By Bill Howell, for the Redoubt Reporter
Craft beer is a growth industry. And no, I’m not just talking about the growth of your waistline if you drink too much of it. Everywhere you look, interest in craft beer is booming and new breweries and brewpubs are springing up like weeds.
Take last month’s Kenai Peninsula Beer Festival, for example. Those of you who were fortunate enough to attend know that it was a smashing success, with more than 1,000 paying customers enjoying excellent beers, great music and delicious food. Who could have imagined such a successful event on the Kenai even a mere five years ago? Yet there it was.
Explosive growth characterizes the national craft-brewing scene, as well. The Brewers Association is the national trade group for craft brewers, and it tracks brewery openings, both actual and planned. It reports that, as of the end of June, there were 1,790 breweries operating in the United States, an increase of 165 breweries since June 2010. Even more amazing, there are reportedly another 725 breweries in the planning stages, up from 389 last year. We’ve still got quite a way to go before there’s a craft brewery or brewpub next door to every Starbucks, but that seems to be the way we’re headed.
Shifting our focus to Alaska, we’ve seen some pretty dramatic growth in this state, with several new breweries opening. The Last Frontier Brewing Company opened in February in Wasilla. I’m not sure if it should technically be considered a “new” brewery, since it’s using the equipment and premises of the former Great Bear Brewery, which went under a couple of years ago due to disputes between its owners.
Next door is The Last Frontier Brewhouse, serving its brews and some outstanding food. This resurrection was masterminded by head brewer Ray Hodge, a man whose list of brewing credentials in Alaska is long and distinguished, going all the way back to the Bird Creek Brewery in the early 1990s. It’s good to see such a prime location put back into service brewing good beer. Idle brewing equipment is such a terrible waste.
Heading north up the Parks Highway, Denali Brewing in Talkeetna celebrated its second anniversary by completing a major expansion with the establishment of a dedicated production brewery not far outside of town. Denali brewed its first batch in its new facility, appropriately named Expansion Ale, on Aug. 2. It’s a real compliment to quality and commitment that the company has needed to expand so much so fast. If you tasted Denali’s beers at its booth at the Kenai Beer Festival, you know why they’re in such demand.
Heading farther north to Healy, the 49th State Brewing Company is open for business. Company principals Jason Motyka and David McCarthy have fired up a small, one-third-barrel system and now are struggling to keep up with demand just in their limited local market. They are already making plans to expand to at least a five-barrel system, if not larger. This is a common problem for craft breweries. They start small, due to limited resources and uncertainty about demand, only to find themselves swamped with orders and having to run their systems (and themselves) flat out as they try desperately to fill all their orders.
Opening a brewery in a town as dependent on tourism as Healy raises another question — what will their winter business be? Frankly, I don’t think they’ll have much to worry about. Alaskans have consistently shown that they’ll support good, local products, tourists or no tourists. A case in point is our own local brewpub, St. Elias. When it first opened, brewer Zach Henry planned to reduce the number of days the restaurant would be open during winter, since he assumed that business would fall off dramatically. However, while business does (thankfully!) decline somewhat from the hectic times of summer, St. Elias stays busy enough to remain open seven days a week year-round.
I could keep going about all the new breweries that have opened around the state — King Street Brewing Company in Anchorage just fired its kettle for the first time last week. Or breweries in the planning stage — Arkose Brewing in Palmer, for example. But I think you get the picture. It’s a great time to be a craft beer lover in Alaska or anywhere else in the U.S.
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that this year marks the 25th anniversary of the opening of Alaskan Brewing Company. It has overcome many obstacles through the years, and is certainly entitled to mark the occasion. In celebration, Alaskan has released Perseverance Ale, a Russian Imperial Stout brewed with Alaskan birch syrup and fireweed honey. I’ve tasted it, and it’s excellent, so check it out if you can.
Until next month, cheers!
Bill Howell is a home brewer, teaches a beer appreciation class at Kenai Peninsula College’s Kenai River Campus and was named the 2010 Beerdrinker of the Year by Wynkoop Brewing Company in Denver.
