The Montana beer reunion

Tap selection at Philipsburg Brewery

At a Town Pump west of Missoula, I found myself overwhelmed. Gas stations are a little different out in Montana. They might be full-out liquor stores. This one had its share of beer and wine. What froze me in place was the sheer amount of Montana beer – on a wall with 12 cooler doors, four exclusively led to Montana beer. That is a staggering rate, with dozens of six-packs and four-packs from within the state.

I filled up a mixed six-pack that included entries from Bozeman Brewing Company (Bozone IPA) and random beers from breweries that didn’t existing during my last visit. Since a weeklong trip in October 2013, breweries more than doubled. Nancy and even hit a beer festival in Missoula, touching on breweries from Stevensville to Wibaux.

Once I could look at a map and count off the small towns that boasted a brewery. Now I have a hard time keeping track – point at any town of more than 1,000 people and there’s probably someone pouring local suds. The shelves carried many familiar names but few entry points with breweries that didn’t exist the last time I stepped on this soil.

 I have sampled a minor portion of the new brewers operating in its boundaries, but I still consider Montana the best beer state. One million people, five dozen breweries. Nothing else approaches it . Where else can you roll out a few hundred miles yet land in a town of 1,000 people with a brewery or a bar with 20 state-only beers on tap? Every city in Montana that already claimed a brewery seemed to add one or two more. Towns where a brewery would be inconceivable in other states sprouted them along their century-old commercial blocks, nestling perfectly next to the Mint or the Stockman.


Most Montana brewers churn out less than 10,000 barrels annually, tiny amounts as craft brewers go. They supply the state and rarely extend beyond the state – aside from Big Sky and Bayern, few escape the Mountain Time Zone.

Inside these borders, there are beers that cannot go untouched. These immediately join the list – Kettlehouse Cold Smoke Scotch Ale, Harvest Moon Beltian White, Big Sky Scapegoat (I enjoy Moose Drool but have had more than my share in this life) and Bitterroot Huckleberry Honey (still sexist, but now in cans and always brilliant). Madison River The Juice Double IPA struck first, in a Bozeman hotel room late on our first night. We had arrived and I needed a little something to come down from hours on the road.

Further beer would wait till the pre-race dinner at Bert & Ernie’s in downtown Helena. With a list of 20-plus Montana taps, I went with Helena’s own Lewis & Clark Brewing Prickly Pear Pale Ale, a hoppy brew with an unassailable fruit profile derived from the prickly pear innards. Over a post-race lunch at the Brewhouse Grille, my sister tried Lewis & Clark Miners Gold while I went for Blackfoot River Single Malt Pale Ale, followed by a Cold Smoke. Few Scotch ales anywhere reach those flavorful heights.

The state’s lone big brewery, Big Sky Brewing, still produces quality product. few craft brewers anywhere can offer a slate as enticing as theirs. Moose Drool Brown Ale might be the state’s best-known beer outside Montana, but their whole lineup sparkles with winners. Summer Honey, a honey-finished wheat ale with a grizzly bear logo, is better as the days grow longer. One beer Nancy and I encountered on our 2012 Montana adventure stuck with me.

During the course of the week in Montana and later a Las Vegas hotel room, I worked through a six-pack of Bitterroot Single Hop Northwest pale ale (SMASH, made with Columbus hops and Montana malted barley). It’s a fragrant, hoppy pale ale unlike any other from the region. It would not be the last single-hop/single-malt, not with two nights in Helena.

To accommodate two rounds at the Phillipsburg Brewery, my sister and I agreed to each have one beer, then walk through the Phillipsburg commercial block. On the first pass, we went with a Haybag Hefeweizern (her) and a Rope Swing Saison (me). After concluding our shopping, we returned to find the brewery as busy as ever. The next round offered variations on the first – Jenny had a Hayapricot (hefeweizen plus apricot) and I went with Sundress Saison (dry-hopped with Amarillo, Sorachi Ace and Citra hops). The brewery alone could validate taking the Montana Route 1 loop, even if the road’s natural beauty was already immense.

On my last visit, Tamarack Brewery operated solely from a Flathead Lake outpost. Now they boast a stylish Missoula taproom and full-service restaurant. I imagine brewers from the state’s more remote outposts could gain exposure by adding taprooms or facilities in
the state’s bigger towns.

Based on our Tamarack experience, I endorse those expansions. The huge plates were worth the price (bison burger for me, pork burrito for my sister) and two beers apiece. I went with a Lakeside Pale Ale (loaded up with PNW hops and comparable to some IPAs further east) and Sip and Go Naked, an apricot wheat with a big fruit profile.

At a Missoula sports bar, the options winnowed to a few local handles. Bayern jumped out. I went with Dump Truck, a summer bock that saluted a river raft losing all its contents except those tied down. Slightly sweet but unbelievably easy drinking, it would not be hard to imagine Bayern’s slight deviation from the Reinheitsgebot filling a cooler.

Back in Seattle I tasted The Front Brewing Company’s Keep Cool Creek Blonde Ale, a slightly bitter light ale from Great Falls. Orange and hints of peach and grapefruit intervene, pushing Keep Cool Creek to complexity not often seen in blonde ales. I had one last pass thanks to a six-pack of Big Sky's Trout Slayer Wheat at a carry-out in Las Vegas. It might not be my first choice, but the dearth of craft beer made it the best choice.

At a Missoula gas station, I skipped past familiar logos to load up on untasted brews from Phillipsburg and Bitterroot. Would Cold Smoke, Double Haul and Dancing Trout always fill the shelves? I couldn’t say. But I knew those flavor profiles well, and what limited space I had for the return trip would be filled with beers not known outside the 406 area code.One never knows when the next trip will come, it's best to let the tastes of the Last Best Place linger as long as possible.