Glamping With Goose Island

, Glamping With Goose IslandI was invited out to Idaho last week to hang out with Goose Island and Anheuser-Busch and to tour Elk Mountain Hop Farm – a truly amazing place in a spectacular mountain setting. It was a full day of learning the ins and outs of the hop-farming process and two fun nights around campfires, drinking great beer late into the evening with brewers, beer-savants, and hop warriors…

It was also my first glamping experience – but I’ll get to that later.

Flying out to the West always makes for a long travel day. And it was already well past noon when I joined some fellow journalists in Spokane and boarded a private bus that would eventually take us to Elk Mountain. It was a three-hour journey northeast into Idaho, through some of the most beautiful parts of the country I’d ever seen.

Elk Mountain Hop Farm is located near the small town of Bonners Ferry and just ten miles shy of the Canadian border. Nestled in a fertile valley, between the Selkirk Mountains and the Kootenai River, Elk Mountain is the world’s largest contiguous hop farm – 1,700 acres of pure hop bliss. Anheuser-Busch first planted the farm in 1987 using two traditional German hops that originated in Europe for rootstock – and today, it’s home to more than 60 varieties. Located close to the 49th parallel, Elk Mountain is on the same latitude as the prime hop growing regions of Europe and with the 16 hours of sunlight it enjoys in the summer, is a magical place for growing hops.

, Glamping With Goose IslandIt was late afternoon when we arrived at the Elk Mountain Farm and proceeded to drive deep into the acreage. We finally came to a stop at the newly erected “glamping” compound – a fantastic outpost of fully furnished designer tents, surrounded on two sides by towering Lombardy Poplars (trees that I later learned grow an amazing ten feet a year!) and nearby walls of lush hops, growing 18 feet into the sky.

There’s been a lot of talk about beer camps this summer, but I’d never been to a beer camp as unique as this one. And even better – everyone there had already started drinking.

, Glamping With Goose IslandThe campground’s spiritual center was an enormous tasting teepee. That’s where everybody hung out, and that’s where I first found Brett Porter, standing off to the side, beer in hand. Brett’s the Yoda at Goose Island. His official title is Brewmaster, but clearly he’s the shaman who oversees a team of gifted brewers including Senior Brewer Keith Gabbett and newcomer Quinn Fuechel. Working alongside CEO Andrew Goeler, Brett’s spirit permeates everything at Goose Island.

A big, bearded individual with a gentle voice and inscrutable smile, Brett is a man in love with his hops and married to his beer. Ask him a question, and he’s on a roll. Brett began brewing professionally in 1988 at Bunces Brewery (now Stonehenge Ales) in Netheravon, Wiltshire, England. His first gig in the states was at Portland Brewing where he worked from 1991 to 2005 – the last nine years as Head Brewer. He served as Head Brewer at Deschutes from 2005 to 2010, and then moved on to Chicago to become Head Brewer at Goose Island. In 2011, he was promoted to Brewmaster at the award-winning brewery and he explained that he’s never been more content professionally than he is now.

, Glamping With Goose IslandPete Kraemer was also tent-side, shaking hands and trading beer stories. He’s the Head Brewmaster & Vice President -Supply for Anheuser-Busch, a massive job that includes living on planes and keeping all the moving parts in play for one of the world’s biggest brewing companies. It’s got to be a high-pressure gig, and although he admitted that his job keeps him running, he said he loves what he does – especially his role in overseeing brewing.

All the people that I met that night were as interesting as they were fun to hang out with – and I must have had a beer (or two) with each and every one of them. So it was well after midnight when I finally stepped away from the lights of the campground to stare at stars high above the darkened ridges and catch occasional lightening flashes from a distant storm beyond the mountains to the west.

It was one of those moments – I’m walking down a moonlit road, in a faraway place, more than a little buzzed. I’m alone in this beautiful setting, surrounded by lush hop gardens ready for harvest, and I’m thinking that it just can’t get any better than this…

And then I remembered that we were touring Elk Mountain’s enormous hop farming operation tomorrow!

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