Missoula and Beer: a History Alex Sakariassen
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Missoula and beer: a history Alex Sakariassen When Missoula trademark attorney Bob reverie didn't stop there. Lukes fielded Lukes revived the decades-dead stories for the next year, by letter and by Highlander beer brand in May 2008, he email, from folks across the country. advertised a simple request in the com- Some shared childhood memories of munity: He wanted stories. Lukes had local businesses running contests on the already seen plenty of memorabilia from radio, each offering the winner a the old Missoula Brewing Company's Highlander sixer. Others recalled their standard brew - bottles, cans, boxes, teenage years working at the brewery, signs, old tap handles, etc. - but the unloading 100-pound sacks of barley self-proclaimed beer history buff lacked from railcars and washing glass bottles the backroom anecdotes that made that were recycled five, six, even seven Highlander Missoula's go-to brew for times a day. more than half a century. Lillis Waylett, now of Decatur, Texas, I moved up here in '85, and I was just responded to Lukes' plea with page upon loving the place and the history of the page of backroom brewery history. He place and wanting to learn more [Lukes remembered seasoned workers packing says]. I started seeing this Highlander lunches of pretzels, cheese, chips or stuff. You go out to Fuddruckers (a smoked whitefish, ‘anything to go along hamburger franchise) and in one corner with a quart or two of beer.’ Employees of it they've got this big collection of cans, even had their own large pails, which or you're in the Missoula Club (a small they filled several times a day at a tapped local restaurant chain) and they've got keg of Highlander. Bill Steinbrenner, that neon sign and painting … It just kind whose grandfather co-founded Missoula of got my fancy. Brewing Co. after the repeal of prohibi- tion, says beer was essentially ‘part of So shortly after Highlander's return at their wages.’ the 2008 Garden City BrewFest, Lukes hosted a small bash at Sean Kelly's, an The overwhelming response from a Irish pub in the north-east of the city, thirsty and grateful public convinced with an open invite to any former Lukes he'd done the right thing bring- Missoula Brewing Co employee. And the ing Highlander back to the taps. But 16 Journal of the Brewery History Society Missoula's history of beer goes well brand officially hit the market in 1910, beyond that signature blend of hops and enjoying a decade-long reign before the barley. Montana has been a vital thread US Congress passed the Volstead Act in the fabric of the nation's beer industry in 1919. since the late 1800s. The emergence of craft breweries and the ever-increasing Prohibition spelled the end for Montana's popularity of taprooms has only strength- early hey-day of beer. Garden City ened our devotion to that heritage or, Brewery held on for several years, pro- rather, to that smooth, heady liquid so ducing soda and near-beer. But just favored by local residents. days after President Franklin Roosevelt's repeal of Prohibition in 1933, Highlander Missoula, Montana, in the western United brewing operations kicked back into States, in the early 1870s contained a gear under the newly re-founded and population of just over 100, hardly renamed Missoula Brewing Company. enough to fill a downtown bar on a Friday The beer was once again a hit, generat- night these days. Half of the existing 66 ing fierce loyalty among drinkers across buildings had been constructed after western Montana and catching the 1869. The Northern Pacific Railroad and attention of West Coast beer mogul subsequent building boom was still a Emil Sick. Sick, the son of brewing pio- decade off, making the Garden City every neer Fritz Sick, inherited family interest bit a frontier town. in the highly successful and multination- al Rainier Brewing Company shortly after Yet commercial brewing started as early the repeal of Prohibition. He spent much as 1874 under George Gerber, and as of the late '30s and early '40s expanding the town grew, the demand for beer his beer portfolio, acquiring both the skyrocketed. The University of Montana Missoula Brewing Co. and the Great Falls opened in 1893, ushering in additional Breweries - producers of the popular drinkers, and by 1900 Missoula's popu- Great Falls Select - in 1944. Highlander lation numbered more than 4,000. That's remained under the umbrella of Sick's about the time barflies got an official Rainier empire for nearly 20 years. name to go with Gerber's beer: Garden City Brewery. Like all rural communities Bill Steinbrenner never concerned him- of the day, Missoula relied on local pro- self much with the