. Despite the persona he cultivates, he is safe to approach.
Last St. Patty’s Day, an individual who will remain nameless woke up in a minivan on blocks in an auto lot over five miles away from Uptown Butte, where he was last seen. Exponent members believe a similar fate befell Mike. Read More…
Author
Mountain Solitaire Author Brent Zundel
MOUNTAIN SOLITAIRE 