Montana Brewery Trail

Montana Brewers Association

Montana’s history is coupled with a strong agricultural tradition of growing some of the finest grains in the nation. Montana brewers pride themselves on using Montana grown grain whenever possible to make their beer and to partner with Montana farmers and producers. When you see the Grown & Brewed in Montana seal, it depicts this pride and tells you have a true Montana-made beer that's brewed from the ground up in Montana.

For forty years, former book publisher Bill Schneider has been filling in the spaces between fishing trips, hikes and bike rides by writing books and articles about the outdoors and sampling of offerings of Montana's craft breweries.. Bill currently works as Travel and Outdoor Editor for NewWest.Net, a regional online magazine, where he extensively covered Montana's rapidly growing brewery industry, including visiting and writing about every brewery in the state. Such dedication has prompted his beer buddies at Travel Montana to nickname him "Beer Schneider."

THE MONTANA BREWERY TRAIL

Montana is a big state--about a 700-mile drive from the east to west boundaries. That means there's a lot to see out here under the Big Sky--and a thousand routes on how to see it, way too many options to cover on this website. So please consider the following list of suggested routes as general guide to both finding the breweries of Montana and enjoying the rest of the state along the way. Feel free to customize the following routes to fit individual travel plans. For example, suggested loop routes can be done in either direction, and east to west routes can easily be done in reverse. In any case, if you want to see them all, plan on two weeks of scenic driving and craft beer testing. Montanans take their beer seriously, and in recent years, this passion has resulting in a crop of outstanding craft breweries.

Montana now has 32 breweries, which might not sound like a lot, but enough to rank Montana second, barely behind Vermont, in terms of number of breweries compared to the state's population. Our research indicates that many people traveling to Montana as well as residents traveling within the state plan to visit brewery tasting rooms during their trip, so we've added this section to our website to make it easier.

A few travelers might come just for the beer, but most visitors from other states and countries come here to see the Montana they've heard about and part of that experience is sampling the local microbrew. So, as much as possible, the suggested routes on this website will take travelers off the freeway to combine seeing the scenic and historic treasures of Montana with the local color of the taprooms tucked away on side streets and in warehouse districts.

These are only suggested routes. In most cases, you'll want to adapt to your specific travel plans and interests with new starting points, change of directions, etc. And be aware of Montana's unique brewery laws. Taprooms can't sell beer after 8 pm. Some stay open longer, but others do not, so check the sidebar information with each brewery for taproom hours and plan your trip accordingly.

Also, Montana law technically disallows brewpubs, so most Montana taprooms don't serve food, so you might have to eat dinner elsewhere. For specific information on food available at each brewery, plus brewer-recommended nearby eateries and lodging, simply click on the icon for that brewery.

We suggest four ways to see Montana's microbreweries--a grand loop all around the state, three statewide tours for travelers driving through the sates, two intrastate tours and four local tours, ten routes in all. Click on your preference below, and enjoy a great trip through our great beer state.

Montana's Grand Brewery Loop

For travelers who want to see a lot of Montana and every craft brewery in the state.

• Montana's Grand Brewery Loop

Statewide routes:

For travelers driving through Montana, on routes that often venture off the freeways and onto scenic secondary roadways and pass by every craft brewery in the state.