broader business ducers for its goods and beer was no interests at the Missoula Brewing Co. His exception. More than 30 breweries grandfather, William Steinbrenner, had statewide started up in growing commu- helped bring the Highlander name back nities like Philipsburg and Anaconda to Missoula in 1933. But Bill Steinbrenner during the latter half of the 19th century. stuck to the brewery floor, working sum- Bars in Missoula sold bottles delivered mers on the bottle line like so many fresh from Garden City, and the Highlander other local teenagers. It was just another Brewery History Number 142 17 job opportunity, he says, like timber You had your milk delivered to your door, and industry or mine work - except it had cer- same with your beer. tain perks. Sick's purchase of the Missoula Brewing There were just tons of people in the state of Co gradually changed the localized Montana who had worked at the brewery for character of Highlander. Signs painted various summers between the '40s and 1960 on buildings across the state proclaimed or so [says Steinbrenner, now 73]. One it 'Montana's Favorite.' The company reason people wanted to work at the brewery altered its advertising strategy in the '50s, was you could drink all the beer you wanted, adopting the now-familiar tartan label. no problem - as long as you didn't get drunk Montana had already established itself as on a union contract. a player in the country's beer industry with Leopold Schmidt, who created Steinbrenner remembers the typical Centennial Brewing in Butte in 1879 first-day gig for prospective employees. before moving west to found the Olympia High school or college kids would unload Brewing Company in Washington. The 100-pound sacks of barley from railcars, growing distribution of Highlander before moving on to work the heavier through the Rainier network made the bottle-washing machinery. Steinbrenner brand a regional favorite and further says the former task weeded out about solidified the state's role in US brewing 20 percent of the applicants. history. By Steinbrenner's account, beer had a However, this second wind in Missoula drastically different presence in Missoula brewing was also destined to end. Sick society during the 1940s and '50s. The began shedding his beer assets in the high cost of transporting beer long dis- early '60s, among them his entire tances meant the lion's share of draft beer Montana portfolio. Rainier's Seattle in Missoula was Highlander. Occasionally brewery continued producing Highlander Steinbrenner, who says he had his first for a short time, but the brand died com- sip of beer at age two, got a taste of pletely in 1964, when Missoula Brewing something else from the region. But beer Co. closed its facility at the base of was unpasteurized then, giving it a short Waterworks Hill to clear the way for shelf life and necessitating daily deliver- Interstate 90. The costs of transporting ies of fresh bottles and kegs. beer through the Rocky Mountain West and competing with national conglomer- When I was a kid, the only beers were ates simply became too great. One by Highlander, Kessler out of Helena, Rocky one, Montana's other breweries folded, Mountain out of Anaconda and maybe Butte with the last - Great Falls Breweries, then Special [Steinbrenner says]. The beers were owned by Blitz-Weinhard - shutting down all very local. It was like the dairy business. in 1968. 18 Journal of the Brewery History Society The disappearance of localized brew- [Head says]. Same with a six-pack of eries across Montana resulted in a 20- Heineken or Beck's. year dry spell for the state, an era punctuated by what Worden's Market (a So when a seeming novelty began to long-established grocery store in the emerge in the Missoula beer market in north east) owner Tim France calls 'brand the late '80s, no one knew quite what to loyalty.' Large companies like Anheuser- think. Bayern Brewing introduced the Busch, Rainier and Olympia replaced city to the unique flavor of craft beer in hometown brews with mass-produced 1987, a bold move by German master- American pilsners. Community radio brewer Jürgen Knöller that both Head contests ceased, gimmicky local beer and France recognized as an opportunity products became memorabilia. France to turn local drinking culture on its head. says Montana drinkers chose a big-name beer and stuck to it. Rainier had its run, What I saw a lot were people who were as did Lucky Lager, each generating a willing to drink up and enjoy something over die-hard following that drank for the a longer period of time, rather than just get drink, not for the taste. 'Nobody talked a glow and drink as much as possible about Oly or Rainier or anything,' France [Head says]. They were willing to buy up says.