is a regional brewery located in Juneau, Alaska, and was the first brewery in the state capital since Prohibition. As of 2009, Alaskan Brewing Co was the 11th largest craft brewery in the United States, selling 126,000 barrels of beer.
The brewery was founded in December 1986 by Geoff and Marcy Larson. Geoff Larson was trained as a chemical engineer and became a homebrewer prior to opening the commercial brewery. His wife, Marcy, was an accountant and aspiring bush pilot. Doing research on brewing in Alaska, Marcy Larson discovered a newspaper account of a beer brewed by the nearby Douglas City Brewing Co that was in business from 1899 to 1906. Geoff Larson recreated that beer as Alaskan amber ale, the brewery’s first commercial beer, the first 250 cases of which were bottled, labeled, and boxed by hand.
Today, the Alaskan Brewery is at the forefront of innovative sustainable practices. In 1998, they were the first American craft brewery to install a carbon dioxide reclamation system and have since added a grain dryer and a mash filter press. The brewery produces five styles year-round and two seasonal beers, along with a recently launched limited-release series using a newly built 10-bbl pilot brewery.
In the winter, they also release their famous (and much imitated) Alaskan smoked porter, first introduced in 1988 using malts smoked with local alder wood. Geoff Larson is the co-author of Smoked Beers, published by Brewers Publications in 2001.
