The Story of Barrel Mountain Brewing
Once upon a time, way back in the 1950’s, the Steigman and Bechtold families found their way to Battle Ground, WA (or otherwise known as BEE GEE WA).
Ron Steigman and Sandra Bechtold found each other and fell in love. They had two boys, Troy and Kelly, and built a house just outside of town. Dutch and Millie Bechtold had purchased a building on main street and used it in several ways, most significantly, a Laundromat. After several years of operating, they decided to rent out the building, which they continued to do until 2014 when brewery construction started.
Margaret Mills/Steigman, Ronnie’s mother, during the late 1970’s decided to get into the bar business and purchased Prairie Tavern. After building a new building for the business she came upon tough financial times and Ron and Sandy then helped her and bought her out. Sandy was forced into a career change and became the tavern manager/operator.
Her mother Millie was her number one employee and was the best employee anyone could ever have. Since 1983 the Steigmans have been proudly serving great food and drinks from this location, providing a one of a kind place for are the locals to come hang out. Once Troy hit legal drinking age he joined the Prairie work force and worked his way up from janitor, dishwasher, cook, server, bouncer, bartender, manager… all the way to the top.
One day sitting on a fishing boat with a friend, Troy discusses the Brewery idea out loud for one of the first times. The plan had many forms and took many shapes along the way, but those first talks were more about making spirits than beer but had the idea for doing both. These talks turn more and more serious and as Troy is losing his mother to a five year battle with cancer, she gives him the confidence to go out there and do it. "Take a chance!" she said, "What do you have to lose?"
From that moment on, Troy was busy researching everything and anything beer. Spending all hours of his free time coming up with beer names, logos, branding, sketching etc... The original name of Barrel Mountain Brewing was Silver Star Brewing, but just before becoming fully licensed we got hit with a trademark. So after many tears and countless more hours of brainstorming with his kids, Troy settles on Barrel Mountain Brewing. Instead of choosing another local landmark, we decided to make our own, hopefully giving everyone a destination for fun.
Now that the idea was in place and enough research and number crunching was done it was time to make it happen. Troy set out to get a loan and was having troubles finding anyone willing to help. Then Dean and Barb Schrader, long time residents of Battle Ground and great friends of Ron and Sandy, decided to help us out and gave us a loan. BAM, lets do this!
On January 1st, 2014, Troy, Geremy and Ron start ripping the old laundromat building apart creating what is the restaurant today. After gutting the place and installing all the proper utilities we started laying out the pub. It all just came together one piece at a time. Most everything was built from local wood found on properties and lots and lots of stuff from Troy’s families past. All the fishing décor, mountain biking stuff, old beer parts and most everything else had just been collecting dust. Troy decided using all this junk was like setting up a museum of sorts, every piece has a story. If you catch him down at the pub make sure and ask him questions he loves talking about it all.
As the year progressed the building in the back started to take shape. It took a year and half to build the brewery and reconstruct the pub. We did as much as we could possibly do ourselves, not only to save money, but also because if we were going to do it, we were going to do it right. Then there was a big push to open before Harvest Days, the town's yearly summer festival. We barely made it in time! Soft opening was Tuesday, Harvest Days was here on Thursday. Our 4th day of business, 30,000 people came to town for the car show and we got so rocked and packed the place. We had no idea what we were doing, but actually did.
We went from our brewmaster Ryan brewing award-winning beers and selling kegs all over the county, to our first ever can, to canning all our beers, to finally offering multiple can sizes and special releases with full-wrap digitally printed cans! We’ve done some collabs and poured at events, and dedicated proceeds from our Trail Builder IIPA to the trail alliance in SW WA. It’s been a crazy ride, and now we are focusing on ramping up our beer production, hiring more people and preparing for next summer's big patio push.
Thank you for being a part of Barrel Mountain Brewing, and thank you to all of our Local Battle Ground Peeps for the support.