Spirits were high even as the beer ran low on a recent evening at the Great Northern Brewing Co., the Flathead Valley’s oldest craft beer establishment slated to close its doors in Whitefish’s downtown corridor next month.
The iconic brewery at 2 Central Ave. has punctuated the north end of Whitefish since opening along the Great Northern Railway line in 1995, but its fate hangs in limbo as the Black Star Draught House that serves as the taproom and bustling public house prepares to close its doors Feb. 17, while the building itself is under new ownership.
Glass mugs belonging to members of the institution’s vaunted “Stein Club” still hang from the brewery’s second-story rafters, as does a hodgepodge of other assorted memorabilia and curios gifted to the brewhouse through the years — skis, snowboards, pendants, and a massive bull elk mount.