When Payette Brewing Co. first opened in Boise, Mike Francis was the brewer, the packager, the business manager, and everything in between. But now, five years into one of the most successful beer operations in Idaho, he’s settled into new roles to support his company’s growth.
A team of three brewers now handles the bulk of the brewing: Ian Fuller, who came over from Ninkasi; John Cano, who first worked at several Boise area breweries, including Crooked Fence; and Darren Goodrich, who started as a bartender and “pretty much did everything up to being a brewer for the last year and a half,” Francis says.
Way before the business grew from two to a couple dozen people, Francis attended the University of Washington, then got a job at Boeing straight-away. But a passion for beer guided him to brewing school in Chicago followed by an internship at Seattle’s Schooner Exact. A Boise native, the draw of his hometown drew Francis back to Idaho.
In Boise, the facility where they started in May 2011 has reached capacity for what they sought to do, and a new, larger production space will open this month. Their current space will turn into a playground of sorts, with opportunity to brew beers they never got to try, like sours.
“We brewed a beer with Elysian, coming up on two years ago, and wanted to do a sour beer, so we had to brew it in their space. We did a huckleberry Berliner Weiss on Capitol Hill in Seattle. It came out hot pink, and was probably the most interesting colored beer ever made,” Francis remembers.
Last year, they started a barrel aged series called the Hoop & Stave, with the current offering an Imperial Brown Ale aged in a red wine barrel. But Francis says it’s still a small part of what they’re doing. The head brewer and quality guys have been limited by needing to keep funky yeasts away from their classic line up.
The current tasting room has eight beers on tap, and the new facility will have 20-28 handles available for them to play with as they expand their offerings.
Wanting to reach out into more of the country, they expanded from Idaho to Utah and Oregon, and now are in Washington State, as well as the northern part of Nevada. Later this spring, they’ll open distribution into Montana and Wyoming, surrounding their state of origin as they plan a further push into the rest of the United States.
Already on tap or for sale in cans at many, if not most, of the bars and restaurants in Boise, they’re hoping to let the secret out of the landlocked state that their beer is on par with the best being brewed. “Part of it is to expand the Idaho brewing scene. Everyone knows that Washington and Oregon make great beer,” Francis explains, “and people kind of forget about Idaho. We want to show the rest of the country that it’s all of the Northwest that’s doing it well, and there’s great beer coming out of Idaho.”
Francis points to the constant experimentation from other breweries in the area that are helping to put the area on the brewing map, like Salmon River Brewery in McCall, Idaho, which he counts as a favorite.
And though they’re looking to expand styles, Payette doesn’t discount the beers that have reached peak popularity in the market. “Hoppy beers are what people love around the country. Between our Rustler and Rodeo IPAs, we do a lot of that style. We’ll have a Blood Orange Rustler coming out in the next couple months in cans, too,” he says.
Bold flavor is nothing they had to introduce to match trend, though. Since the beginning, they’ve produced big fresh hop beers, thanks to great relationships with the neighboring hop farms that are only 45 minutes away from the brewery. And while most people don’t know it, the state is actually one of the biggest hop growers in the country.
“Idaho is number three — and we’re challenging Oregon for number two — in hop acreage,” Francis says. “Washington is number one with about 70% of the country’s hops grown there, and Oregon and Idaho are both around 11 or 12% responsible. We have great relationships with farms around here, and we’ve been doing three fresh hop beers each year for the last several years.”
When new hops are developed, Payette is one of the first breweries farmers bring them to for experimentation. And their approach is all about showcasing the hop, with basic recipes that let the hops shine on their own.
But that doesn’t mean they’re all about the pop-hop flavor. As lagers make more of a move onto the craft beer scene, Francis says he couldn’t be happier about that. “We really like to brew different Lagers, like our North Fork and the Vienna Lager coming out as our summer seasonal soon. I think people forget that lagers can be really flavorful. They sometimes associate lagers with Bud Light, and there’s more to lagers than just that.”
There’s something for everyone in their current line up, Francis says, but his favorite beer is Rodeo, an IPA that hits the sweet spot of very hoppy but low on alcohol, at only 4 percent ABV.
