Speed Goat: Local beer makes good. . . really good.

Casper Brewery Advertisement from 1914, the year the brewery commenced operations.

When I was a kid, it was sort of a matter of local trivia to know that there had once been a local brewery.  Hillcrest Brewery, to be precise.

Now, admittedly, it wasn't the world's greatest trivia question, but it was surprising to us.  A brewery here in town?  Outlandish.  What made it such an odd trivia question was the mere thought that there had once been a local brewery.  In the age of Budweiser, Coors, Olympia, and Millers, what an wild thought.  Local breweries?  Eee gads.

I really don't know the history of Hillcrest even now and I've seen different stories about that.  At least one beer website claims that it started brewing beer in 1914 and that it stopped operations in 1930. If that's true, it only really brewed beer from 1914 to 1919, as that's the year that the Volstead Act went into effect and brewing, except under some exceptions, would have ceased.  There's still a Hillcrest water company here that bottles water from a spring on Casper Mountain, so maybe there's some connection there.

Of course, if that is correct, it sadly went out of business just two years before brewing could have started up again.  But by then, the Depression was on in force.

But I don't think that is correct and a website with more detail fits more into what I thought was the case.  It claims that The Casper Brewing Company was closed for the entirety of Prohibition, which makes sense, but that it resumed operations in 1934, when beer was once allowed as the repeal of Prohibition allowed for stepped in resumption of the consumption of alcohol.  According to that source, it operated again from 1934 until 1944, and the had to shut down due to wartime shortages, but then started back up after the war only to close back down in 1948.  I suspect that's correct.

 Old Hillcrest beer bottles.  This was last up in 2016 in a thread that noted that a local brewery was going to open up. So far as I know, it still hasn't, so I wonder if something happened to that plan. Be that as it may, a brewpub will open up soon locally in the former of the Gurner Brothers Brewery, to be located in the old Petroleum Club building.  Anyhow, this is a display at the veterans museum at the Natrona County International Airport which, if correct, would place Hillcrest as a beer still being consumed locally in the 1940s, and indeed one of the few sources I can find would have Casper Brewing Company operating from 1914 to 1919, and then from 1934 to 1944, and then again from about 45 or 46 until 1948.

Apparently, at least at one time, the big beer, and maybe the only beer, brewed by the Casper Brewing Company was Wyoming Light Lager.   Indeed, from the very onset in 1914 the company announced that this was to be its intended brew.  I don't know if this ever changed, but I would note that the company's beer bottles from the 1940s, if the photo above is illustrative of anything, was by that time simply calling its beer "Hillcrest Lager Beer".  It was probably the same thing, however.

Prior to Prohibition, Wyoming's liquor laws were much different than they are now.  Indeed, alcohol was nearly unregulated.  Hence, the reason you could call the brewery and order a case.

Now that too is interesting, as if that's correct, and it would seem to be, they anticipated by a long margin a bit of a trend, or rather two trends.

Anyhow, in 1948 Casper Brewing apparently closed. By that time, Hillcrest Water, a company supplying water coolers that's still around today, had been operating for over a decade.  I've sometimes wondered if there was a connection between the two, but I don't know.  Anyhow, local brewing went out.  Locally, the big US brands we all know from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s became the norm.

Wyoming Light Lager was on tap at The Oil Exchange Bar and popcorn for sale at the Smoke House.  I'm not sure where the Oil Exchange Bar was, but it had advertised in the Casper papers since at least 1911.

And then the microbrewery boom hit.  

But not here at first.

I recall when it actually hit.  Cooper Smiths opened in Ft. Collins, a brew pub, when I was an undergraduate at UW. When we'd go down there, we'd often check it out. The beer and foods was good, and even a college student could afford it. 

A real hint that something was about to happen, however, was when a friend of mine and I were in there, seated at the bar, and a guy came in and asked to see the brewer.  The brewer came up from the basement at his request, and the asker identified himself as another brewer from a brewery that was just getting built and he needed some pointers.

The brewery that was getting built was New Belgium, the brewer of Fat Tire and other now well known brews.

Well, over a long expanse of time some Wyoming breweries opened up.  There was Lander Brewing Company in Lander Wyoming, which purports to be a re-opening of another pre-Prohibition Wyoming brewery, and the related Jackson Hole Brewing Company, as well as Jackson's Snake River Brewing. And there's Black Tooth Brewing in Sheridan and there's also Melvin Brewing in Alpine.

And that's not all.

And among the various breweries is Ten Sleep Brewing, in Ten Sleep Wyoming.

And something interesting has happened with it.

All the Wyoming brew pubs have followers, although as noted Casper has been freakishly unable to get a brewery started (there's been several attempts, none have gone anywhere so far).  That's about to change, however, and soon there will be a real brewery here as well.

What is a big surprise is to see a single beer from a microbrewery, Fat Tire notwithstanding, become a regional success and start to crowd out other beers. And Ten Sleep has accomplished that with Speed Goat. 

They discuss Speed Goat on their website as follows:

Speed Goat Golden Ale

Speed Goat is a golden ale loaded with 2-row and C-15 on the malt side and featuring subtle use of Willamette hops for bittering and aroma. Locally produced Bryant Honey from Worland provides a crisp dryness with a slight honey finish. Easy drinking for folks born and raised on lighter fare, the Speed Goat may go fast, just like its namesake

Sounds sort of like Wyoming Light Lager.

I first heard of Speed Goat a few years back when I bought some for a Christmas Party.  One of my brothers in law, it turned out, was quite a fan and everyone at the party really liked it.  It was a big hit.

Recently I noticed that it has started showing up on tap at local restaurants.  I didn't think that much about it, however, as some of the local restaurants will feature microbrews that are local.  Indeed, quite a few of the newer ones do.

But then we had another family gathering and again went to get some growlers of beer.  While there the person who filled the taps noted that they had Speed Goat which they can't keep around long. Apparently people call in to find out when a shipment is coming in and it clears out nearly immediately.

Now that was a surprise.

And since then I've found that not only is that the case in regard to the example noted, but there's a real local following  And just the other day I saw a sign one one of the real old time local bars, a real  neighborhood bar, which said "Proudly serving Speed Goat".

Now that's a huge surprise.  One of the real, old time, neighborhood bars with a local microbrew on tap.  That I would not have expected at all.