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your homegrown newspaper
Vol. 19, No. 2
September 28, 2022
Candidate pg.5
Sports pg. 12
Montana’s first cooperative brewery celebrates its second year Story & Photos by Taylor Davison Valley Journal
MMAPP pg. 16
RONAN — On Friday, Sept. 23, the Ronan Cooperative Brewery celebrated its second anniversary since the community came together to open its doors in the midst of a pandemic. The street closure celebration was combined with this year’s Oktoberfest and head brewer Jim Myers brought out some special beers to mark the occa-
sion. To celebrate Oktoberfest, the brewery put their Celestial Sea Marzen - their take on the traditional holiday beer - on tap, along with their Eventide Czech Amber Lager. As autumn goes on, they’ll be bringing back their Stout, award-winning Mud Lake Dunkles Bock and Schwartz Lake Schwarzbier as well. Myers said there’s more to come as the holidays approach. “When we first started, we
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knew we were opening in a town that drinks a lot of domestic beer. We kind of assumed that most of our clientele would be IPA drinkers. … We were wrong. And I’m really happy to be wrong about that,” Myers laughed. “A lot of what we’re making are these European lagers that you’re just not going to get in a lot of other places. One thing I hear when I talk to other brewers down in Missoula is some of them are kind of just
downright jealous of us getting to do this.” With popular classic rock performed live by local musician Tommy Edwards Sr. and food provided by the Super Gyro truck visiting from Polson, the street and brewery were packed with visitors out to celebrate the brewery’s second year in business. Having opened their doors in 2020, it wasn’t always easy going for the Co-op.
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