Monday, December 8, 2014

Hibiscus Galaxy Wit coming soon!

IPA is back on tap! Coming up this week we'll be brewing a couple batches of our standards. Additionally, we'll be tapping our Hibiscus Galaxy Wit. This belgian white styled beer is dry hopped with 2 pounds of Galaxy and tea made from 2 pounds of Hibiscus flowers. It will be a light, refreshing, lower alcohol beer that has a light body, thick white foamy head, with a slightly tart, dry finish.


Jason "dry-hops" the Witbier with Hibiscus flower tea. Not blood.

Monday: Come on down for the Bluegrass jam. Grab an instrument and jam, and don't forget to get your growler filled and slurp on a free pint while you wait for your growler to be filled. $1 off each growler fill.

Tuesday: Beer for a Cause- This week is the Senior Center.

Wednesday: Live music- We have Jason Moreland aka JBird (local Livinstonian) live on the Katabatic Stage. Music starts at 5:30 goes until 7:30 or 8.

Thursday: Pint night. Get a couple snifters to drink your holiday grog in. Beer and a pint glass or snifter glass to take home, $6! Now that's a deal.


Friday: Special Music night. The Mighty Travis will be gracing the microphone. Travis Yost is the drummer for the Tom Catmull band out of Missoula. He has a solo gig too, so we're very pleased to have him.
Saturday: Live music and Barbecue! Music by Stephan May. Eat ribs from Zac's Montana BBQ while you listen to good music. $8 gets you BBQ ribs, coleslaw and bread. Slow-cooked to perfection. If you came down during the Livingston Ice Skating Association beer for a cause night, then you know it's good. Zac does some pretty mean barbecue folks. Better get it while you can!

Visit our Facebook page for more information about the Live Music.

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Holiday Beer Season

It's that time of year again. Time to hunker down, make sure that down parka is in the coat-rack, and get into the Holiday Beer Season!

On tap this week:

Katabatic Hefeweizen
Katabatic Scotch Ale
Katabatic American Pale Ale (APA)
Katabatic India Pale Ale (IPA)
Saison du Pine Crick (Belgian Farmhouse)
Double Danger Double IPA
Bier de Gardiner (French Farmhouse)

Coming Soon:
Galaxy Hibiscus Wit
Winter Ale
Here's our brewer Jason "The Master" mashing in our Winter Ale. Tons of pumpkin, blackstrap molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg and orange peels go into this spicy-malty goodness. It has a nice dark coloring, almost like a brown ale, but a little lighter with ruby highlights.













Thanks to all the folks who have been coming down for our "Beer for a Cause" nights on Tuesdays. For those not in the know we give $1 from every pint, Tuesdays from 4-8, to the Non-profit of the week.

For those looking for something to do besides shop:
Sunday: Family Night- Come play board games
Monday: Growler Night, Free pint & $1 off a growler fill,  also Bluegrass jam night, bring an instrument and play along
Tuesday: Beer for a Cause, changes weekly
Wednesday: Live Music, changes weekly
Thursday: Pint night, pint to take home and beer in it $6
Saturday: Live music, changes weekly

We also have Growler Gift sets!
$22 will get you four Katabatic English Pints and a 64oz glass growler. That's a $5 dollar savings or a 22% savings depending how you do your coupon-shopping-math!


Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Giving back to our community!

As we enter our 3rd month of being in business things are steady. We, as owners, have truly enjoyed providing our customers with information about beer and listening to our customers talk about beer. Seeing someone enjoy our beer is a very satisfying moment.

As small business owners though, we also want to be seen as a community partner. In order to achieve that goal we have implemented Beer for a Cause. Beer for a Cause allows us to partner with area non-profits to not only learn about their cause and their needs but to also give a tangible cash donation to help their cause.

Every Tuesday evening from 4pm - 8pm we host Beer for a Cause, where $1 of each beer goes to the non-profit of the night. We began hosting groups in October and have learned so much about our community. So far we have been able to support six groups (Community Closet, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Livingston Food Pantry, Livingston Education Foundation, Livingston Ice Skating Association, and Stafford Animal Shelter).

