10 breweries brew here. Here's where to eat at each one

Kootenai County has 10 breweries that make their own beer on site and are pouring this fall, by our check. Five are in Coeur d'Alene, two in Hayden, two in Post Falls and one in Rathdrum. Eight more breweries we found have closed or stopped brewing in recent years.

Most of the 10 will feed you, too. Five make food on site and two count on food trucks. Two more stick to snacks, hot dogs at one and popcorn at the other.

How we counted

We started with OpenStreetMap, the Open Brewery DB list and local tourism guides, then checked each brewery against its own website, news stories and current listings. To count, a place had to brew beer on site in Kootenai County and still be open this fall. Taprooms that pour beer made somewhere else did not count. That leaves out the Jeremiah Johnson Brewing pub in Coeur d'Alene, for example, because its beer is made in Great Falls, Montana.

Coeur d'Alene

Daft Badger Brewing, 1710 N. Second St. Opened in early 2015 in what was once a painting shop. Full pub menu.

Outpost Brewing, 1710 N. Fourth St., Suite 115. A small, lager-focused brewery in the Midtown space Slate Creek Brewing used to have. Outpost sells hot dogs and snacks and says outside food is fine. In April it released a special IPA with the Pink Boots Society, a group that supports women in brewing, the Coeur d'Alene Press reported.

Trails End Brewery, 356 W. Bosanko Ave. German-style beers off a 10-barrel system, with a brick oven turning out pizzas.

Chalice Brewing, 413 E. Sherman Ave. Opened in April 2021 in a downtown brick building from 1918. There is no kitchen, but the Oh Baby Tex-Mex BBQ food truck parks on Chalice's back patio, open Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 9 p.m., by the truck's own listing.

Vantage Point Brewing, 208 E. Coeur d'Alene Lake Drive. Opened in 2023 by brewer Kevan McCrummen, a former firefighter, which is why the logo is a fire lookout. German-style and other beers and a full kitchen.

Hayden and Rathdrum

Brewscape Beer Co., 9551 N. U.S. Highway 95, Hayden. A couple-owned brewery serving sandwiches and New Mexico-style tacos.

Knucklehead Brewing, 9265 N. Government Way, Hayden. A family- and veteran-owned brewery in the space Mad Bomber Brewing used to fill. Popcorn, games and live music several nights a week. Closed Sundays.

Westwood Brewing, 8162 Main St., Rathdrum. Opened in 2017 by two brothers and their wives in an 1886 brick building that once held a bank. Pub menu. Westwood also runs The Brewhouse by Westwood at 6180 E. Seltice Way in Post Falls, where nearly all the taps are Westwood beer and food is served.

Post Falls

Post Falls Brewing, 112 N. Spokane St. Opened in 2016 across from the city's old water tower, which is on its logo. Rotating food trucks most days, the brewery says.

Kaniksu Brewing, on Riverbend Avenue. A small brewery inside a homebrew supply shop, brewing in 30-gallon batches. We could not confirm food, so call ahead or eat first.

The ones that are gone

The list of closed breweries is about as long as the list of open ones. Slate Creek and Downdraft both closed in 2017. Selkirk Abbey in Post Falls, once Idaho's only Belgian-style brewery, and Mad Bomber in Hayden, started by Army bomb-disposal veterans, are both listed as out of business. Paragon and Trickster's in Coeur d'Alene are also listed as out of business. Mad Bomber's old space now holds Knucklehead. The Badass Backyard taproom is gone, and Black Lodge in downtown Coeur d'Alene now calls itself a taphouse and pizzeria rather than a brewery.

Two that did not make the count

Bombastic Brewing in Hayden is real and growing, but most of its beer is made by partner breweries, and its Hayden site is a small pilot brewery with release-day pickups, not a regular taproom. Lone Mountain Farms in Athol grows its own hops and brews farm beer, but we could not confirm it is pouring this season.

What the state's license list shows

Idaho State Police lists 13 brewer licenses in Kootenai County, all good through Feb. 28, 2027, as we read the list on Nov. 12. All 10 breweries in our count are on it. So are the two we left out, Bombastic Brewing and Lone Mountain Farms, for the reasons above. The 13th is Pilgrim's Natural Foods Market at 1411 N. Fourth St. in Coeur d'Alene. We could not confirm what it brews or whether it pours for the public, so it is not in our count.

One thing the list shows that we have not sorted out: Westwood Brewing's license is listed at its Post Falls address, 6180 E. Seltice Way, not in Rathdrum. We have not confirmed where its beer is made now.

The hours on our map are each brewery's posted hours as of early November. Hours change often, especially in winter. Check before you go.