Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Valley News at a Glance

True Brew Love - By Gretchen L. Langton

"I love a challenge. I like to take something no one wants and turn it into something," says Pam Kaye. It’s nine in the morning and Pam has just finished cleaning up from the night before; she is the head swamper and co-owner of Blacksmith Brewing in Stevensville. The concrete floor is glistening wet and smells of pine as we sit at the now serene bar, the last signs of Wednesday’s jovial crowd having been swept away.

Wednesday is a music night at Blacksmith and the place gets busy as Bitterrooters clamor for live, local entertainment plus a pint of good local brew. My grandmother and I follow live music with the verve of storm chasers tracking a tornado. At this ground zero, the entertainment is often a solo guitarist but on some occasions it can be a duo. For instance, Sam and Daryl Forslund recently played here. Father and son sat side by side, Daryl on the harmonica, Sam on guitar, taking turns with the vocals. They were set up in front of the windows, which allow a good view of the shiny 350-gallon brew tanks. A sign in the window reads, "Free Beer! Tomorrow." Sammy belted out an appropriate Junior Wells tune that goes as follows: "If I had a million dollars, I’d give you every dime just to hear you call me ‘Daddy’ one more time." Sam and Daryl shared a grin that said "yes" as the crowd responded enthusiastically to this showing of their combined efforts.

The crowd also responds to the wide selection of beers, hand-crafted by Michael Howard, Blacksmith’s brewmaster. At thirty-one, Michael is already becoming a seasoned beer guru, having spent the last seven years immersed in the beer making process. Michael, a graduate of Big Sky High in Missoula, has had a variety of blue-collar jobs from cook to logger. He says he was couch surfing at a friend’s house in Missoula when he picked up a "one day a week job at Bayern Brewing, bottling beer." This lit the fire for Mike and soon he was working for Kettlehouse. Two years into his job, his brother brought him a beer from a brewery in San Diego, Stone Brewery’s Arrogant Bastard Ale. "After I tried it, I knew I had to work there," recalls Mike. And he did for the next four years. "That’s where I learned the most. It was the fastest growing brewery in the world at one point. In three years, we doubled our capacity and we could always sell more beer than we could make." Mike escaped the rat race to return to Montana where he hooked up with Pam Kaye and her partner Eric Hayes to embark on the Blacksmith project.

"Mike, just look past the garbage. I see a lot of potential." This is what Pam told Mike as she showed him the worn out warehouse on Main Street that she envisioned could be a brewery. "A lot of people told me I was nuts." Rather than listening to those voices of seeming reason, Pam dug her stubborn heels in. Eric and Pam’s combined building experience paid off and they worked hard for eight months to refurbish the space. Pam remembers the two of them standing in front of the potbellied stove that sat in the middle of the mess when they started in March of 2008. They would warm their hands and mentally prepare for the tasks ahead. "He’s a builder and he wants things—ch, ch, ch," Pam is slicing the air karate-style to indicate that Eric leans toward things that are traditionally straight, and just so. She laughs infectiously, "I’m an artist and I want it haywire."

She’s a pack rat, too, and believes all objects should have the opportunity to live a second life; much of the materials in this project are recycled. For example, the bar is constructed of the old floor joists extracted during renovation, the metal sheeting came from "the old Brinkerhoff place." Pam, who is also a gifted painter, traded paintings for the metal. "I believe in the barter system. It’s how we used to live. I want to have a barter board in here somewhere," Pam says in her speedy, enthusiastic voice. She brims with ideas and her energy is visceral.

"I must have A.D.D.," she jokes about the many hats she has simultaneously worn in her life. She grew up in Crystal Lake, Illinois, population 5,000, where there were "cornfields as far as the eye could see." Pam didn’t go to college, she went to work in the National Parks so she could travel and see the country. For ten years, she worked in Death Valley, Grand Teton, Grand Canyon, and Sequoia State Parks. She fell in love with mountainous places and has been here in the Bitterroot for twenty years.

She is no stranger to struggle. "When I was a single mom, I had five jobs at one time. I cleaned toilets to feed my two kids. I was never afraid to get dirty. Boy, did I sleep good!" She sees a connection between then and now, with our current waning economy. "When I think about these hard times we are having… I tell my son, go door to door—there is stuff out there, shovel snow if you have to. There is nothing you can’t learn, you just can’t be afraid."

The décor in the brewery testifies to a blue-collar lack of fear. A pulaski hangs behind the bar next to an old rifle, next to the tools of the smithy’s trade. There is a painting on the north wall paying homage to the blue-collar way; it’s a picture of a muscular man with big boots sitting on a large barky log; he looks weary. These accoutrements seem fitting considering the history of this building having housed everything blue collar from horses waiting for shoes, to cars, to laundry, to metallurgy. Pam says she has heard that in 1908 when a Victor man was building the brick walls, he camped here on the site until it was complete. Pam beams as she relays this story of sweat and moxy.

It’s the blacksmith theme from this building’s history that appealed to Pam and Eric most. The practice brands they unearthed behind the walls of the old office are displayed prominently as a testament to the sooty men who labored so long here. People from all over the place have come with their irons to blacken a space on the walls and tables. "We are going to have a blacksmith demo during Western Days in June." Pam sees the brewery as another way to congeal a sense of community. Last Saturday, fifty cents from every beer sold went to the Pantry Partners. Starting this month with her own lovely gouaches and oils, Pam will be displaying local artists’ works on the brewery walls. On St. Patty’s Day, while Daryl and Sam lay down some tasty tunes, there will be an Irish Stew Feed and Mike’s Imperial Red Ale will be unveiled.

"We need to return to ‘the local’—I don’t want to go to Missoula for anything," Pam asserts. In their effort to be as local as possible, they have purchased an 800-bushel grain bin from a dairy in Manhattan (Montana) that will be filled with malted barley grown in Montana. I stand in the back alley and watch with awe as Pam directs Eric into position and the massive silo is placed smoothly on a concrete pad they recently poured. As they narrowly clear an electrical wire in the process, I am struck by the enormity of their achievements and their fearless spirits.

When I ask Pam what is next for her she says, "I want to paint more and I am thinking about a herd of goats to do some herbicide-free weeding." No kidding!

If you want to see what is happening at the brewery, check out their website: blacksmithbrewing.com.