A bigger paddle

After charting a course over its first three years, Slate Creek is ready to turn up the flow.

The Coeur d’Alene brewery celebrates its third anniversary Friday as it prepares to further boost production in 2016 and expand distribution, likely in cans as well as draft.

“We really need to make sure the quality of the beer, the shelf life is where we need it to be,” says Jason Wing, who started the brewery along with his brother, Ryan. “We’re raising the bar across the board.”

A big part of that was bringing on Matt Spann , formerly of Idaho Brewing in Idaho Falls, as head brewer in October.

“He has some brewing side experience that Ryan and I don’t have, since he’s worked in a production brewery,” Wing says. “He’s brought some new beers to the portfolio, some lager styles that we’ve never done before.”

One of those – a small-batch Glade-iator doppelbock that tips past 8 percent alcohol by volume – will be on tap for Friday’s party, which starts at 5 p.m.

Beginning at 6, there will be music by funk-jazz quartet The Post plus free burgers and sides, while they last. There also will be raffles for shirts, growlers and mug club memberships.

And Wing is setting up a continuous slideshow of hundreds of pictures customers have sent him over the years sporting Slate Creek gear in wild and remote destinations around the globe. “There are guys wearing our hats sitting in front of a sign that says Geographic South Pole,” he says.

Slate Creek (named after the Wings’ favorite fishing and kayaking spot off the St. Joe River) continues to explore new territory itself.

After broadening distribution last year from Bonners Ferry to the north to Lewiston to the south, it had its first placement in Boise last week. Eastern Washington also is in the longer-range plans.

That means making more beer to serve all those accounts. After doubling annual production from 300 barrels in 2014 to 600 barrels last year, the brewery hopes to double that again in 2016.

Spann’s presence is key. “You really have to have somebody brewing all the time,” Wing says. “Ryan and I aren’t able to be in the brewery every day and still do all the other things that need to be done to sell the beer.”

He had hoped to begin canning last year, and that’s still on the priority list. “We want people to be able to go on the river, take it hiking, take it fishing, pack it in, pack it out,” says Spann, a fellow outdoorsman.

Some special releases might also show up in 22-ounce bottles, like the English-style barleywine that’s aging in whiskey barrels – the sort of thing Spann hopes to do more of in the future.

Slate Creek has taken to releasing new beers most Wednesday nights for Slate@8, which features discount pints, pizza by the slice and live music.

That started last fall to keep crowds coming after the weekly Wednesday mountain bike rides ended for the season, Wing says, and will continue when the rides resume at the end of this month.