Three Beer Awards on the Wall, Three Beer Awards…

Montana Brewing Company Wins Big at Great American Beer Festival

By David Nolt, 10-17-07

Montanans are not afraid of beer, nor are they afraid to brew the stuff. There are 18 breweries in Montana, and though it may not seem like a huge number, it is significant for a state with less than one million citizens. Per capita, only Nevada, North Dakota and New Hampshire consume more beer per capita than Montana.

One brewery in particular is celebrating one of the top brewing honors in the United States: the Montana Brewing Company in Billings recently won the “Small Brewpub and Small Brewpub Brewer of the Year” award at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, Colorado. The Billings brewery also took home a gold medal for its Whitetail Wheat and two silvers for its Custer’s Last Stout and its Sandbagger Gold Ale.

For head brewer Travis Zeilstra, brewing doesn’t get any better. “This is the ultimate goal, to be one of the brewers of the year,” Zeilstra says. “Not many people can say they’ve done that.”

The three-day event sponsored by Brewers Association drew in over 140 brewers from across the country. Judges had the enviable but meticulous task of tasting 2,793 beers in 75 categories from breweries of all sizes.

Montana Brewing Company’s gold-medal winning Whitetail Wheat faced 24 competitors in the English-Style Summer Ale category, while the silver-medal Sandbagger Gold faced 46 competitors and the Custer’s Last Stout faced 24. The “Small Brewpub and Small Brewpub Brewer of the Year” was the most coveted honor for the Billings brewers, though, and Zeilstra says it is the product of a labor of love.

“There are so many great breweries and beers in this country,” Zeilstra explains, “to be able to win multiple awards at this competition and be the best of the best is something you can’t count on. You have to be diligent in your work, take a lot of pride in your work and just be lucky.”

The Montana Brewing Company started its operations in the old Montana Power building in downtown Billings 13 years ago. The company now includes a restaurant with a full liquor and bar license. Zeilstra, who attended the Western Culinary Institute in Portland and also opened the Enzo Bistro in Billings and served as the restaurant’s head chef for three and a half years, says his approach to brewing is cleanliness and simplicity.

“I try not to use too many different specialty hops and specialty malts in the beer,” Zeilstra says. “I try not to make it too complex.”

Zeilstra also says good cleaning, mashing and sparging procedures paired with good yeast-pitching practices are key to good brews. Though Montana Brewing Company only bottles their beer for competitions, Zelistra says it is an absolutely crucial step many breweries overlook.

“You can have a fantastic beer on tap…but by putting it in the bottle it can really affect the beer if it is not done properly,” Zeilstra says, emphasizing sanitizing bottles and removing all oxygen as key steps in the bottling process.

The Montana Brewing Company regularly offers five beers on tap: the Whitetail Wheat, the Fat Belly Amber, the Sandbagger Gold, the Sharp-Tail Pale Ale and a rotating fruit beer, which is currently a raspberry wheat beer. Five additional seasonal brews also regularly grace the taps and pint glasses at the brewery.

Zeilstra describes the Whitetail Wheat as an unfiltered wheat with hints of citrus and strawberry. The Sandbagger is an English summer ale, filtered with light wheat with a crisp, clean finish. The Fat Belly Amber is a Scottish ale with caramel, toffee and a slight roasted chocolate finish. The Sharp-Tail Pale Ale is hoppy with lots of citrus, pine aromas and a snappy, bitter finish.

Thirsty yet? Unless you live in or around Billings, you’ll have to make a road trip to taste Montana Brewing Company’s award winning beers, but don’t forget about the brewers in your own neck of the woods. Click here for a list of all Montana breweries.

And never underestimate the power of beer: U.S. beer sales in 2006 topped $94 billion. In 2007 Montana had the fourth highest rate of growth in the country (4.6 percent.) for beer sales. Besides loving suds in general, Montanans also like to enjoy their suds straight from the tap: 12.8 percent of all beer sold in the state came from the tap. Nationally, that number is only 9.3 percent. All statistics are according to the Brewers Association.

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