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All hail the ale – Two Missoula breweries have found success with different marketing strategies
Missoula’s two most prominent beer makers have differing views about growth but both Bayern Brewing http://www.bayernbrewery.com/ and Big Sky Brewing http://www.bigskybrew.com/ recently have moved into new facilities and are doing well at what they do best – brew and sell beer.
By MICK HOLIEN of the Missoulian in "Picture the Progress ’03"
Bayern moved into new quarters on Montana Street just west of Russell Street, and Big Sky Brewing now occupies an expansive plant west of the Airway Boulevard exit of Interstate 90 across from Missoula International Airport.
But while Big Sky Brewery has focused on being a regional brewery with sales in nine western tier states, Bayern is content to remain a solid Montana business which markets its products locally.
Big Sky Brewing is completing work on a $3.5 million project more than four times larger than their previous Hickory Street location in Missoula on a six-plus acre site and soon will open a tasting room.
It was all about demand for Big Sky Brewing, according to the company’s president Neal Leathers, who founded the company with Brad Robinson and Bjorn Nabozney in 1995
“In the last three years we could have sold a lot more beer if we could have produced it,” he said, while sitting in a chair pulled into an unfinished office space. “That’s really why we had to build this plant.”
In the first full year of operation Big Sky sold 35 or 36 barrels of beer, but since then – mostly with the popularity of Moose Drool – the company’s growth has been steady and the company this year will sell 23,000 to 24,000 barrels. (There’s about two kegs in a barrel).
Six larger tanks soon will be added to the site, which also will increase capacity to satisfy growing demand.
“We might be having 30 to 40 percent growth next year when we can actually produce the beer,” said Leathers, 41.
The brewery’s previous location in a 10,000 square-foot building, 7,500 square-feet of which was used for the brewery, stifled the company’s growth possibilities but with the new plant there’s still additional room to grow.
“We’re expecting this will be our home for a very long time to come,” he said. “We really built it for expansion.”
But while Big Sky looks to produce more beer, they don’t expect to expand into additional states until they’ve exhausted the sales possibilities from Oregon to Minnesota and Alaska where their products currently are available.
“I don’t think we’ll really expand beyond that until we really fill in this market,” said Leathers.
At Bayern’s new location – where an outdoor and indoor tasting room and other facilities are in place – there’s also room to increase capacity from the 1,300 gallons every seven hours they’re capable of brewing.
But owner Juergen Knoeller, who opened Missoula’s first modern micro brewery in 1987, is content with the facility’s current capacity.
“I’m just quite happy with what we have,” he said during a recent tour of the new building which included an introduction to the building two cats Mikesch and Alexander, who are Bayern’s president and vice president of pest control.
He’s currently producing about 8,000 barrels a year.
“After 25 years in business – 16 years here 9 years in Germany – I’m comfortable and it’s nice and it’s a Montana brewery,” said Knoeller, 41.
While Big Sky has about 90 stockholders (10 to 15 are Seattle area police officers), Knoeller still retains 100 percent of the Bayern company.
“I’m getting to the point if I can do my 10,000 barrels with what I have I want to start gradually reaping some of the benefits,” he said. “For me, I’m fine with being local. There is something about being a local brewery, definitely … If the next generation wants to take it on to another level, that’s fine with me.”
Although he’s allowed to sell 48 ounces of brew per person from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Knoeller wants to make the Bayern tasting room into more than just where microbrew is available.
It will be open early in the day and at night with the company’s own brewed coffee, juices, a variety of other refreshments and a gift shop.
Knoeller likes to cook and there’s a kitchen area and small meeting room upstairs.
“I do not want a restaurant by no means but I want the ability to make something if I want to,” he said.
There’s also a piano, computer ports and he hopes the business becomes a place for students to study and hold quiet conversations.
“It’s more than just a tasting room. We get a lot of families in here. It’s just a lot of fun,” he said looking through a large window into the brew house where bottling also takes place. “For us since we are pretty well operating 24 hours a day it doesn’t matter. It’s a community service.”
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Bayern Brewing, Inc.
1507 Montana St.
Missoula, MT 59801
Phone (406) 721-1482
email: [email protected]
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Moose Drool long has been and continues to be the staple of Big Sky Brewing, Jokingly named by Leathers after he saw a picture of a moose standing in a creek with slobber running out of his mouth, the name stuck and so has the brew’s popularity.
