A chance encounter at a Hood River brew pub in December led me to my summer trip to Montana.

I asked to photograph some guys sitting at the bar at Pfriem Family Brewers on the waterfront in the Columbia River Gorge town. They told me they were from Hamilton, Mont., which got to to look up the place later because I didn't know much about it.

Thanks, brothers Evan and Kalen Caughey, who were traveling on a sales call for their Voketab.com energy tabs. I found out that Hamilton just about as cool a small town as Hood River, which is saying a lot.

Actually, I didn't spend a lot of time in Hamilton, because its location in the Bitterroot Valley demands that visitors get out and explore the mountains (more on this in a future post). I did stop at the Bitterroot Public Library to use the free W-fi twice, had lunch at Bitter Root Brewing, and checked out the home of the Red Sox. The Bitterroot Red Sox, that is, an American Legion program that has its own version of the Green Monster (see photo with this post).

Hamilton, population 4,508, is located near the center of the Bitterroot Valley, an 80-mile north-south valley tucked in on the east slope of the Bitterroot Mountains in far western Mountana and about 50 miles south of Missoula. Blodgett Canyon, just five miles from the center of town, is nothing short of gorgeous.

Hamilton was a designed town, with planned street grids right from the beginning, unlike so many other Montana towns that grew up out of mining camps. It has wide streets shaded by tall trees. Just down the valley (to the north) is Stevensville, where Montana had its first white settlement in 1842.

While in Hamilton, I checked out a bit of Montana's brewing culture. I must say, the older I get the less I like beer, so I passed on a brew with lunch, but any Oregon beer lover will have no trouble fining plenty to drink in Montana. Hamilton had its 19th annual Bitterroot Brewfest on a day when I was in Missoula.

The state's brewers publish a Montana Brewers Trail Map with 41 member breweries on its latest map. Montanabrewers.org is the website.

Bitter Root Brewing is located at 101 Marcus St., the eastern extension of Main Street and the beginning (from the south) of the East Side Road, which leads to Corvallis. Sound familiar?

I'll be doing a little comparison post of Corvallis in Oregon to Corvallis in Montana in a few days. Oregon's Corvallis is much larger, but both live up to their name in Latin: the Heart of the Valley, both located in gorgeously beautiful valleys, though the Montana one gets a mountain lover's vote.

-- Terry Richard