ABOUT THE BREWERY
The Lewis & Clark Brewery is a state of the art brewing facility located in the heart of America’s last great place – Montana. The great explorers are the inspiration for our brewery’s name and in many ways our brewing style. Read More...
ABOUT OUR LOCATION
This building is comprised of several buildings that were added onto over the last 125 years with some dating back to 1885. The oldest building is the Stone “Smokehouse” where the men’s room is located now. The smokehouse was built by T.C. Power in 1885 to smoke meats. Read More...
The brewing process starts at our silo where are Montana Grown pale 2-row malt is stored (up to 25,000 lbs!). This malt is cracked in a roller mill along with the specialty malts required for a particular recipe. The milled malt, or grist, is transported by auger across the brewery to the grist hopper above the mash/lauter tun. Read More...
ABOUT THE BREWING PROCESS
The Brewing Co. Team
These are the people who make great beer happen!
About the Brewery
The Lewis & Clark Brewery is a state of the art brewing facility located in the heart of America’s last great place – Montana. The great explorers are the inspiration for our brewery’s name and in many ways our brewing style. It is also where we live as we are located in the heart of the only Lewis & Clark County in the US. Our secret ingredient is the pride and craftsmanship added by dedicated people lucky enough to be called Montanans. Since our beginning, we have gone to the greatest of lengths to build one of the most efficient, sophisticated breweries around with one goal in mind: to produce the finest ales & lagers possible and serve them at their peak of freshness.
Our beers are hand crafted and un-pasteurized and are brewed to levels of quality, which can only be achieved in the finest of breweries. We are proud of what we do and we are confident that everyone who drinks our beers will appreciate the care and craftsmanship served in every glass.
About our Location
The Lewis & Clark Brewing building is comprised of several buildings that were added onto over the last 125 years with some dating back to 1885. The oldest building is the Stone “Smokehouse” where the men’s room is located now. The Smokehouse was built by T.C. Power, a legendary founding Helena resident, in 1885 to smoke meats. Shortly thereafter the “Packing & Provisions” building was built behind the current tap room bar and was used as a 3-story “Ice-House” with ice removed from the lakes in the winter then transported up the pass by rail and stored in caves until brought back down in the summer and hoisted up to the third floor to cool the entire building.
After the “Montana Packing & Provisions Company” closed the property this property could have been used as a jail although no historical records support this so maybe the bars were installed for security. It was then a seed warehouse. Later it became the birthplace of Columbia Paint and over 70 years it was added onto as the paint factory grew to be one of Montana’s most successful businesses.
Here at Lewis & Clark, we have tried to preserve as much of the historical nature of this unique place including leaving the old Colombia Paint staircase as we found it splattered with paint as possible while still bringing the buildings into the 20th century building codes.
About the Brewing Process
The brewing process starts at our silo where are Montana Grown pale 2-row malt is stored (up to 25,000 lbs!). This malt is cracked in a roller mill along with the specialty malts required for a particular recipe. The milled malt, or grist, is transported by auger across the brewery to the grist hopper above the mash/lauter tun. Next is mashing where the grist is mixed with hot water in the mash tun. Over the course of a few hours, mashing converts starches in the malt to sugars.
This is followed by lautering in which the sweet liquid called wort is drawn off the bottom and pumped to the brew-kettle. Once the brew-kettle is full, the wort is brought to a boil. Bittering hops are added at the beginning of the boil, while hops used for aroma and flavor are added toward the end. After the boil and a brief settling period, the wort is cooled by pumping it through a heat exchanger. The cold wort is transferred through hoses to a temperature-controlled fermentation tank. Yeast is in the tank and this initiates fermentation, during which yeast cells ingest sugars in the wort to produce alcohol and carbon dioxide. For ales, fermentation lasts 3 or 4 days. Lager fermentation is colder and slower, lasting one to two weeks. Cold conditioning or lagering of the beer takes place in the same tank. The temperature of the tank is held near freezing for anywhere from two weeks to two months, depending on the beer style.
