POST FALLS BREWING COMPANY IS THE 51ST BREWERY IN IDAHO

By Bob Hubler

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We visited the New Post Falls Brewing Company during our trip to Northern Idaho.  In April of 2016 Post Falls Brewing Company became the 51st Brewery in the State of Idaho and the 3rd Brewery in the small town of Post Falls.  In 2011 Post Falls had one brewery, Bi-Plane Brewery, which operated from 2011 to 2014.  Selkirk Abbey opened in 2012 and Down Draft opened in 2014.

Dan Stokes & Alex Sylvain and are the Owner/Brewers of Post Fall's newest brewery which is just a block north of the Coeur d'lene River, about a mile south of Down Draft Brewing and five miles west of Selkirk Abbey Brewing. Dan and Alex met while they were students at Northern Arizona University. Their brewery was a long time in the planning stages and, now that they are both engineers full-time, they can run a brewery part-time.


Post Fall's Brewing has a 15 bbl brew kettle and four 30 bbl fermenters as you can see from the photo below.

The Brew System view from the bar

Bartender Mark did not want his picture taken......at least of his face, so we deleted several of those.  Mark had an impressive knowledge of craft beer in America and has visited hundreds of breweries from coast to coast.  Fun guy to talk to about the craft beer culture in Idaho.

Bartender Mark

The flight of beer, from left to right: Obligatory Amber Ale, Tots McOats Milk Stout, Drifter IPA, Stoney MacGuyver IPA and SSSSick and Rowdy IIPA.  Was not a bad beer in the bunch, but I was very fond of the SSSick and Rowdy IIPA.  Nelda liked the Milk Stout although she thought it was a little thin for a stout.

A Flight of beer for $10

Post Falls Brewing has an impressive list of their own beer.  Wish we had more time to try them all.

List of the current beer on tap

Josh, the brewer was very busy crushing the grain for their next beer.

Brewer  grinding grain

The Brewery #52 Story - Hunga Dunga

The Brewery # 53 Story - Mother Earth

Sad to report that Idaho has lost a brewery.  Leaky Faucet was a small production brewery in McCall, Idaho.  They distributed their beer locally in McCall and we found it the SushiBar in McCall.  August Wheeler had his small brewery in his garage.

Updated List of Idaho Breweries

AND MOTHER EARTH BREW CO. MAKES # 53

by Bob Hubler

Mother Earth is in production and  will start canning their beer on Wednesday, August 24th.  Mother Earth becomes Idaho's 53rd Active Brewery (List of Idaho Breweries) and the 19th Brewery in Treasure Valley (BoiseBeerCulture.com).

Mother Earth  Webpage                            Mother Earth Nampa Facebook

Front Gate from the Street

Entrance to Mother Earth Brew Nampa

Chris Baker brewing a new batch

I got to tour the new Mother Earth Brew Co. Nampa facility on Thursday.  Head Brewer Chris Baker gave me a tour of their 40 BBL high tech automated brewing system.  They built the brew system using the latest technology which allows very quick turn around between batches.

Chris Baker comes to Nampa from Kansas via California.  He grew up in Kansas where he became a huge Jayhawk fan, the went to California where he graduated from Cal Poly SLO. Chris worked for Stone Brewing in San Diego before joining Mother Earth at their Vista Brewery.  Chris was a brewer at Mother Earth for three years before moving to Idaho.


Below are pictures of the Brew Kettle, Mash Tuns, Fermenters, Filters and Centrifuge.

The Line Up

Mash Tun

Fermenters

Filters

Centrifuge

Dan Love gave me a tour of the rest of the facility, including the area that will be the Tap Room.  It will be a little adventurous to find the Entrance to the Tap Room, but there will be plenty of signs with arrows. Mother Earth plans to open the Tap Room by the end of September.

This will be the way to the Entrance of the Tap Room

The Brewery Building is huge with a lot of room for future growth. The picture below shows only half the space as a second adjoining building the same size connects on the south side of this one.

Empty Cans and Kegs waiting to be filled

This is the canning line - Wild Goose State of the Art High Speed Canning line capable of filling 40 cans per minute of delicious Mother Earth beer.

Canning Line

Mother Earth's Nampa brewery is located at the End of Madison Avenue (you may find it a little tricky to find).  Take Exit 36 (Franklin) then immediately turn right on 3rd Avenue North. Travel .5 miles, where you will turn right on 8th Street North.  This street curves slightly to the north and becomes Madison Avenue.  Travel about 1/3 of a mile and turn into the parking lot surrounded by a tall wire fence topped with razor wire.

There is currently very little signage, but they are not yet ready for guests.  Dan assures me that there will be big  signs when the Tap room opens.

Google Map with Directions

Link to Mother Earth Comes to Nampa story

NORTHERN IDAHO BREWERY TOUR - JULY 2016 PART 2

by Bob Hubler

HUNGA DUNGA BREWING

While Nelda and I were visiting Rants and Raves Brewery, Neil Marzolf talked about the Moscow, Idaho Brewing District.  He said that it started with Lucas's "Moscow Brewing".  Rants and Raves is just a couple of blocks south of the now closed Moscow Brewing.  He continued to tell me about the newest brewery in Idaho,  Hunga Dunga Brewing which is across the street and about a block north of R&R.  Although Hunga Dunga Brewing was not going to open for another hour, we stopped to take a look at Idaho's 52nd brewery.

