BOISEBEERCULTURE: NORTHERN IDAHO BREWERY TOUR

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!