I'd been hearing rumblings of this, and the other day a friend of mine told me he heard it from the lips of one of the owners. Iron Goat will be moving to a location on 2nd Avenue near the corner at Adams. This will be awesome for me as they will be about a 10 minute walk away, but I'm thinking it will be inconvenient for many due to having to resort to metered parking along the street. I can't imagine River City will be too happy about it either, although it could work to both brewery's advantage for those wishing to stroll back and forth between the two, beer-grazing, as it were. Between this and the fact that they are taking concrete steps towards bottling in the near future, these would seem to be interesting times both for Iron Goat and Spokane BAs.
If those get bottled, it'll be way down the line. Right now they're seeking label approval for some of their regular beers (Garbage, Head Butt, etc) which will initially be available in bombers. One of their bartenders in their tasting room says they're hoping to be bottling in about 6 months.
My buddy is doing the design for their new space. Looks badass. Discussions include using mobile canning. Cans for the win.
I certainly hope they go to 12 or 16oz cans (or bottles for that matter). It'd be nice to have someone local other than just Orlisson embrace canning. I was told at the current brewery they are looking to 22oz bombers, but I think that may well be a temporary move to get something out on shelves. I personally prefer smaller size servings (if you want more, open another one up!) than bombers in general.
Couldn't agree more. River City is planning to start bottling bombers this year. I informed them I was sad about that and I hope they consider mobile canning. Just look at how Bale Breaker grew with cans. People love that stuff (for good reasons), but I think part of their success is coming out in cans. Orlison's market has opened up into a larger territory with the addition of cans. They're in Montana with cans now, giving Kettle House some well needed competition to up their game. I also heard Waddell's has been considering going for mobile bottling - but again in bombers. I don't get it. Bombers are good for an initial fleet of sales, but people want smaller servings that are mobile. This is the PNW.
I like River City (rather unfashionably it would seem, judging by the attitude of others on this site), but I think they might be moving a little too fast. I love that they try a lot of different things, but I think those beers sometimes need a little more fine tuning. At the same time, I've been told by some local bar managers & owners that their marketing people are a tad too aggressive in trying to get their beers on tap regionally. I suspect that if they took the Iron Goat approach (they were initially rather slow about getting their beers into bars other than Jones Radiator), they might have had the time to refine some of their beers a little more. Having said that, I think they've come a long way from the sameness of the old Coeur d'Alene Brewing days.
I agree with most of this. Easy Green was a great fresh hop, one of the best of the season. The Doppelbock is on now (I know you like them), and I think they tapped their Eisbock last night as well. Doppelbock would have benefitted from some extended time in the bright tank I think. I haven't heard that the marketing is too aggressive, but knowing Emily, that doesn't surprise me one bit. The men like her aggressive approach, but I can see some ladies not really digging it. They recently moved from Click to King, so I would imagine their beer will get out there, at least to start.
