The weather is warming up threatening to warm up and COVID concerns seem to fade a little more each day. (Actually, the Montana Department of Health and Human Services announced that they're no longer publishing daily COVID-19 infection numbers due to the reduction in cases.) As things continue to return to normal, it's exciting to see so many events return from postponements and cancellations.

Let there be beer in massive quantities!

Here in Missoula we definitely love our beer! Just go outside and choose a direction - you can throw a rock and almost hit a brewery. And when it comes to those events that are returning, beer festivals are back in full force! We just had the Garden City BrewFest over the weekend, the Backcountry Brewfest happens this Friday (5/13,) and the Missoula Bacon and Brew Fest will be coming up later in the month. And if you're keeping score at home, that's a BrewFest, a Brewfest, and a Brew Fest.....three different ways of writing the same word. Ha!

The 2022 World Beer Cup crowns Montana winners

As we're seeing beer festivals return locally, the World Beer Cup, which happens every two years, has also made its return for the first time since 2018. The competition had over 10,000 entries from almost 2,500 breweries in 57 countries. With awards given in 103 categories, the event brought accolades to four Montana breweries, including Bayern Brewing in Missoula.

  • Bozeman Brewing Co. (Bozeman) – Gold in the Robust Porter category with Plum St. Porter
  • Philipsburg Brewing Co. (Philipsburg) – Gold in the Pumpkin Beer category with 5 Phantoms
  • Bayern Brewing (Missoula) – Bronze in the South German-Style Hefeweizen category with St. Walter Hefeweizen
  • Mountains Walking Brewery (Bozeman) – Bronze in the International Pale Ale category with Damsel Fly

Congrats to all the Montana winners! And see the complete list of winners from the 2022 World Beer Cup HERE.

LOOK: Best Beers From Every State

To find the best beer in each state and Washington D.C., Stacker analyzed January 2020 data from BeerAdvocate, a website that gathers user scores for beer in real-time. BeerAdvocate makes its determinations by compiling consumer ratings for all 50 states and Washington D.C. and applying a weighted rank to each. The weighted rank pulls the beer toward the list's average based on the number of ratings it has and aims to allow lesser-known beers to increase in rank. Only beers with at least 10 rankings to be considered; we took it a step further to only include beers with at least 100 user rankings in our gallery. Keep reading to find out what the best beer is in each of the 50 states and Washington D.C.

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