Alaskan’s Winter Brews

Tree tops and smoked meats and whiskers on reindeers.
If anyone knew winters it’d be Alaskans right? Well, almost. We snatched up both the Alaskan Winter Ale and their award-winning Smoked Porter recently and turned up the space heater and put on beanies and chugged. The ale was good but not great. It advertises itself as ‘brewed with spruce tips’ so we understandably expected to be rocked by some weird Eskimo aftertaste, but nope. The spice level is nice and the sweetness is higher up than the hops, which we could appreciate in a seasonal, but it just wasn’t rich enough to live up to what you would expect. We wanted more, can you blame us?
The Smoked Porter on the other hand was a winning sludge. This dark brothy porter is completely up front about its intentions: it is beef jerky in a bottle, something more akin to smoked salmon than to most beers. We drank it down and immediately felt more solstice-y. You’ll see.
Dairy Pairy: Traditional Munster
Soundtrack: The Shins’ Oh Inverted World