The biggest rewards for us are seeing community members engage one another. We have seen customers learn more about volunteering, find out information on new services, sign up for events and get excited about new projects. The taproom provides the space and the opportunity for local groups to engage community members.

American Made Coat 

On Thursday, November 20th we will be going outside our normal Tuesday event and we will be partnering with the Local Fire Fighters Union, Gils Goods, Timber Trails, and American Bank to ensure that any kid in Livingston that needs a coat has a coat. Operation Warm Coat raises funds to buy an American made coat for every child in Livingston. The proceeds stay here and provide needed warmth for kids living right here!

You can buy tickets at Katabatic Brewing Co. A $20 minimum donation is required to take part in three free drinks and free food from Gils Goods. A donation of $34 buys one whole coat. Tickets are for sale in advance and the event is November 20th from 4-8pm. You can also buy a ticket the day of the event.

Finally, on November 25th, just two days before Thanksgiving we will be hosting our own food drive. Bring in three of more items of non-perishable food and receive $1 off of each beer (three beer limit). Food items will be taken to the Livingston Food Bank in time for Thanksgiving.

Monday, October 27, 2014

It's getting SPOOKY this week!

OUR ROTATORS
BIG- Double Danger IPA coming out Wednesday
BOLD- Saison du Pine Crick coming out next week.
BITTER- Goat Effer English Pale Ale it's here, get some!
SESSION- Deadrock Porter, so malty and roasty and it's only 5.1% ABV. Goodness it's delicious.

Monday - Growler night- Get $1 off growlers fills and a free pint while you wait. Can't go wrong. Also, bring an instrument and join the bluegrass jam.

Tuesday- Livingston Education Foundation is the Non-profit of the week for our Non-Profit night. $1 off each pint goes to the charity of the week.

Wednesday- Bobb Clanton Live Music starts at 5:30 pm. No cover.

Thursday- Pint night. Get a pint of beer and a slick Katabatic pint glass for $6. Look Rugged, yet Refined with your own.

Friday- Costume Party. Come look ghoulish or spooktacularly beautiful in your best effort costume. Come have a ball with us monsters down at the brewery. Please only fake blood!
New Windy Season Hours Starting November 17
2pm-8pm, until about Aprilish or when the windy season slows down.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Notice anything different about this picture? How about the big ol' roundy sign-looking thing in the photo? Well, that's new!

 Then there is also the new Deadrock Porter on tap. Scotch will be back Thurs.  We still have plenty of the Goat Effer English Pale. Named after the English Goat herders on the highlands.

If you're a mug club member, come have a brew and check out your mug. They're in. For those of you who don't own a mug,  come watch how they are used. $1 dollar off of every pint for life!  How 'bout a Goldenstein- 3 complimentary pints a month for life, plus $1 dollar off every pint for life.

Sunday, September 28, 2014

We're Open!


Owner LaNette sporting a growler of Hefe.

 We're Open! Woohoo!

Wednesday September 17th we finally opened our doors.
It's been a long wait, we know. During the deconstruction phase we hit a wall. A 3 story crumbling brick wall that was not structurally sound and needed total replacement. Along with that, the back third of the building needed to be replaced, along with the water, sewer and electrical hookups.

So that took some time.


But now we have our brewer Jason hard at work crafting these excellent tasting beers. We have our standards on tap: Hefeweizen, Scotch, Pale, and IPA. We also have a English Pale coming up.

We will have rotating tap handles that are themed "Big", "Bold", "Bitter", and "Session".

BIG beers will be high ABV beers like Imperial Stouts, Double Reds, Imperial Porters, etc.

BOLD beers will be malt-bombs like Porters, Stouts, Scottish Ales, and Belgians.

BITTER beers will be hoppy beers like, Pales, India Pale Ales, Cascadian Dark Ales, etc.