Hunga Dunga Brewing Website                                        Hunga Dunga Brewing Facebook

We stopped at Hunga Dunga Brewing, Idaho's newest brewery as of mid July, about 3:00 PM (about an hour before they were officially open for business).  This brewery is built in a Quonset hut. We told them that we came up from Boise to visit the breweries in northern Idaho and they told us to come in and they gave us a tour.

We met Graham Lilly/Co-owner and Brewer. He showed us around the place.  Nate Suhr is the other owner. Graham told us that they had only been open 10 days.They have a 30 BBL system which is huge for a new brewery.  Graham told me that they plan to service a wide area including Spokane and they need the big system to do that.  He also told us that the name, Hunga Dunga comes from a Marx Brothers movie called Animal Cracker. Nelda even remembered the scene from the movie.

Like Rants & Raves, Hunga Dunga is a brewpub with a complete menu.  We wish we could have stayed longer and tried some of their food specialties - Menu.  Bartender Norman Embry told us the food was getting rave reviews from the Moscow residents.

Norman also told us that we had to taste their beer, so we were "forced" to try a few samples of what they had on tap. My favorite was their Oatmeal Pale Ale.  They also had a Summer Session Ale, a Red Rye and a Black IPA.  Their Black IPA was a little light for my taste, yet it was a good beer that fit the category.  Their Summer Ale was your classic lawnmower beer, light and refreshing.

Nelda and I came away from Moscow very impressed with their new "Brewing District"!  The last few  trips north, we never stopped in Moscow, but we will be back.  Moscow, Idaho is on the Craft Brewery Map with the addition of Hunga Dunga and Rants & Raves.  Both fine establishments well worth a visit from all those southern Idaho craft beer fans when they head north.

Me in front of the brewery

The Entrance

Still adding the finishing touches

Brewery has lots of room for expansion

Norman Embry with Janelle Lugo

Entrance to the Brew Room 

I am talking to Graham Lilly here

The Tap Handles were made by local artist  Ben Carpenter

Please Visit Part 1 of the Blog - Rants & Raves

NORTHERN IDAHO BREWERY TOUR - JULY 2016 PART 1

by Bob Hubler

The last week of July, my wife and I took a trip to north Idaho to visit our friend Rori in St. Maries, Idaho and, of course, visit some breweries along the way.  We visited five established breweries and two brand new breweries: Hunga Dunga Brewing in Moscow and Post Falls Brewing in Post Falls.

Rants & Raves Brewery - Moscow Idaho

R&R Facebook                    R&R Website

Our  first stop on our North Idaho Brewery Tour was at Rants & Raves Brewing in Moscow, Idaho.
It was Sunday, but the whole crew was there.  Owners Ramirose Attebury and Neil Marzolf met us when we arrived and they were happy to give us the tour.

We were impressed with everyone there.  Lot of enthusiastic people that seem to have a lot of fun doing their jobs.  We arrived just prior to many patrons that were there for the brewery tour hosted by Rants & Raves.  Brewcation Northwest is a sister company to R&R and does custom brewery tours in Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington.

R&R is a brew pub that has some great pub food.  We shared an Irish Nachos that was so messy and so good...  Chef AJ takes great pride in all of his dishes and was happy to suggest a great dish that was gluten free and generous enough for both of us.  I wish we could have spent more time in Moscow.  Another couple had their Bangers and Mash.  The dish looked great and they said it was their favorite.  I am pretty sure it would be my favorite too.  R&R Menu

Of course we had to try all their beer.  Here is their Tap List when we were there:  Tap List
And it is true:  "They make Damn Good Beer."
My favorite was their Imperial IPA which is called Anonymous IIPA.  It seemed to be very similar to my homebrew IIPA.  I discovered that Tyler used the same hops that I use.  I also liked the T2's IPA which had a great citrus after taste.  Nelda's favorite was the R&R Brown Ale and we both liked The Common Punk, so we had filled our growler with the Punk.

While we were there, Cody Jensen stopped by.  I had corresponded with Cody when I was working on my blog about Rants & Raves being be 50th brewery in Idaho.  Cody does the PR work for RR. We got to chat for awhile about breweries in the area.

Tyler Hawkins, the RR head brewer came by a few minutes later.  Tyler is probably the youngest head brewer in Idaho, but also one of the most gifted.  Tyler made the jump from homebrewer to commercial brewer with little difficulty.  Tyler and his assistant brewer, Wyatt Dubois, make excellent beer.

Tyler brews a lot of single keg experimental beers.  He gave us a taste of his latest...a Braggot Ale that is made without hops and uses other spices for the bittering agent.  Braggot Ales have been around since the 13th Century.  The sample was fresh out of the fermenter before carbonation.  It was delicious.


The customer service at Rants and Raves is amazing.  Everyone was so friendly and they seemed genuinely interested in making sure that we had a great time there.

As we were leaving, Tim Kinkeade, the General Manager came after us on the street in front of Rants & Raves to introduce himself and make sure that we had had a good experience at Rants & Raves. We Did!

Owner Neil Marzoff in front of the R&R Brewery Tour Bus

Neil and me talking about their Bus Tours

Rami, the co-owner of RR

Just inside the entrance to R&R

Tyler, The
Head Brewer

Cody and Wyatt

Our Bartenders Joel & Courtney

7 BBL Brew System

Chef AJ

Continue on to Part 2 - The Hunga Dunga Brewing Co.