3 minute read
BARBARIANS AT BOISE’S GATES
PHOTO COURTESY OF BARBARIAN BREWING
Barbarian Brewing is a winter wonderland destination and activity hub for Garden City and downtown Boise.
By Carolyn Komatsoulis and April Neale
At Barbarian Brewing, Boise’s beer enthusiasts have much to look forward to on the cooler days this fall and winter. Co-owner and business manager Bre Hovley and her husband James Long specialize in small batch IPAs and sours, as well as experimental and traditional beers, and host weekly beer releases on Thursday, or “Thors-day.”
Long, the architect behind their brews, is an adventurous soul. His methods honor the past, but the flavor results often fly in the face of beer makers' methods. Thanks to their use of open, large rectangular coolships, wily yeasts spontaneously ferment their famous sours as the wort (mash) cools rapidly. It creates what Long has described as the “true essence of Garden City.” Their Garden City Taproom on E. 32nd is a bustling event-filled hub. “Garden City itself…was kind of revitalizing and becoming just kind of a craft beverage corridor,” Hovley said. “We are thrilled to have moved down here. We're like 100 yards off the Greenbelt, which is phenomenal. We would have never dreamed of being able to be in this location when we first started.”
“By now, we’ve released 400 different recipes, I’d say, over the past eight years,” Hovley said, which she attributes to her husband’s creativity. His concoctions include a peanut butter bits ice cream brew, orange creamsicle dessert sour, and a sour gummy sour, which involved 75 pounds of sour gummy candy.
“We usually have 22 Barbarian beers on draft, and then we have a selection of barrel aged bottles as well. But, altogether right now, we have 40 different beers available,” Hovley said. Among these are a nice variety of wheat beers, IPAs, lagers, and stouts that run the gamut from traditional to inventive. There’s something for everyone, which includes a growing crowd of folks. When Barbarian opened, there were maybe 15 breweries, Hovley said. But that number has nearly doubled.
If you’re looking for something beer-adjacent, check out the Wolf Pack Running Club, which is open to everyone and meets at 6 p.m. every Tuesday at the taproom in Garden City. “ They are Barbarian-sponsored with some great regulars for runs and walks on the Greenbelt, and then they all meet up for a beer,” said Hovley.
Events are stacked for November and December. “At our downtown Boise beer bar, music is featured every Tuesday night with the bluegrass band Tater Patch at 7:00 p.m., and that'll continue through the winter. At the brewery location in Garden City, Taproom, we have music every Thursday night, with rotating bands, usually bluegrass,” Hovley said.
Foodies can look forward to Jokers BBQ as a full-time food truck to be here Wednesday through Saturdays and all through the winter. “ They make really good food. And the fall winter menu isn't just barbecue. They've added gumbo, a vegan udon noodle bowl, and mac and cheese,” she said.