SESSION beers will be beers lower in alcohol but still big on taste like Saisons, Witbiers,  Northern English Browns, etc.

Here's our brewer Jason Courtney behind the bar just before the soft opening. Since the soft opening we have been very busy, everything is going great and people really like the space. We've had a great reception so far. Jason has also created quite the Scotch Ale.

Our Grand Opening will be October 4th. We will have a four piece bluegrass band, The Prairie Wind Jammers, appetizers and a raffle for a Mug Club Membership. We open at noon, but the fun stuff begins at 4pm.

We will also be taking a limited quantity to the Montana Brewer's Association Fall Brewfest in Missoula on Oct 11 down at Caras Park. If you can, come on down and see us at the Pavilion in Caras Park. We will be there from 2pm to close!






Monday, August 18, 2014

Consider giving to our Kickstarter Campaign

After months and months we're finally close to opening. We've done a pretty good job of budgeting our time and our money for this project. However, we have calculated that we will need $10,000 above and beyond our calculations to open our doors. So we've started a Kickstarter Campaign to raise those extra funds. You can give anywhere between $5 to $1000 and you get some snazzy incentives too. Many of you have asked about our mug club membership. The one that gets you $1 off beer for life and other perks too. It's one of our incentives on kickstarter, plus we have a whole lot more... growlers, hoodies, t-shirts, pint glasses, stickers and more. Watch the video below, share our page with your friends and help us raise $10,000 in 20 days! Thank you.




Thursday, July 17, 2014

We Are So Close To Opening Soon!!!

As things go... we wanted to open in May, then June, and then we just skipped over to August! We hear that being 3 months behind is not that bad, so we'll take that as a compliment. Currently, we are shooting for an opening to the public on August 20th. Things look like they are on track to hit that mark we will keep you posted!

We've been a bit busy so we have a lot to update you on. Our brewer, Jason, has arrived. The day after he got here we grabbed him to go move equipment. We moved the equipment into our space the busiest week of the year in Livingston, the 4th of July week. On July 2nd this little town gets crazy. A full blown parade kicks it off with most businesses closing just for the occasion. We have three nights of rodeo and three nights of fireworks and people are having a great time floating, drinking, rodeoing, you can imagine :)

So here we are moving in equipment on parade day and of course being in the parade. We handed out Wooden Nickels that offered $1 off your first beer. It went really well, we had fun and it was hot.


Jason Moving the Mash Tun w Brice
Our Equipment - Thanks Hi-Ball Trucking!





















Our Car for the Parade

On this day we also received some amazing news coverage from KBZK. It was definitely a whirlwind of a day. http://www.kbzk.com/news/new-craft-brewery-in-livingston-aims-to-pour-pints-by-mid-august/

Timing has been everything lately. Right after we moved our equipment into the space we received notice from the TTB that our Brewers Notice has been approved. Now we are just waiting on the State license. Brice and Jason have been working on some amazing recipes and we will be churning those out here shortly.

Here are a few updated pictures of our space. We've put up our reclaimed beams, framed everything, epoxy done on our production area floor, ran most of the HVAC, electrical and plumbing and started taking off the front facade. I can finally see what it's going to look like and it's pretty amazing!

Our beautiful production floor with epoxy
The layout for the bar below and beams above

Looking from the front to the back

The front facade coming off



Monday, July 14, 2014

Hiring Tap Room Servers

HIRING TAPROOM SERVERS!!!

Katabatic Brewing Company is a start-up production brewery in Livingston, MT. We are a production style brewery with a retail sample room and a 7-barrel(bbl) brewhouse, with four 7 bbl fermenters and four 7 bbl bright tanks. We will not be serving food, beer only!

Qualifications
The ideal candidate is passionate about beer, likes beer, knows beer or at least wants to know more about beer and likes to talk about beer. We are willing to train the right candidates!

