Greetings Alaskans: My husband, myself, and my Portland (OR) area girl friend are visiting the Anchorage area the first couple weeks of September. We have all the obvious stops planned, as well as a trek up to Denali Brewing via some redditors' recommendations. Are there any off-the-beaten path recommendations we may have missed? I work for a brewery here in Central Ohio focusing on mixed-fermentation wild ales and sours: how's the bottle sharing landscape in the area? Would anyone be interested in possibly setting something up? Can't hurt to ask, right?
Here's my Anchorage list from a while back. There are a couple newbies I'll add in as well Midnight Sun Loft - good food, the biggest selection of MS beers you'll see Anchorage Brewing - they recently opened their own brewery/taproom. definitely a must-hit. There will likely be beers here that you won't find anywhere else, both on tap and in bottles. plus, it's an amazingly beautiful space. Glacier Brewhouse - on the chi-chi side, but some of their beers are outstanding. Their flagship IPA is quite good, be sure to look at the seasonals and special releases at the bottom of the beer list. Good food, too. Humpy's - Best beer bar in the city, stuff you likely won't find other places. SubZero and Flattop Pizza are all run by the same folks, and the other two may have beers on that Humpy's doesn't. Taproot - Decent bar, live music, usually good tap list, nice whiskey selection. King Street - If you made it out to Midnight Sun or Anchorage, you might as well hit King Street, because it's in the neighborhood. Mooses Tooth/Beartooth- Old guard, decent pizza, solid beers. Mooses Tooth is usually packed, Beartooth has different food and usually easier to get into. They've been doing some more interesting stuff and bottling it lately. Resolution Brewing small but friendly taproom with a rotating selection of their beers. Everything I had on my last visit was good, and while it's out of the way, definitely worth a stop. 49th State's Anchorage location is great. Great beers, great food, great views. Cynosure Brewing - a new-ish spot that I've not had the opportunity to get to yet. maybe some ANC locals can chime in on this one. If you're looking for bottles: La Bodega - great bottleshop, awesome staff, and go next door to Cafe Amsterdam and have a pint. Brown Jug Warehouse - probably the best bottle selection in town. Might as well swing by Moose's Tooth if you go here. Cellar - word from some of the local BA's is that bottles stick around here a while longer, so this may be a good spot to hit for that elusive find Other food places that I frequent when I go to ANC: Snow City Cafe - best breakfast spot in town, in my opinion Spenard Roadhouse - great dinner spot from the same owners Fat Ptarmagin - great wood-fired pizza place downtown Mexico in Alaska - good mexican joint on the south side. South - great food on the southside. from the folks behind Snow City, et al. Since you're heading up to Talkeetna to check out Denali, here's the list of spots in the valley that are on the way up there. I've yet to try any of their beers, so hopefully some of the more local folks can chime in on whether or not they're worth a visit: Odd Man Rush Last Frontier Brewing Bleeding Heart Bearpaw River
@blackcloud, solid list! It's the closest thing to a "Visiting Anchorage Thread" there is. A couple of things, and I've been out of Alaska for almost two years, so I could be wrong on some things, but I try to stay up to date. But I believe SubZero and Taproot have both closed. I think the Humpy's folks were repurposing SubZero? Not sure. Add Arkose Brewing to the valley locations, solid beers, nothing spectacular. Although, it's been a couple years, and you can't beat the views of Pioneer Peak, etc. I've heard good things about Cynosure, I think they're lager-centric. Locals would have some better intel.
Man. not sure how I forgot about Arkose.... and Indeed.... SubZero has closed. Last time I was up there something new was in the space, but I don't remember what it was. I didn't look too much into editing that part of the list, but I'll go back and fix it up. And...... I wasn't aware that Taproot closed. that's a bummer. I liked that place.
Anchorage Alehouse is now open. Whatever was in the place of Subzero is now closed. Word is Humpy's will be resurrecting a Subzero-style establishment in that space. Keep your eye on Anchorage Brewing FB. Lots of new releases coming up.
Anchorage Brewing was so mind blowing amazing that I just went there two days in a row. Sours, IPAs, Stouts, all bleeding-edge modern. Midnight Sun is great but you may only get their really good stuff in bottles to-go. When I was up there, the tap-list for on-site consumption was weak but the to-go beers were great.
We are going to be there for almost 10 full days so no doubt we'll be repeat offenders at some of these places. Planning to hit Midnight Sun for First Friday Firkin night and then again for brunch as I've heard it's good. I'm good with taking a shit ton of to-go beers to bring back to share with my beer group... you can't really truly enjoy a beer unless it's shared with friends, right?
@blackcloud it was amazing! We hit every single place on your list and then some. The only places we missed were Taproot, Fat Ptarmagin, Mexico in AK, and South (although we hit the other "S" restaurants in that family). I think we hit every brewery in a 3 hour radius with the exception of Arkose (damn AK State Fair traffic!). Made it up to Talkeetna, stayed in a yurt, and did the drive down to Girdwood as well. The weather wasn't conducive for a fruitful whale watching trip out of Seward, but we did attempt it (and got about half way). Stopped into Brown Jug several times, but you're right - the staff at La Bodega was great and we chatted beer for a while. One of your fellow AK Beer Advocate guys set up a really nice bottle share at his place and we got to try some other things that weren't on tap around town. Hopefully we can stay in touch and I can continue to send midwestern fresh hop num nums up your way. Thanks so much for asking, and for your input!