“It’s a good product with a catchy name. I think that name really gets nine out of 10 people to try it,” said Leathers. “And then it’s a really good product. Getting someone to try it once is great but you’d better get them to keep purchasing if you want to stay in business.
“If one out of 10 people who try it like it, that’s a pretty big market share for us,” he said.
About three fourths of Big Sky’s bottled beer sales is Moose Drool.
“That’s good and bad. You don’t really want to have all your eggs in one basket at the same time. If look at smaller breweries out there, very few of them are successful if they don’t have one main flagship brand,” he said. “While we’re trying to grow those other brands at the same time we recognize you’d better have one that you can count on day in and day out.”
“It would be nice to have one that wasn’t under a legal action,” said Leathers.
Since 1997, Canadian owned Moosehead has challenged in court whether Big Sky Brewing is entitled to use the Moose Droll name.
“There isn’t any way to determine how this is going to end,” said Leathers. “Some court or another (will) say this is the way Moose Drool can exist or can’t. Until that happens we’re having as much fun as we can and brewing and selling as much beer as we can.”
He receives about 100 e-mails a week from areas where Moose Droll isn’t available asking how to purchase it.
“It’s really a fun thing to have so many people where it’s something that is really one of the top memories of being in this area,” said Leathers.
“I really think that there are very few dark beers out there that a lot of people drink so it’s something that’s different from what most people drink so if it catches on with them,” he said. “It tends to really be a favorite of theirs because it’s something different than what they’ve drank in the past.”
Knoeller, who hails from Bavaria, Germany, studied brewing and soft drink technology in Munich and moved to Missoula to work as a brewmaster when the business opened in 1987. He bought the business, named after a state in Bavaria, in 1991.
He hangs his hat on his Pilsner beer, a brew he made in Germany.
“There are a lot of ambers out on the market but I still think the amber that we have is the best tasting,” said Knoeller. “It’s a lot easier to brew a really dark and heavy beer because the alcohol and malt cover a lot of flaws.”
“I’m not brewing it like people think it should be like, I’m brewing it like we did in Germany,” he said. “We have the know how. (Of) any brewery in the state, we have the best machines, we have the best skill people and we have a lot of experience.”
Bayern is marketing a variety 12-pack complete with artwork from Monte Dolack. That, said Knoeller, is the business’ “accomplishment of the year.”
“It’s always a nice party pack,” he said. “Of course we love our tourists and it’s a great way for our tourists to take something from that town that they visited.”
It’s an aluminum bottle they’re excited about at Big Sky Brewing.
“It’s really been well received in the public. It’s selling well and people are really excited about it,” said Leathers. “You look at where we sell beer – people camping, hiking, rafting, kayaking – and just having something that you can take with you when you’re doing those kinds of things has always been our goal.”
Big Sky has 30 employees with a payroll that will approach $1 million next year, while Bayern has 5 full-time employees and about 18 part-timers.
Both Leathers and Knoeller take seriously their role in the Missoula economy.
“Somebody has to produce something and put people to work. I’m also very proud with what we do for our employees,” said Knoeller. “As a manufacturer we’re really in a minority, however we do contribute a lot. The manufacturing sector is very, very challenged. Margins are not necessarily all that high. You have to produce a lot in order to make (a profit).
“We pay nice wages and a nice benefit package,” he said. “Really it (the business) adds value to the neighborhood.”
Robinson and Leathers, who were working in retail, and Nabozney, who was a University of Montana grad student, started Big Sky Brewing out of a desire to make a decent wage so as to be able to stay in Missoula.
“Our goal was to provide so we could afford to raise family and after we got beyond that it was to be able to pay people the same sort of wages so they could have a decent living,” said Leathers. “That’s really a big responsibility. It’s probably one of the greatest things about having a company like this. We try to make sure we have a happy employee, a fun place to work, pay a good wage and have good benefits so people will want to stay here.”
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Big Sky Brewing Company
5417 Trumpeter Way
Missoula, Montana 59808
406-549-2777 (voice)
406-549-1919 (fax)
800-559-2774
General Information: [email protected]
Collector requests: [email protected]
Distribution questions: [email protected]
Merchandise questions: [email protected]
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© 2003 Missoulian
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