Brewery earns top business award

Renewed community involvement and a stepped-up marketing campaign have earned Great Northern Brewing Co. one of the top business awards in Whitefish.

The Whitefish Chamber of Commerce recently named the landmark brewery Whitefish Business of the Year. During the awards presentation, chamber officials specifically noted two high-profile community events — the Black Star Beer Barter and K-9 Keg Pull — that put the brewery front and center in the community limelight over the past year.

“The brewery wasn’t active in the community for a long time,” said Brewery Manager Marcus Duffey, who is in his third year of managing the facility. “It’s a prominent building and has all the reason in the world” to be one of Whitefish’s leading businesses.

“We’ve turned the lights back on, so to speak,” he added.

Started by Minott Wessinger, the great-great grandson of famous brewer Henry Weinhard, the Great Northern brewery was built in 1994 to brew Black Star Double Hopped Golden Lager as its flagship beer. Black Star beer quickly became a local and regional favorite.

While the draft Black Star was brewed onsite in Whitefish, cans and bottles of Black Star were outsourced to a facility in Milwaukee during the brewery’s earlier years to meet demand, Duffey said. In 2002 the brewery discontinued its production of Black Star when Wessinger sold the brewery to Dennis Konopatzke but retained the right to brew Black Star.

Black Star was added back into Great Northern Brewing Co.’s lineup again in February 2010 when the brewery entered a partnership with Wessinger to brew Black Star once again. The company has asked the city of Whitefish for a variance for the Black Star sign on the brewery’s north side that was part of the building’s original decor.

In addition to Black Star, Great Northern Brewing continues to brew up to 17 craft beers, including the popular Wheatfish lager, Snowghost winter lager and the Wild Huckleberry wheat lager. Its Going-to-the-Sun India pale ale is “in major growth mode,” Duffey said.

The Frog Hop is a limited-release pale ale brewed every September from green hops harvested from a two-acre plot at Purple Frog Gardens near Whitefish.

“It’s a very fresh beer because we brew it when the hops are green and wet,” Duffey said. “It has a kind of grassy, pineappley flavor. It’s sought-after. It comes and goes very quickly.”

The single batch of Frog Hop yields roughly 40 barrels a year and is bottled in 22-ounce bottles.

Great Northern Brewing uses Montana-grown malted barley and wheat shipped from Great Falls, and depends on hops grown in Idaho, Washington and Oregon.

The brewery was designed with a traditional “gravity flow” arrangement and was built as a state-of-the-art facility.

“It’s still state of the art,” Duffey said.

The mostly automated 20-barrel brew house allows for an annual capacity of 8,000 to 10,000 barrels annually. One of Duffey’s goals is to maximize production to capacity levels within two to three years.

“Because it’s primarily a lager brewery, the fermentation is longer,” he said. “It’s a longer process.”

Duffey, a business administration and political science graduate of Gonzaga University, started brewing beer in his dorm room during college, then dabbled with brewing in his basement. He also worked for a time as an assistant brewer at a small brewery in Idaho, giving him experience in learning the business and the nuances of taste profiles.

“I have a passion for the industry and a clear vision of what this place can and should be,” he said.

The current five-person team on the brewing floor includes head brewer Joe Barberis and assistant brewer Andy McQuary.

During the busy summer months the brewery staff swells to 20 full- and part-time employees to handle the upswing in visitors to the brewery’s Draught House, where beer and a limited menu of sandwiches and soups are served.

A key move in creating visibility and traffic for the brewery was getting state approval awhile back to separate the brewery and drafthouse, allowing the Draught House to function more like a restaurant/bar instead of a tasting room.

“That’s contributed a lot to the awareness” of the brewery by the public, Duffey said.

A stein club that gives patrons discounted prices on beer after they’ve purchased 50 mugs of beer has become a popular venue, Duffey said. Transforming a storage loft that overlooks the brew floor into a recreation room for darts and shuffleboard also has been a nice addition for customers.

Great Northern Brewing Co. has increased its visibility in recent years by getting actively involved in the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce and the Whitefish Convention and Visitor Bureau, Duffey said. It’s a corporate sponsor for Whitefish Mountain Resort and partners with Great Northern Cyclery for special events.

For Duffey, the sky’s the limit in marketing Great Northern’s many brews.

“They’re products that Montana loves and that gives a lot of satisfaction,” he said.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.