While on a recent trip with several friends to Sun Valley, Idaho, we stopped in for a post-dinner drink at the Sawtooth Brewery taproom. The five-person bar area and about twenty-person seating area is perfect for a quick brew after a long day of skiing, or in our case, a long day of fly fishing. It seemed only fitting that we go local after several hours of taking fly lessons from a local legend who went simply by “the Dude”.
About eight Sawtooth taps are pouring the local beer at any time, in addition to four guest taps of craft brew. I went with the Ketchum Cream Ale on nitro to quench my thirst on this unseasonably warm 90+ degree day. It has a very full and thick body with very little carbonation and is made even smoother coming out of the nitro tap. This ale is also made with both ale and lager yeasts, something I’m not sure I’ve seen before with a cream ale, however it does make sense when compared to the similar California Common or “Steam” beers which are made with lager yeasts and fermented at ale temperatures.
A full line of other classic ales were on tap, including the very nice Freeheeler Rye IPA. It’s a big floral and citrus IPA, with just enough rye spiciness to balance it out.
All in all, Sawtooth is a nice place for locals to unwind in a simple environment or for the casual tourist to find something they’ll enjoy from the full range of classic beers. It just goes to show how something as simple as some well made craft beers and not much of anything else but a place to gather is really all you need to have a good time. Ketchum is a pretty small community, and Sawtooth fits it well. I hope that this is the trend for the future as far as small town breweries go. Not every start-up needs to have ambitions of becoming the next Dogfish or Sierra Nevada, but just being able to cater to your neighbors is often not only good enough, but preferable to truly have a locally brewed beer and call it your own.
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