Welcome back to Sip Northwest’s Beer Hall of Fame: a twice-monthly induction into a list of essential Northwest beers that have made their mark on the field and region.
If you look closely at the charming purple can for Bozeman Brewing’s Plum Street porter, you’ll see a house with bicycles atop its roof in the center. To the unfamiliar, it may seem like a random addition. But to the folks at Bozeman, it’s quite special.
“The house belonged to an old friend of ours who passed away and we immortalized his home,” explains Tucker Kalberg, the brewery’s general manager. “It was called the Jackalope house. It was one of the original railroad homes in northeast Bozeman.”
The can – and beer itself – is a nod to the brewery’s eccentric neighbor who put the bikes on the roof and feed his donkeys leftover hop vines. It’s also a homage to the neighborhood itself surrounding the brewery, which was founded in 2001.
But what of the beer, itself? What does it taste like? It’s “a nice, robust porter, full-flavored with chocolate, coffee and a balanced nice hop bitterness to the finish,” Kalberg says. “We like to put a lot of well-rounded beers on the shelf.”
And he’s right. The Bozeman Brewing Purple Street porter is rich but no one aspect of it jumps out to disrupt your enjoyment. You can drink several at a time and not feel overwhelmed by the 6 percent ABV brew.
The long-established Bozeman Brewing has been a leader in the boom of craft brewing in the Montana-area, which, itself, has a storied past. “There’s a long history of brewing in Montana,” Kalberg says. “It goes well before Prohibition.” But, as with a great portion of the country, there’s been a doubled-down bet on breweries and the state boasts well over 60 breweries, some just a few months old.
“It’s a growing industry still and it’s becoming more and more competitive,” he adds. “But we like being one of the older, established ones. The new breweries keep us on our toes.”
But sometimes tradition beats out the newest idea. Longevity over flash-in-the-pan. And the Purple Street porter is one of those tried-and-true established glories to come from the Big Sky State.
