Welcome back to Sip Northwest’s Beer Hall of Fame: a twice-monthly induction into a list of essential Northwest beers that have made their mark on the field and region.
This week? Big Sky Brewing’s Moose Drool.
The making of Big Sky’s flagship beer, Moose Drool — a malt-forward, delectable American brown ale — begins early for Master Brewer Matt Long, often before sunup. “I have people that are always asking if they can come see the beer get brewed,” he says. “And I say, ‘Okay, show up at 5 a.m.’”
But if the curious were to come witness the show, they’d see one of Montana’s favorite beer born right in front of their eyes. Moose Drool, made with dark malts and mostly American (read: floral, citrusy) hops, makes up about 60 percent of total sales for the Missoula-based brewery, which produces about one-third of all the beer brewed in Montana.
The story of Moose Drool began in the 1990s as a homebrew recipe. “It was probably developed in 1994,” says Long, who joined the brewery team two years later. “The first commercial batch was brewed in June 1995. So, we had this brown ale recipe but we didn’t have a name for it. We had the artwork on the label that’s still there now, with drool coming out of the moose’s face. So someone said, ‘Hey how about we call it Moose Drool?’ and it just kind of stuck.”
And over those 20-some-odd years the recipe has remained basically unchanged. Using pale, dark crystal, chocolate and black malts along with Liberty, Willamette and Kent Goldings hops, Moose Drool was born.
“The hops add a nice counterbalance to the sweetness from all those malts,” Long says. “We’ve been making this beer for a long time, it has a loyal following. It’s what people think of when they think of Montana: they think of this beer.”
