Lone Mountain Farms harvests its own fields to create both food and craft beer at its new taphouse

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Carrie Scozzaro photo

Lone Mountain's beer features both hops and grain grown in Athol, Idaho.

Large-scale beer brewing was an afterthought for Luke and Emily Black, who recently opened Lone Mountain Farms & Brewery Taphouse in Hayden. It's the second place — in addition to the tasting room on the couple's 9-year-old Athol, Idaho, farm — where guests can sample Lone Mountain's craft beers like the Pils and Luke's Doppelbock, both featuring grains grown on the farm.

Lone Mountain Farms & Brewery Taphouse is also the first restaurant venture for the couple, and, like brewing, was not part of their original business plan. The modest menu includes handhelds like a classic cheeseburger ($12) featuring a custom blend of local Angus Meats, plus salads and comfort food like mozzarella sticks ($5).

"When we started [Lone Mountain], it was just all about vegetable production," says Emily, who plans to incorporate some of the farm's produce into the taphouse menu as it becomes seasonally available. When you order Emily's Southwest Salad ($12), for example, you'll be eating Lone Mountain lettuce, topped with chipotle-lime grilled chicken, red bell peppers, corn, tomatoes and black beans.

The Blacks started Lone Mountain Farms in 2013 and spent several years planting and plotting while working day jobs in tech-related fields. Emily planted potatoes, peppers, radishes, greens and other vegetables, eventually adding chickens, and sold produce and eggs at farmers markets and through LINC Foods' farmers cooperative.

For Luke, the farm offered an opportunity to grow more hops for his homebrew hobby, as well as explore the potential of doing so commercially. His hops field now supports nine varietals — Cascade, Centennial, Columbus, Kent, Mount Hood, Perle, Sterling, Triumph, Willamette — which affords him the ability to customize each beer's flavor, aroma and bitterness.

By 2016, however, the Blacks discovered that commercial hops-growing was more expensive than they'd planned. Nor could they grow enough kale or gather enough eggs from the chickens to sustain themselves as a farm, Emily says.

"We find out things the hard way and then we figure it out," Emily says with a laugh.

So the couple pursued a different business model.

The Blacks were already connected with LINC Foods, which in 2016 added grain malting to its list of farmer support projects. And as Luke reflected on his experiences from his grandparents' Rathdrum grain farm, and the couple thought about their fondness for visiting wineries, they hit on a new idea: creating Idaho's first-ever estate brewery.

"We always loved the winery experience, and Luke wanted to bring that experience to the farm to show how beer is grown," Emily says.

Luke's grain fields now include winter and spring wheat for wheat flour, as well as Copeland barley, Palouse Heritage Scots Bere barley and Lyon barley, the latter of which was developed by Washington State University.

Luke also dedicates field space every year to "trial" grains, Emily says. He continues to grow a range of millet, barley, buckwheat, emmer and einkorn to see how well each grows on the farm, as well as how they might contribute to flavor profiles in Lone Mountain Farms beer.

Grains plus hops equals beer, or at least the potential for beer, which Luke started as a one-barrel operation three years ago. In order to have a tasting room on the farm, however, the couple had to convince various Idaho legislating bodies to recognize the similarity between Lone Mountain's brewing operations and estate wineries.

In 2019, the Blacks got the go-ahead to open the brewery and initial tasting room, yet the couple soon discovered that the farm's infrastructure and location weren't conducive to the level and type of business they'd hoped to accommodate, including offering food.

Although the farm's on-site tasting room is open from May through October, Lone Mountain Farms & Brewery's full range of small-batch beers are available any time at the Hayden taphouse.

Look for beer pairing suggestions on the taphouse menu, such as the mac and cheese ($6) and Lone Mountain Farms' Estate Berliner Brown, or the fried chicken sandwich ($13) — it has farm-fresh eggs in the batter — and Forager, a Finnish Sahti-style beer brewed with rosemary and mint from the farm and filtered through fir tips for a Viking-inspired flavor. ♦