Scope and General Purpose of Job:
As the public face of the Katabatic team, servers educate our customers about our craft beers and the craft beer industry through tastings and personal attention as well as promoting and selling Katabatic Brewing Company products and merchandise.

Job Requirements:
·       Excellent customer service skills
·       Knowledge of beer, home brewing and/or the brewing industry very beneficial
·       Interest in beer and learning more about craft beer
·       Team skills
·       Able to work under pressure whilst maintaining standards
·       Cash handling & POS reconciliation experience
·       Some heavy lifting involved
·       Cicerone Beer Server Certificate a big plus

Duties and Responsibilities:
·       Educating customers about Katabatic Brewing Co. beer and the craft beer industry in general
·       Direct sales via point of sales [POS] software, credit card and cash handling
·       Serving beer in accordance with TTB regulations
·       Assisting in merchandise presentation
·       Must assist head brewer on four “brewdays” per year.
·       Provide support to the Tasting Room Manager
·       Executing inventory control standard operating procedures [SOPs]
·       Ambassador for Katabatic Brewing Company
·       Cleaning and other general duties

To Apply:
Send resume, cover letter, and references to katabaticbrewing@gmail.com. Applications received on or before July 25 will receive priority review.

Proof of eligibility to work in the U.S. required. Katabatic Brewing Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer.


Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Meet Our Brewer!


All the updates on the building and we almost forgot to tell you some really freaking fantastic news. We hired a head brewer! We know you're going to love drinking the beer he makes and here's why.

Jason Courtney has been hand crafting ales and lagers for nearly 18 years. He hails from Texas originally, but has brewed all over the United States and as an avid fly fisherman he loves Montana and can't wait to be back amongst those living the Montana lifestyle.

Jason was named Small Brew Pub Brew Master of the Year in 2002 at the Great American Beer Festival (GABF). That year he earned one silver, one bronze and two gold medals! In total, Jason has earned six medals at the GABF and two awards at the World Beer Cup.


 We can't wait for Jason to join our team. He is passionate, exuberant and extremely knowledgeable about beer. This blog post is just the informal "Meet the Brewer" a more formal one will occur after we open.

As the owners of Katabatic we know we cannot have a great brewery without serving great beer. We are honored to have Jason joining our team. Only with his help and your help drinking great beer will we succeed!


Here's a few words from Jason:

"I am very excited to be joining the Katabatic team and to be moving back to Montana. I have spent the past few years in Maine and next week I begin my drive West to Livingston. Truth be told, my heart lies in Montana and I can't wait to brew and fish in my favorite state. My wife Sarah and I have been together for almost 16 years now and we recently rescued a seven-year-old Golden Retriever, Radar, they will be joining me for this new adventure soon! Thank you to Brice and LaNette for welcoming our family into theirs. We anticipate a frothy, fun, tasty and award winning future ahead."

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Improvements!

Back wall is up, and a roof is covering the production area. Now to finish sheeting, finish exterior covering for wall, apply foam to the roof, and put the roofing on. 
This picture is of the production area facing South. The posts will separate a hallway to the left from the main production area. The hallway will lead to our emergency exit. Production area is everything to the right of the posts. With nice high ceilings we should have room for larger equipment in case we need to up our production.



Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Spring has sprung and so has our progress!

Spring has finally sprung. I'll have to say that was the longest and coldest winter I've experienced since I was a kid. Living in the fair weather belt of Missoula, I almost forgot what it was like growing up on the east side of the divide. On top of the cold temps and blustery winds we had a huge year for snow. This winter is being compared to the winter of 1996-1997. So of course we are also experiencing flood levels similar to 1997.

Flood stage is 9.5 feet, we hit that today. In 1997, water was at 10.72 feet, I can't even imagine what that will look like. The mountains just started melting two weeks ago and there's a lot of snow up there still. I'm glad our building is not by the river and I hope anyone who lives by the river makes it through this Spring without a lot of hassle.
Inside wall and floor.

Outside wall
With the better weather comes lots of construction. The back wall is almost up and the inside floor and inside wall is up!

