Barley's Angels - Howling Wolf Chapter

 

Not to be confused with Charlie's Angels.

Food, Fun and BEER.

Barley's Angels: Purpose: A growing collection of individual chapters around the world that work with craft-beer focused breweries, brewpubs, restaurants, alehouses and other public beer establishments to advance the female consumer craft beer enthusiast, resulting in increased patronage and revenue from women, while encouraging education and interest in beer among this often under-recognized demographic group, says their website. Barley's Angels is not just a social, beer-drinking club for women. Barley's Angels respect beer and brewing, have a thirst for education, enjoy beer responsibly and act appropriately at all times. (I might be in trouble there.)

Helena has a great local brewery, the Blackfoot River Brewing Company. My husband and I love to go down to the Tap Room, play cribbage, drink a beer, and eat popcorn on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

Breweries and tap rooms in Montana are odd; not the actual brewery and tap room itself, but the laws that govern them. I don't know how much beer a brewery can actually brew, bottle or distribute, but there is a brewery in Missoula that recently had to pull their bottled beer distributed out to a number of cities in Montana because they were selling too much. Huh? From what I hear, there are a lot of unhappy people around Montana. I don't really know all of the details, but it sounds kind of odd to me. What about job creation and improving the economy and making people happy? Isn't it a constitutional right to be happy?

So you go into the tap room (the room you drink in associated with the brewery) and you order a beer. The server gives you a little piece of paper, writes your name on it, and it has three boxes on it. You can only get three pints of beer between the hours of 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. on any given day. The server marks an x in the box for each beer you get. Three strikes (pints), you're out. You can still hang around but you can no longer drink beer. But there is no law that says you can't then wander down to Miller's and drink shots of tequila until 2:00 a.m., if you like. Odd. Tap rooms typically do not serve food, at least the ones I have been in. The Blackfoot Tap Room gives away popcorn. You can also bring your own food into the Blackfoot Tap Room, as long as you clean up after yourself. I don't know if they can't serve food or just don't. My sources tell me that it is the Tavern Association and the legislature that you can thank for all of these oddities.

The Blackfoot River Brewing Company puts out a weekly online newsletter filled with all kinds of information. They let you know what beer they have in the Tap Room for that particular week, bands that may be playing, and any community meetings or functions that may be happening there. Well, the function that caught my attention was the upcoming Barley's Angels Mother's Day beer tasting. That is a fun name. They would be serving two different styles of beer, pairing them with cheeses and crackers. $6. Ladies only. Sounds fun, and cheap.

Three of my friends and I headed out to become Barley's Angels. I could just tell this was going to be a great Mother's Day. Bethany, Becky, Flannery, Mary, and Kody were our fearless female leaders. They took us on a tour of the brewery. They told us all about hops and malt. We now know the more alcohol in the beer, the more calories it will have. We tasted Woolly Bugger and IPA beers. A good time was had by all; a great Mother's Day afternoon. Thanks, girls.

The next Barley's Angels event will be in the fall. They hope to partner up with a local restaurant. Sounds fun to me. So, ladies, head on down to the Blackfoot Tap Room, order up a pint of kolsch or cream ale, and you, too, can become a Barley's Angel. Beer is not just for boys.

Cheers!

For more information, go to : www.blackfootriverbrewing.com

"Draft beer, not people." ~ author unknown