Regional Brewers Spin Some Bottles

Among area brewers, 1998 is shaping up as the Year of the Bottle.

The first bottled beers from Sandpoint’s 2-year-old Pend Oreille Brewing Co. have hit the shelves in North Idaho. Following 14 years of draft-only production, Hale’s Ales is about to follow suit. And in Airway Heights, Northern Lights, which dipped its toe in the bottling waters last year, is ready to get its feet wet.

Bottling beer is a major philosophical shift for Mike Hale, who began brewing in converted dairy tanks in Colville before moving his business to Seattle (with a satellite brewery in Spokane). Hale has long maintained that beer fresh from the keg tastes best, with bottled beer a pale imitation.

“I haven’t really changed my mind about that. Draft beer is superior,” Hale says. “But so many people, particularly in Eastern Washington, don’t get out to the places where our beer is on tap.”

Hale hopes to keep the beer as fresh as possible by “bottle conditioning” - adding a little unfermented beer to each bottle. The live yeast consumes the oxygen that makes beer go stale.

Even so, Hale will mark the bottles with a 45-day freshness date, about half that of most microbrews. And he frets about what will become of his bottled babies out in the warm, cruel world; if beer isn’t kept cold, that also hastens aging.

“Once a bottle leaves the brewery, it’s very much a crapshoot what happens to it,” Hale says.

Hale’s will bottle three beers: its flagship pale ale, its mild, malty amber and its Moss Bay Extra, a heartier version of the special bitter typically seen around here. The target date to start distribution is March 1.

In Sandpoint, bottling was part of Pend Oreille’s plans from the beginning.

Statistics show some 70 percent of the microbrewed beer sold in the Pacific Northwest is in bottles, says marketing director Ken Jackson: “People buy more six-packs than they do pints.”

Pend Oreille’s Idaho Pale Ale, City Beach Blonde Pilsner and HooDoo Porter are the first bottled entries, to be joined soon by the Rapid Lightning Red. Some seasonal specialties will also be bottled in limited quantities, Jackson says, starting with the Campbell’s Crest Scottish Ale.

“We’re just frantic,” he says. “We’re working double shifts trying to build up enough inventory to take care of our markets. It’s going to take a couple of months to get up to speed.”

It will be February before Pend Oreille’s bottled beers start showing up in Spokane, says Jackson. While the Western Washington market is attractive, he adds, that’s a long ways off.

“We don’t want to try to be a player over there,” Jackson says. “We want to be players in our market here.”

That’s about all anyone entering the crowded bottle battle these days can expect, says Jerome Chicvara, marketing director for Full Sail, which was the first Oregon microbrewery to begin bottling beer back in 1987.

With all the choices available now, says Chicvara, “to gain access to grocery shelves, you’d better show up with some mighty compelling sizzle.”

No one realizes that more than Northern Lights’ Mark Irvin. Last fall, Irvin began hand-bottling his Crystal Bitter in larger, 22-ounce bottles (look for it in specialty stores).

He plans to add his pale ale and dark, rich Chocolate Dunkle later this year and to eventually move into standard, 12-ounce bottles. But that means an automated bottling line, a big expense for a small brewery.

“You’ve got to make sure you can sell enough product to justify it,” Irvin says.

Mountain time

The bottling by Northern Lights and now Hale’s leaves Coeur d’Alene’s Hollister Mountain Brewing Co. as the only local brewery that doesn’t either bottle beer or operate its own pub.

Hollister has discussed bottling but has no immediate plans to do so, says partner Paul McGowan. The focus for 1998 is increasing the brewery’s presence in Spokane by winning more tavern tap handles for its well-made draft beers.

You can sample Hollister’s Scottish Ale and Bog Water Stout at a promotional party Saturday from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Inn at Mount Spokane.

Distribution solution?

Some behind-the-scenes shifts at the distribution level might make the new year a little happier for Spokane microbrew buyers.

Last fall, Portland’s Columbia Distributing - the largest craft beer distributor in the United States - bought Spokane’s Koprivica Beverage Systems (formerly Joey August Distributors).

And as of Feb. 1, Columbia will take over Spokane distribution of Full Sail, Deschutes, Portland and Anchor, among others, adding to a lineup that already included Pyramid/Kemper, Bridgeport, Alaskan and Grant’s.

B&B Distributing, the local Budweiser distributor, retains the rights to Redhook and Widmer, which are partially owned by Anheuser-Busch.

“Hopefully, you’ll see a bigger selection, and we’ll keep the product fresher,” says Tom Kavran, Columbia’s Spokane operations manager.

Kavran says Columbia owner Ed Maletis is “a major fanatic when it comes to microbrews. He wants to bring that up here.”

Hear, hear.

Import report

It may seem like microbrews have blown imports off the supermarket shelves, but statistics tell a slightly different story.

According to state Liquor Control Board figures, through October, the volume of beer produced in or shipped into Washington by the top 20 microbreweries was down 2 percent compared to 1996 - while foreign imports were up 22 percent. (Now we understand the reason behind those Bud ads about how much fresher their beer is than the imports.)

Golden age

While the microbrew market may be flat, there are signs that it’s maturing.

Full Sail’s V.S.P. Golden Ale - a heavier, hoppier version of its original Golden Ale that was introduced last summer to celebrate the brewery’s 10th anniversary - has sold so well that it’s here to stay, permanently replacing the old Golden.

Hoppy new year, indeed.

, DataTimes MEMO: On Tap is a monthly feature of IN Food. Write to: On Tap, Features Department, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210. Call 459-5446, fax 459-5098 or e-mail to rickb@spokesman.com

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Rick Bonino The Spokesman-Review