Montana's three-tier system and your brewery

The three tiers, in one paragraph

Montana, like every state since Prohibition, splits the alcohol trade into three tiers: manufacturers who make the product, distributors who move it, and retailers who sell it to the drinker.

The point of the split is separation. A business generally sits in one tier and may not own into another, so the maker does not control the shelf and the bar does not control the brewery.

The word "generally" is where breweries live. Montana's brewery license reaches across tier lines in defined ways, and how far it reaches depends on one number: the barrels you produce in a year.

In Montana, a brewery is a business licensed to manufacture, import and distribute beer, and what the license allows is based on how many barrels per year the brewery produces. — Montana Department of Revenue, retrieved 2026-09-29

The brewer's annual fee, wherever the brewery sits

The statute prices the brewer's place in the system directly. Under Montana Code 16-4-501, each brewer and each beer importer, wherever located, whose product is sold or offered for sale within the state, pays a $500 license fee.

The same statute prices the tiers around you. A distributor pays $400. A beer and wine retailer pays $400. A storage depot, which any Montana brewery may also apply to hold, costs $400.

That fee schedule is the tier map in numbers: brewer, distributor, retailer, each with its own license and its own fee. Your $500 buys the manufacturing tier, with the brewery-specific permissions attached.

16-4-501, MCAUnder 16-4-501, MCA, each brewer and beer importer, wherever located, whose product is sold in the state pays $500, a distributor pays $400 and a beer and wine retailer pays $400. — Montana Code Annotated, retrieved 2026-09-29

The small brewery's cross-tier permission

A domestic small brewery, producing between 200 gallons and 60,000 barrels a year, holds a genuine cross-tier permission: it may sell and deliver beer with its own employees and equipment to wholesalers, to retailers, and to the public.

That is the manufacturer acting as its own distributor and, for take-home sales, its own retailer. It is the carve-out that makes a Montana microbrewery economically possible at small volume.

The permission has two hard edges. The brewery may not use common carriers, so delivery means your own trucks, your own equipment and your own staff. And the permission ends at 60,000 barrels, where the large-brewery rule takes over.

60,000 barrelsA domestic small brewery, producing 200 gallons to 60,000 barrels a year, may deliver beer with its own employees and equipment to wholesalers, retailers and the public, with no common carriers. — Montana Department of Revenue, retrieved 2026-09-29

The 60,000-barrel cliff

Grow past 60,000 barrels a year and the cross-tier permission disappears. A large brewery may only sell and deliver beer to licensed beer wholesalers.

That cliff is worth knowing at 50,000 barrels, not at 61,000. The brewery that built its business on self-delivery and taproom sales cannot keep the first one past the line.

The tax side moves before the license side does. Montana's barrel tax steps from $1.30 to $2.30 past 5,000 barrels and to $4.30 past 10,000, and the license renewal itself steps from $200 to $500 at 20,000 barrels. Plan the growth around the whole ladder.

60,000 barrelsA Montana large brewery producing over 60,000 barrels of beer a year may only sell and deliver beer to licensed beer wholesalers. — Montana Department of Revenue, retrieved 2026-09-29

$200 to $500Montana brewery license renewal costs $200 for a brewery under 20,000 barrels a year and $500 for a brewery at 20,000 or more. — Montana Department of Revenue, retrieved 2026-09-29

The taproom sits inside the manufacturing tier

The sample room is not a retail license by default. It is a designated room at the brewery, part of the manufacturing premises, with its own limits.

A domestic small brewery may give away or sell up to 48 ounces in samples per customer from 10 AM to 8 PM, and sell take-home beer from 8 AM to 2 AM. Those limits are the price of pouring without a retail license.

The alternative is an approved on-premises retail license stacked at the brewery, which buys retail rights and retail fees instead. The trade between the two is covered on the taproom page.

48 ouncesA domestic small brewery may give away or sell up to 48 ounces of samples per customer between 10 AM and 8 PM, and sell take-home beer from 8 AM to 2 AM. — Montana Department of Revenue, retrieved 2026-09-29

The federal system rides on top, not instead

The three tiers are state law. The federal system is separate and does not care which tier you occupy: it taxes the beer as it leaves the brewery.

A brewer producing 2,000,000 barrels or less pays $3.50 a barrel in federal excise tax on the first 60,000 barrels removed each calendar year. A Montana brewer pays the state's graduated barrel tax on top.

The federal Brewer's Notice also follows the entity, whichever tier it touches. Before the tiers get complicated, read the opening guide for the order of the paperwork.

$3.50 a barrelA domestic brewer producing 2,000,000 barrels or less per calendar year pays $3.50 per barrel in federal excise tax on the first 60,000 barrels. — Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, retrieved 2026-09-29

Where this leaves a brewery's distribution plan

Write the distribution plan around the tiers before the growth makes the decision for you. At small volume, self-delivery is legal and common, and the no-common-carrier rule means the route costs trucks and staff.

The decision between self-delivery and a wholesaler is a business one, with real trade-offs in margin and reach. The distribution page walks it.

Whichever side you take, the barrel tax follows the beer sold directly to retailers and consumers, and the reporting runs through TAP on the state's fiscal quarters. The taxes page covers those returns.

July 1Montana breweries pay a graduated tax on beer sold directly to retailers and consumers, with the tax year beginning July 1 and reports due quarterly. — Montana Department of Revenue, retrieved 2026-09-29

Questions