We should have a roof by the end of this week and then it's time to restring the electrical, HVAC duct work and plumbing!







We've also been getting ready to submit our 
application to the Historic Preservation Committee for a front facade improvement. The current facade has little to get excited about. The current window is not in proportion to the rest of the facade. The siding lacks character and it is kind of an eyesore. We can't wait to spruce it up!






Below pictures of the current facade and also a picture (I colored!) of what the facade will look like. Not all colors are true to scale, Crayola color pencils only have a certain spectrum of color. I should have bought the 128 pack of crayons!



We're the red building in the center.
The improved facade.
Hopefully next week we'll be showing you a fully enclosed building. Until then, Happy Spring and may the flood waters be kind to us.


Monday, May 5, 2014

Things are on a roll now...

As mentioned in the previous post, we really are in the reconstruction phase. The back 1/3 of the building is gone but is being reconstructed. Our trench drain has been put in, the frost cover and concrete forms have been placed and now we're just waiting on better weather to pour the concrete floor. After that wall frames and sheet rock, oh yeah!

Trench Drain Installed

On the inside of the building new beams and floor joists have been placed and we almost have a permanent sub-floor where our bathrooms and cooler will be. One cool historic feature is the fire door they found in the wall. Very interesting, unfortunately we'll have to cover it back up since the bathrooms shared wall will be almost directly on top of this door.

Sub Floor and Joists


Fire Door

Inside Fire Door, Old Tin

To celebrate things moving forward we had Delta Signs and Graphics design us a Coming Soon... banner that we hung in the front window. Things are coming along. Happy Spring!


Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Head Brewer Wanted!!!! Come Live in Paradise and Help Us Make Amazing Beer.

Yep, it's official we need resumes, cover letters etc. We want a head brewer and we need them to start sometime in June. Here are the specifics.

Accepting Resume’s: Full time Head Brewer position for Katabatic Brewing Company
Katabatic Brewing Company is a start-up production brewery in Livingston, MT a world-renowned fly-fishing mountain town 1-hour from Yellowstone National Park, minutes from the Absorka Wilderness, and 30 mins from Bridger Bowl Ski Area. Montana is second in craft breweries per captita! Our brewery is located in a historic brick building downtown that is currently being totally renovated. We are a production style brewery with a retail sample room and a 7-barrel(bbl) Premier Stainless brewhouse, with four 7 bbl fermenters and four 7 bbl bright tanks. We will not be serving food. We will initially focus on the sales to area bars and restaurants as well as out of the taproom offering 4-6 beers with a number of creative seasonals. The Head Brewer is responsible for every aspect of managing, operating and maintenance of the production side of the brewery.

The head brewer will lead wort production, yeast management, ordering supplies, QA/QC panels, documentation for in-house and regulatory reporting, etc. This position offers an exciting growth opportunity and fun, creative work environment to a passionate brewer.

Qualifications
The ideal candidate has at least 1-3 years on the brew deck as an assistant or head brewer on at least a 5 bbl or larger system, and has working knowledge of all aspects of brewery operations as well as packaging and distribution. They must also be a team player and be willing to engage the public during tastings, special events and at festivals. The head brewer must be able to lift in excess of 75-150 lbs repeatedly. This candidate needs to understand barrel-aging, sours, yeast strains, hop varieties, grain varieties, grain roasts, etc. Duties include but are not limited to:

              Filing all state and federal excise reports and brewers report of operations
              CIP and maintain all brew house and cellar vessels
              Clean beer lines and maintain draft equipment on site and at outside accounts
              Build a Mug Club in the tasting room
              Host brewers dinners on and off site
              Hold beer classes, pre-shift and store meetings to educate staff about company beers and planned events
              Forecast sales and production for all company beers
              Fill kegs for outside accounts and tasting room guests
              Create recipes for seasonal brews
              Participate in regional beer events and festivals including the Great American Beer Festival and World Beer Cup
              Establish tasting panel to insure consistent quality of all company beers
   
