CBC Travels to Alaska

We traveled to Alaska to fish, but also drank a lot of great beer along the way. A group of buddies tried out over 15 breweries in Alaska, these were our three favorite:

Anchorage Brewing Company was the most well known brewery and the visit to their location didn’t disappoint at all. They have an amazing space that overlooks the mountain range while you sip arguably the best beer in the largest state in the United States. We had several of their fresh recent release IPAs, barrel aged stouts and wild ales and sours. Everything we tasted was top notch, Air Whale Hell was our favorite. This is aged on Klatch Coffee, Tahitian vanilla beans and Thai bananas and drinks more like a 10% ABV beer than the 15% boasted on the label.

Brewerks had a smaller production facility that, at the time, didn’t bottle or can anything which made drinking their beer fresh from the tap at their location in Anchorage a very cool experience. Their owner was very welcoming, talking us through the history of Anchorage beer, and pouring us tasters across several different styles. Our favorite was Wick’d Pissah which was a tasty IPA brewed with Azacca, El Dorado and Mosaic hops and at 6.2% was worth going back for seconds.

Cynosure Brewing was a great stop that made some more traditional Belgian styles that were all really tasty. The barrel aged saison, barleywine and Belgian triple were three amazing beers that you aren’t going to find at your run-of-the-mill brewery. They have a seasonal Belgian strong ale, Noe that’s well worth getting your hands on and aging if you’re able to trade for it or are traveling to Anchorage. Cynosure is also relatively close to several other breweries and bottle shops which makes a great place to stop on a mini brewery crawl in Anchorage.

Let us know if we missed any of your favorite Alaska breweries that we need to try on our next trip!