Alaska has always been a place close to my heart. Even after 25 years, this trip was the most special of all. The Great Northern Homebrewers’ Club and the Alaska Brewers’ Guild asked me to be their Keynote Speaker at the annual industry night. Add in brewing a collaboration DIPA with Midnight Sun, an epic seven-course beer dinner at Humpy’s, brewery tours, and judging Best of Show at a two-day Beer and Barley Wine Festival, and a visit doesn’t get any better than this.

I arrived in Anchorage on a Monday night this past January after two flights and 12 hours of travel. There is a four-hour time change, but with the short winter days, it was dark, snowy, and cold when I arrived. This year included record weather since Anchorage usually benefits from being a port city with much more moderate temperatures (for Alaska) due to the ocean. Not this trip, though. The mercury dipped below the -20⁰ Fahrenheit mark numerous times and there was a lot of snow. A typical year would be 30⁰ F warmer (typically 10⁰ F) with half as much snowfall. A few years ago, there was grumbling when the city had to cart some snow downtown for the ceremonial start of the Iditarod in February so the dogsled teams wouldn’t trail sparks. This wasn’t the case in 2024 as Anchorage officially hit 100 inches of total snowfall — the earliest date since they started keeping official records. The wind was light or else it would have been brutal outside. For the most part, there was simply more dry snow and unusually clear skies.

The sun doesn’t get very high in the sky this far north in the winter, so half of the daytime looks like sunset or sunrise. My first task was to prep on Tuesday for our collaboration brew with Midnight Sun, a Double IPA named Arctic Chicken. If you read my article about the origins of the rubber chicken mascot in Suwanee Magazine’s March/April 2022 issue, then you already know this rubber chicken was especially embraced by the Anchorage beer community. I met with the Midnight Sun team of brew master Lee and head brewer Sean to finalize our brew. We decided to create a lighter hued Double IPA that featured the so-called “C-Hops” that were the O.G.’s of West Coast IPAs — Columbus, Centennial, and Chinook.

The next day was brew day, and I was reminded of the unique challenges of brewing on the last frontier. The mash tun, for example, was the same one I saw at the original brewery with over a dozen modifications to increase capacity. Most of the fittings were fabricated by welders in Alaska. Built before mash mixers and rakes were common in smaller brewing systems, removing the grain required a custom-made hoe with specially shaped head and a 10-foot stainless steel handle. There is no need to have a Cold Liquor (water) Tank as we have at StillFire since the city water comes into the building cold enough to chill the heat exchanger. The hot spent grain disappears into a cloud of steam once the garage door is opened to take it to the yard. We cover our grain to keep small pests out until a local farmer takes it for animal feed. Midnight Sun has attracted a local moose who reacts to the steam like a dinner bell.

Brew day went well, and we headed over to Humpy’s for the evening beer dinner. Billy Opinsky, owner of Humpy’s Great Alaskan Ale House, has sponsored a lavish beer dinner during beer week for many years. This year was special for several reasons. Besides featuring seven courses paired with seven Midnight Sun beers, it also included the reopening of the Sub-Zero Lounge, a specialty beer bar on the same block in the same building around the corner from Humpy’s. The chef and his staff outdid themselves and considering the strength of the beers paired with each course, I went back to the hotel just before midnight to hibernate.

The next day was the annual industry gathering at 49th State Brewing. This brewpub is massive with four floors, including an upstairs observation deck that is packed in the summer as well as a large theater for big events like this one. The home and commercial brewers shared their creations, and there were a few StillFire stowaways that were shared with the crowd. I was honored to be their Keynote Speaker. I joined a list of some of my most revered craft beer legends including Michael Jackson, Fred Eckhardt, Charlie Papazian, and Ken Grossman, founder of Sierra Nevada. Having been in that same theater many times when the talks got a little too dry for the mood in the room, I turned to personal stories (and hundreds of photos) to recall the brewing lessons I learned in Alaska and some of the epic stories about the rubber chicken in Alaska. The highlights included the year the rubber chicken was kidnapped, ransomed, and then released at the awards ceremony at the beer festival. There was also another year when due to a lost bet, a brewer at Midnight Sun, along with his MSB backup singers, had to belt out Journey’s “Faithfully” to the rubber chicken on the local karaoke stage.

Friday was the first evening of the Beer and Barley Wine Festival, as well as round one judging. The judging is unique in my experience because it starts as a giant Best of Show where entries are divided into either barley wine or “winter warmer.” Every entry is evaluated by two different panels of judges in each of the two rounds in randomized groups. Both panels need to reject an entry for a beer not to make it to the second round. After a repeat of the first round, the second round determines the beers that make it to the Best of Show round. Awards are determined in that third BOS round on Saturday then awarded at the afternoon session. Unlike Georgia, there is no 14% alcohol limit on beer, so some of the barrel-aged offerings approached 20% and were truly like sipping Cognac or other fine spirits.

The festival name has evolved over the years due to sponsorship. The festival moved after COVID to the main hall of the Dena’ina Center. It still features a Friday evening session with two additional sessions on Saturday. It is a beer festival, however, and the exhibiting breweries like to showcase their strongest specialties, including at least one very strong barley wine. Most of the breweries and exhibitors are from Alaska, however, a few national brands make an appearance on the floor. The Saturday afternoon session kicked off with an appearance from the Pipe and Drum Corps. Local bands would play then take a break at 3 p.m. when the winners were announced. The trophies are appropriately golden colored Yukon miner’s gold pans.

Anchorage has every winter activity imaginable, but I concentrated on brewery tours. There is enough information there for another future article. Soon, StillFire will release our version of Arctic Chicken DIPA that we brewed on Fat Tuesday. I am sure you will agree after you taste it that it was worth the trip.

Cheers! – Phil