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PHILOSOPHY

Progressive. The brewery has worked with fifty charities in the area, and the beers keep getting more innovative with each batch.

KEY BEER

There are five year-round beers, including the flagship, Bitch Creek Extra Special Brown (6% ABV), which has nutty, cocoa-like flavors mingling with a lightly hoppy finish. But look for the Cellar Reserve brews, like a recent imperial Pilsner, Persephone (8.75% ABV).

BEST of the REST: IDAHO

BITTERCREEK ALEHOUSE

246 N. 8th St. • Boise, ID 83702 • (208) 429-6340 • justeatlocal.com/bittercreek

Opened in 1996, this Boise standby is plushed out with dark woods and leather and stocked with thirty-nine taps from Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Colorado, and California (and a small selection of regional bottled beers). They’ll throw a cask on the bar on occasion, and the pub grub ranges from sandwiches and burgers to fish-and-chips, Alaskan salmon, Idaho pork chops, and a BBQ plate. Look for the Terminal Gravity Breakfast Porter (5.7% ABV), especially if you’re in the place for your first meal of the day.

LAUGHING DOG BREWING

55 Emerald Industrial Park Rd. • Ponderay, ID 83852 • (208) 263-9222 • laughingdogbrewing.com

A very dog-friendly brewery with very hoppy beers, Laughing Dog is a chilled-out, home-town, family kind of place. Established in 2005, production is up to 4,500 bbls, and the tasting room has twelve taps, with a few goodies stashed away. Look for Dogzilla (6.9% ABV), considered one of the earliest India Black Ales (aka Black IPA), brewed with Simcoe and Cascade hops, pale and Munich malts, and black barley.

Alaska

FOR A CITY THAT CANNOT BE ACCESSED BY ROAD—TO GET TO THE STATE capital of Alaska, you must fly or arrive by boat—there have been a lot of firsts here. The state’s first big gold strike, in 1880, was close by. About a century later, the state struck gold again, in say, drinkable form. In 1986, Geoff and Marci Larson founded Alaskan Brewing Company—Alaska’s first brewery since Prohibition—in Juneau.

In all seriousness, consider a midwinter visit, not only to coordinate with the Great Alaska Beer & Barley Wine Festival in Anchorage, held in mid-January, but also to get a sense of the authentic character—and characters—of the place. The millions of cruise ship passengers trundling ashore all summer long to gawk at glaciers and buy a plastic king crab refrigerator magnet have no idea what local dwellers are really made of. It’s in the winter you discover that even mild-mannered locals like Donovan Neal—comptroller of Alaskan Brewing Company—moonlight as alpine guides, leading winter climbs (and ski descents!) of Cascade volcanoes. You see the Larsons (of Alaska Brewing Company fame) and their neighbors up near the Eaglecrest ski area on Douglas Island, just across the channel, with huskies and malamutes volunteer training for catastrophic avalanche victim recovery. The sheer 3,576-foot face of Mount Juneau looms immediately behind town, and a 1962 slide took out seventeen houses. National Geographic later pronounced it the city with the highest avalanche danger in America.

You won’t miss the sun and you sure won’t miss the crowds. And you’ve got incredible powder to ski; a mid-January weekday run to the excellent Eaglecrest ski area (a 20-minute drive) can mean lift lines in the single digits—as in you and a buddy. And most of all, you’ve got great fresh beer to drink in atmospheric old bars like the Alaskan (since 1913) and the Imperial (1891). Gold rush, indeed.

ITINERARIES

1 – DAY

The Hangar, Alaskan Brewing Co., the Imperial, the Alaskan Hotel, Pel’meni

3 – DAY

One-day itinerary plus the Island Pub

7 – DAY

Three-day itinerary plus Chair 5

THE ALASKAN BREWING CO.

5429 Shaune Dr. • Juneau, AK 99801 • (907) 780-5866 alaskanbeer.com • Established: 1986

SCENE & STORY

Geoff and Marcy Larson met while bouncing around in various national parks jobs in the late 1970s. “I was hitchhiking across the country during a summer off college and ran out of money in Montana,” recalls Geoff,