A Visit to the Alaskan Brewery

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Back in July, when we took our amazing Alaska vacation, we got a chance to visit the Alaskan Brewing Company, at the urging of the Hoperatives. It’s great beer, and it’s a great tour. If you’re ever in Juneau, run away from the cruise ship and hop a city bus out to an industrial park – where you’ll find a brewery.

Not a brewpub, mind you. It’s where they make the beer. They may not have food, but they have a large selection of beer on tap and it’s all amazing. I am not a fan of the Smoked Porter (although the Hoperatives and Kevin both love it). I thought it tasted and smelled like fish, which makes sense. They use a local salmon smokery to, well, smoke the hops. I fell in love with the IPA, which is a rarity for me. I usually find IPAs too hoppy and bitter. It looks like they’re offering a Winter Ale at the moment, made from spruce. We discovered at a different brewery that spruce trees were often used to make beer, as the vitamin C helped prevent scurvy in the seaside Alaskan towns. Sounds dubious but tastes delightful, I promise.

The story behind the Alaskan Brewing Company can only be told effectively by one guy, and we were lucky enough to have him as our tour guide. You see, it’s not really a tour. They take to you a hallway overlooking the tanks, and tell you about their history. Every 5 or 10 minutes, you break for beer and then go back to the hallway to be entertained a little more.

We met some great people at this small, eclectic place, and we were rather grateful we took the bus back to the boat. I, for one, stumbled back on to the bus, but I was terribly sad to leave. It was one of the best places we visited in Alaska.

Alaskan Brewing Company beer isn’t available here in the Cincinnati area (although we certainly brought a fair amount back with us). In fact, you can only buy it in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming.

So, I’m not really the Beer Girl, but I really wanted to share with this video that is long, entertaining, and perhaps tells you everything you might want to know about how they make their beer at the Alaskan Brewing Company.

Cheers!