1st Annual Montana Beer Festival

In the middle of the day last Friday, my jubilant end of work week attitude was given a further boost at the answer to a phone call. Emily was in a bind. As an employee of the Grand Teton Brewing company, she had drawn the short straw along with co-worker Ed to head up to Bozeman, Montana to represent the brewery in Montana's first annual beer festival.



Now, there was some explanation as to why this had occurred so quickly - as Emily gave me twenty minutes to do what I could only do in 35 minutes in order to get ready to take this overnight trip. She told me that the employee that was originally signed up for this important task had somehow forgotten that he had to do taxes instead. Yeah. Okay. That's like refusing to go to an amusement park so that you could stay home and rearrange your sock drawer.



I was already due to leave work a little early due to some longer workdays that I had experienced earlier in the week. I was ready to go as soon as she called. I said yes, and rushed home to pack my toothbrush, camera and fresh underwear. Within 40 minutes, I was in Emily's VW stationwagon rolling precariously through a twisty turny mountain pass - like every road seems to be structured in the place where I live - and hoping that this spontaneous decision would live up to its potential as a highly entertaining experience.





I was not disappointed. Bozeman is a college town, and I would like to say that I looked up the college on the internet to verify which one it was, but for this story I couldn't be bothered somehow. Just know that it is a state school, and for the 1ST ANNUAL MONTANA BEER FESTIVAL, the whole campus showed up. I mean, it was just a crush of people like you wouldn't believe. The safest place was behind the kegs, pouring.

I'm not trying to litter your mind with the idea that it was a racous out of hand ordeal - because it wasn't. Everyone that we encountered was just happy to be there and having a really good time. But the crowd. I just hadn't been quite that elbow to elbow since - well, since I don't know when.











We witnessed a Johnny Cash tribute band that really rocked. We ate decent food and people watched all night long. At the end, we were able to say that it was worth the trip. Emily and I left before midnight to climb into bed at the motel that we chose downtown. It was straight out of the fifties, with toilet accessories to match. We were out cold before the clock struck twelve.









The next morning, I was treated to good use of Emily's life experience. She had lived in Bozeman once - for two weeks. She tells me - "let's drive through this neighborhood". We are suddenly off the beaten path and driving through residential streets that had quaint homes posted on every corner. Then suddenly, we were driving through what seemed to be open pasture land, over some railroad tracks, nearing into an industrial area, and wah lah, there we landed at the Stockyard Calfe.





The 'Yard, as the locals describe it, sits on the grounds of a now defunct stockyard. Some of the fencing still stands - signs reflecting what the wood structures were meant for, while the 'Yard guards the old grounds like a sentinel promising to make good use of the space. Inside, it is something that can only be experienced to understand. Sorry, I can't really tell you where it truly is; I didn't pay attention, and even if I did know, I wouldn't tell you.








We went back into town after that, wondering aimlessly from shop to shop wondering how much money we should spend and then justifying every purchase. Good friends always should do that for one another.

It was a beautiful ride back to our mountain valley - the sun shined down on us while we listened to Jeff Buckley and I read aloud form BUST magazine. The Tetons greeted us in their full glory - every peak wanted to be seen against a blue sky that was reserved just for that day.

Montana Beer Festival next year? Maybe. Back to Bozeman sooner than that? I say definitely.