In addition to Black Star Golden Lager, we brew other beers as well: like Amber Export, Black Lager, Wheatfish Wheat Lager, Wild Huckleberry Wheat Lager, and Snow Ghost Special Edition Winter Lager, which people here in Montana (and lots of visitors!) seem to enjoy quite a bit.
Dan is the Production Manager.
He's in charge of packaging the beer: putting it in kegs and bottles. In other words, pretty much everything from the end of filtering until it's out the door. And he deals with distributors. Dan believes the sudden popularity of brewing is like the resurrection of alchemy in the U.S. Learn even more about Dan in his employee interview.
Kev runs the tasting room -- the latest move in a career focused on working on, or near, the things he loves most. Before coming to Black Star, he owned a bagel business, and he also owned a snowboard gear shop. (Have we mentioned how close the brewery is to the Big Mountain ski resort?)
Meet Matt. He's our Montana and Wyoming Superstar Salesman.
He considers himself to be a "Road Warrior" and rightly so-in 3 months he's put 12,000 miles on his new car! Being a salesperson includes many duties, including a lot of sales tracking, driving around, drinking many Black Stars and building those cool displays in grocery stores. When he's not working, he likes to hang out with his wife and chocolate lab. He also loves those Montana sports like huntin' and fishin'. .
Minott, Black Star's founder, comes from one of the oldest brewing families in North America. His great-great-grandfather, Henry Weinhard, founded one of the West's most renowned breweries in the beautiful state of Oregon -- which inspired Minott to set up Black Star in one of the other most beautiful places in the United States.
No one ever said brewing was a relaxing job. But they all like their work because, despite all the grueling stuff, when the day ends they get to go up to the tasting room and enjoy a fresh pint with friends like Rowland Baker, a welder who helped build the Great Northern and who sometimes stops by just to hang out or Dave Reigle, an architect, taxi driver, and jack of all trades.
And when they all finally head home, they get to walk through Whitefish, Montana.