    Essential Functions and Responsibilities
·       Cleaning and sanitation of all equipment in the brewery
·       Brewing recipes to specifications, and ability to develop recipes. Awards for beers a plus!
·       Yeast management and propagation
·       Responsible for the entire brewing and quality control processes and hence should be well versed in scheduling, brewing, cellaring and packaging operations
·       Manage raw materials, inventory control, scheduling and hop contracts, coordinating with suppliers
·       Sanitary sampling, yeast cell counts and record keeping of all beers produced
·       Equipment maintenance and troubleshooting
·       Start and maintenance of a top quality QA/QC program
·       Process development and Standard Operating Procedures enhancement
·       Strong verbal communication and organization skills.
·       Monthly detailed inventory
·       Weekly production accounting, overseeing budgets and expenses for department
·       Mentoring to all employees on the brewing process and beer education
·       Cutting controllable costs and maintaining a profitable brewery
·       Use of proper and safe chemical handling techniques
·       Safety Protocols and OSHA compliance
·       Fill server shifts in the sample room as needed
·       Ability to work flexible shifts
·       Participation in events, festivals, promotions, etc. (this is a must).

 Compensation:
This is a full time salaried position with benefits. We acknowledge the importance of an outstanding head brewer and are interested in offering top candidates the potential for profit sharing in the company. The brewer position will receive a competitive salary based upon previous work experience and expertise. The benefits package includes accumulating leave days at start of employment and upon completion of probationary period includes using leave days, medical benefits and the potential for profit sharing based on performance. We are looking for a rock star brewer who has set their sights on the moon, as we would like to get there ourselves. Come along for the ride!

To Apply:
Send resume, cover letter, and references to katabaticbrewing@gmail.com. Applications received on or before May 15th, 2014 will receive priority review. Please include any relevant work experience including size and type of equipment that you have worked on as well as any awards and accolades that you’ve won!

There is no relocation assistance provided for this position.
Proof of eligibility to work in the U.S. required.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Taking it down to the studs....

I recently wrote a post about the reconstruction we are doing at our building after all the deconstruction. I forgot that the whole back of the building, where our brewing equipment will be, still needed to be completely demolished.


Looks a tad different than it did! So that's all done and now we get to rebuild. Here's to upward and forward movement.



Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Our progress

We've shared a bit about our progress so far. Many of you have seen the virtual renderings of the space and we've had a lot of questions about when we'll open. We're just as excited as you are and we can't wait to serve you our beer. However, we are just starting the reconstruction phase.

By Sugato Studio
It's been humorous and interesting. We are staying positive, and as a husband and wife team that's super important!

Here we are standing in the space. Our friend Kim Wishcamper with Sugato Studio shot all these photos. She's an amazing photographer and is helping us memorialize our progress with photos at different stages of the build out.

You can see that behind us we have a temporary support wall holding up the second floor. This is temporary until the columns get put in place that will permanently hold up the second floor. Having a solid structure helps :)

Also behind us you see the joists with no flooring. Our bathrooms will sit on the left and our cooler on the right. This floor is being structurally upgraded to support all this new weight. I often wonder how the Long Branch Saloon, which was housed here way before, safely held all those people on busy Friday and Saturday nights!

By Sugato Studio
We've essentially gutted the building. Thankfully we have supportive landlords that are involved in the process. On the right you'll see that we took out the drop ceiling, which ended up being 5-7 layers thick. It seems the longer it goes the number of layers goes up! Kind of like a fishing story.

The new ceiling height is awesome and those carpets are going away too!


By Sugato Studio


As we wait for the building, that is now deconstructed, to become reconstructed we'll continue to brew batches at home. Grinding the grain is therapeutic and meditative. Smelling the brewing process reminds us there is a silver lining out there soon.

We're still months out, we hope to be open in July. Keep checking back here for more pictures and more updates. Thanks for you interest!