Bitterroot Brewing

Maker of the Last Best Brew

From Newwest.net, 3-25-08 of published article, Microbrew Montana: Lewis & Clark Brewing Home of the Fly Hoppiest Beer In Montana,, Bill Schneider. This article is presented in agreement with Newwest.net. All rights reserved, Copyright (© 2008)

Above: Nicol and Tim Bozik, the daughter-father team owning and running Bitter Root Brewing. Photo courtesy of Bitter Root Brewing. Below: They offer live music too. Photo by Bill Schneider.

If you live in or travel to Montana, the Last Best Place, you need to sample the Last Best Brew, right? But you won't find it just anywhere.

To find the Last Best Brew, you have to travel to western Montana and find a pub and eatery specializing in real good beer and therefore serving Montana microbrews. Or better yet, go to the source, over to downtown Hamilton, at Bitter Root Brewing, where they make it and serve it every day of the week.

But what exactly is the Last Best Brew? For Bitter Root Brewing co-owner Tim Bozik, it's a lot more than his innovative marketing slogan. It's the beers he makes, all of them.

What makes Bitter Root Brewing different than its 25 fellow breweries in Montana? When you drive up and see the big sign that says, "Live Music," even I could figure it out. Bitter Root Brewing is more than a microbrewery making 1,350 barrels of beer per year. Unlike any of the dozen or so Montana breweries I've visited so far out on the Beer Trail, Bitter Root has a full restaurant on premises, called the Brewer's Grill, where you can enjoy a great meal with your Last Best Brew.

Interestingly, because so few breweries serve food, many taproom customers believe there's a law preventing it, but there's no such restriction. Most breweries like to concentrate on making and selling beer, and more than one has already told me, "We don't know much about running a restaurant?"

That makes Tim Bozik and his daughter, Nicol, co-owners of Bitter Root Brewing, different that their brethren. They know how to make beer and run a restaurant, all spiced with good tunes on Thursday and Saturday nights.

Using some converted diary farming equipment, Bitter Root Brewing started up in 1998, occupying a tiny building behind their current prime location they moved into four years ago. Now, "after ten years of beer," as Tim Bozik describes it, the brewery has a modern, 6,000-square-foot, highly visible location a half-block off U.S. Highway 93 smack in the middle of downtown Hamilton.

In the past, Bozik explains, they used to have pig roasts that turned into rather large, tailgate-style parties. That experience told them people liked food with their beer. Who would have guessed that, huh? Soon after that revelation, we had the Brewer's Grill and a large beer garden out back.

And we're not talking corn dogs and cheeseburgers with greasy fries, but gourmet pizza and daily specials like trout tacos with huckleberry sauce that make you want to come back for more. And bring the family, like many people already do.

That evening, in fact, I came back to the Brewer's Grill with my friends and family. While enjoying my halibut and IPA, I was reminded of the famous Dave Barry quote I saw on Bitter Root Brewing website: "Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza."