Alaska Beer In The Last Frontier

It’s known as the land of the midnight sun, the 49th state and even Seward’s Folly. But one thing we know for sure—Alaska is not only filled with incredible natural beauty, the last frontier has a taste for beer.

- Joe Stange

“Sorry sir, I’m afraid we only allow Bud Light on this boat.”

That was Captain Garrett, unsmiling, when he saw the size and weight of the cooler we had brought on board.

“Um, yeah, it’s all Bud Light,” I lied. 

Later I learned the joke; my uncle had warned the captain of our special interest. So there were no objections to popping several Alaskan Ambers and Midnight Sun Sockeye Reds while we spent the day fishing. After we caught our limit in halibut, plus more in cod, we uncorked a 75cl bottle of Grassroots Arctic Saison and—this really happened—watched a humpback whale breach several times, up close, diving down for long stretches only to dramatically resurface with a satisfying splash.

Then we returned to Homer Spit, with the Kenai Mountains in the backdrop (the captain and his deckhand happily accepted some of our not-Bud-Lights). There, at a dive called Salty Dawg Saloon, fellow tourists and fisher-people were returning to—seriously—swap fish stories. And that was before we headed back to the cabin to fry up some halibut in beer batter.

Fried halibut cheeks, anyone? Oh, my. Try some if you have the chance. They might even taste that good if you didn’t catch them yourself, and if you didn’t wash them down with Alaskan Kicker.

I could gin up a way to describe what makes Alaskan beer different from beer in the rest of the country— like, Alaskan Smoked Porter is meant for the local taste for smoked salmon, and there are a few spruce-tip ales, and about the cool ship capturing local microflora for wild beers at Anchorage Brewing—but it would be contrived. None of those things are unique to Alaska.

The truth is that Alaskan beer is a microcosm of America, and in America’s largest state, its beer is writ small.