Highlander Beer
HIGHLANDER BEER
The article below is from the Highlander Beer website:
The predecessor to The Missoula Brewing company dates back well before 1900, with some accounts tracing it back to 1874. By 1900, it was known as “The Garden City Brewery” — and by 1910, Missoulians were drinking Highlander Beer. For the original launch of Highlander, the owner wrote to the baseball team based in New York City, who were known then as “The New York Highlanders.” The request was for consent to use the name HIGHLANDER. The response from the team soon to be known as The Yankees, was “sure, go ahead, because we are changing our name soon anyway.” By 1912, the New York Highlanders had become the Yankees.
On March 24, 1933, the company officially became the Missoula Brewing Company. At the time, it was made as a western style lager, patterned after the most popular beer of the day, Olympia. The brewing facility for Highlander Beer sat at the base of Waterworks Hill in Missoula, near Rattlesnake Creek. When Interstate-90 came through the area in the early 1960’s, that meant the end of the brewery, with the Missoula Brewery Company closing its doors in 1964.
Highlander Beer had been enormously popular back in the day in the region. Still to this day, there are lots of old Highlander cans, signs, bottle openers, trays, matchbooks and trinkets dating from earlier in the 20th Century. We hear stories frequently from folks in Missoula, remodeling their homes, who find the walls filled with Highlander Beer cans! Apparently, that was proper storage for the construction workers at the time !
The new Missoula Brewing Company, LLC, is founded on the great tradition of Highlander Beer. Because of our passion for craft brews, we departed from the historical formula and in accord with the name, wanted to do something Scottish. Accordingly, the modern Highlander Beer is a Scottish Red Ale and it’s mighty tasty.