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After our trip to Montana for the 2019 Beer Now Conference, we truly understand why the state is known as Big Sky Country. We flew into Spokane and drove through Idaho to Montana because Southwest doesn’t fly into the state. It’s not a bad option, and the drive is gorgeous! From Spokane, you climb into the mountains in Idaho, and the journey is very mountainous until you get to a little west of Missoula. As the valley floor gets wider, the sky grows larger. East of Missoula on I-90 is when it really hits you. June and I have never seen the sky so big! There is something about the vast, expansive open land, framed by towering mountains in the distance, that makes the sky appear absolutely massive. Of course the sky is always enormous but Tennessee’s short horizons hide it. The particular geography of Montana greatly enhances it. Big Sky, indeed.
We discovered something just as big as the sky in Montana, malted barley. Montana is one of the three top barley producing US states, along with Idaho and North Dakota, which grow 75% of American Barley. The Montana Wheat and Barley Committee were presenters at Beer Now and told us Montana is number one in seeded acres for barley production. Montana farmers harvested 33 MILLION bushels of barley in 2018 (2019 number were incomplete at the time). There are a variety of malthouses in the state to malt the raw barley for brewing, ranging from small craft malthouses to large global producers like Malteurop (read more about our visit to Malteurope here).
The state’s affinity for malt shows in its “official” state beer style, Scotch (or Scottish) Ale. Of course, it’s not official, but we’re standing by our claim. We’ve never seen a region with so much Scotch Ale. Almost every brewery we visited brewed a version of the style. We’ve seen other areas where we were surprised by the popularity of a single style, like Cream Ale in the Eastern Washington/Idaho Panhandle area. We love an easy-drinking Cream Ale and were surprised how prevalent it was in the area. Of course, you find a ton of great hop-forward beers in the rest of Washington and Oregon, where the overwhelming majority of US hops are grown. But Scotch Ale as a regional favorite?
If you’re not familiar with Scotch/Scottish Ale, it’s a malt-forward style, with little hop bitterness. The Scots weren’t fans of British taxes on hops, and their historical beers used as little as possible, with just enough to balance the malt but without providing big hoppy notes. A typical Scotch/Scottish ale has flavors of breadiness, caramel, toast, but never roast. Some have a hint of butterscotch, but they should not have peaty smoke like Scotch whiskey. The beer is malty and rich but may have a dry finish. They pour a gorgeous copper to dark brown and have malty aromas similar to the flavors you’ll experience. It’s a great, flavorful style that we enjoy but one we rarely see – except in Montana.
The prominence of the style was surprising because this beer style can be hard to find in other parts of the country. There are roughly 25 breweries at home in Nashville, and I can’t think of any that have a Scotch/Scottish ale on tap year-round. It pops up as a seasonal, Nashville’s New Height Brewing brewed a fantastic one last fall, but the style is tough to find. And we’ve found that to be true nearly everywhere we have traveled.
Our working theory is that it is because of malted barley’s importance to the people of Montana. A lot of Montanans know someone who grows it, malts it, or brews with it. Or, they do it themselves. And it’s a great cold-weather beer. If you see it in the South, it’s served in the Fall and Winter but never Spring or Summer. It makes sense, being right on the Canadian border, Montana ain’t as warm as Dixie. Regardless, we’re certain Montanans love Scotch/Scottish Ale. For some brewers, it is even their top-selling flagship style! That’s mind-blowing.
Go to Montana. You’ll love the big skies and the big malts. Here are a few beers in the style that we got to try that are worth checking out:
– Jeremiah Johnson’s Scotch Ale
– Mighty Mo’s Smoke Jumper
– Blackfoot River’s Tartanic
– Lewis & Clark’s Back Country
– Snow Hop’s Nimble Streamers
– Kettlehouse’s Cold Smoke