Montana Brewery Trail

Montana Brewers Association

For even more information on Montana's breweries, click here to visit the website of the Montana Brewers Association. You can become an official member of The Brew Crew and the MBA, which means one free pint at most breweries. Also, the MBA will keep you informed on new developments in Montana's brewing industry, such as the new Grown & Brewed in Montana program.

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 the offerings of Montana's local microbreweries. 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

Montanans take their beer seriously, and in recent years, this passion has resulted in a crop of outstanding craft breweries.

Montana has 23 breweries, which might not sound like a lot, but enough to rank Montana third in terms breweries per capita behind Oregon and Vermont. 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 not all Montana taprooms serve food, so in some cases, you'll 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've suggested three options for seeing Montana's microbreweries--three statewide tours to see all breweries, two intrastate tours and four local tours, nine routes in all. Click on your preference below, and enjoy a great trip through our great beer state.