Alaskan Brewing Co, Juneau, Alaska

The Alaskan Brewing Co is one of my favourite breweries of all time, no lie.  It was one of the first craft breweries I encountered when I began drinking beer and opened me up to a world of flavour.  This season I was determined to visit the brewery despite my busy schedule.

You are picked up by a shuttle bus in downtown Juneau and taken out to the Alaskan Brewery at the beginning of your tour.  It’s a nice little drive and the driver gives you some background history to the sights as you go.  Look out for eagles as you get closer to the brewery.

Alaskan Brewing is a little site but very interesting.  It is right next to a glacier, which is where they get the water to brew the beer with.  In my opinion this is why it tastes so good and I am very pleased that they don’t brew their beer anywhere else because of this.

The brewery itself is home to founders Marcy and Geoff Larson’s collection of beer bottles.  They began the collection themselves and visitors to the brewery have helped them along the way.  The English beer bottles are over the bar and I noticed a few of my favourites missing.  I will have to find out their address so I can send them some.

You get given a talk at the brewery about the beginnings of Alaskan while sitting in the tasting room, which is the original site of the brewery before it began to expand.  Through windows into the brewing floor you might capture a glimpse of the brewers hard at work.

You can taste up to 6 samples while you are on the site.  I had to go back to work later that day so my tasting experience was cut sadly short.  However I was happy to try a “Rough Draft” that they had on tap.  Rough Drafts are brews in the testing stages.  Mine was a cream ale.

Though not the longest tour, I found visiting Alaskan brewing very informative and I enjoyed meeting the people behind one of my favourites and seeing the site itself.  Keep up the good work guys!

Next week, I’ll share my Alaskan Brewing tasting notes.

Beer House, Estonia

Beer House is a microbrewery in the medieval town of Tallinn in Estonia.  It has a good selection of beer brewed on the premises and boasts a tradition honey lager and a premium lager supposedly endorsed by a Prussian king.  The story goes that the Prussian king was passing through the town and tried Beer House’s Premium and deemed it the best beer in the land so it was brewed under his royal seal.  It is a pretty good beer, an instant fave with me for its sweetness.

Beer House also offers a great selection of food – their pizza is pretty good – and a great atmosphere with old style wooden benches and tables and an inside back patio set up like a medieval village.  The wait staff are even in period costume with buxom wenches and lederhosen clad fellas

If you are in Estonia you should definitely go check it out.  I’m only sad I may never get the chance to drink some BH Premium again!

Check out their website here

The Heineken Experience - Amsterdam

While I was in Amsterdam back in April I visited the Heineken Experience.  This is more of a museum and activity center than a brewery tour as Heineken hasn’t been brewed in the old brewery since the 80s, but it is still worth a visit for those of us interested in beer.

Half of the Experience is about how the company was built through four generations of the Heineken family and how they developed the world renowned beer we know today.  The second half of the Experience explores the marketing side of the company, which has played a huge part in its success.

I was very interested to learn that currently the company is owned by a woman, Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken.  She gives you a little speech via video part way through.  When you get into the old brewery proper with the mash tuns and old equipment on display you get a chance to taste the wort made from the ingredients Heineken brews with.  I didn’t realize how sweet and like warm cereal it would taste!  I also had a go at stirring the wort while wearing traditional brewers garb.

One of the activities you can take part in is being brewed.  You are shown a video discussing the brewing process while standing on a platform that moves.  It shakes and mixes you while the temperature in the room also changes and you get sprayed with water!  I apparently now know how malts feel.

There is of course the obligatory beer tasting at the end of the Experience.  With your ticket you get a wrist band with three tokens on.  One token is good for a half pint.  You get a half pint in the tasting and then at the very end can get more in the World Bar. 

Overall I found the Heineken Experience interesting, it is definitely a different approach to a beer tour.  A lot of the information is about the company and its marketing process however so if all you really want to know about is the beer and the brewing process, that side is a little light.  I still think it is worth seeing though, but you definitely have to be a beer or business enthusiast to really enjoy it.

American Craft Beer Week!

I think I've mentioned that I work on cruise ships and that gives me the opportunity to travel a lot.  Well, I just did a quick fill-in contract that took me to 8 different European countries in 3 weeks.... my beer adventures from there will be blogged soon :-)

While I was away there was an excellent radio programme on BBC Radio 4 about craft brewing in the USA called The New Beer Frontier.  I finally got to listen to it this week (the internet on cruise ships is a bit sketchy) which falls in line quite nicely with American Craft Beer Week.

Here's a summary of what I found interesting in the programme:

Originally, American brewing was influenced by British brewing techniques but this changed in the 1850s when an influence of German and Czech styles took over.  In fact, brewing in American became almost entirely German oriented, with meetings even been held in German.  Prohibition (from 1920-1933) skuppered the industry and when it was revoked, after WW1 a happy eye was not cast against an industry that was German run.

American brewing soon found the innovation of bottom fermentation, which led to the popularisation of lager beers that lasted longer but didn't have very complex taste (I'm looking at you Budweiser!)

The Craft Beer scene that we know and love today really took off in 1979 when home brewing was declared legal practice.  Also around this time air fairs were slashed so more people were taking trips to Europe and experiencing the beers available there.  The Americans came back from their European adventures and wanted to replicate the amazing flavours they had discovered.

In the 1980s, Boston was the place to be to taste new and exciting beers - Harpoon Brewery being one of the main culprits.

The Americans are now experimenting with many different styles and techniques.  New World hops are giving beers bigger, fruiter flavours and aromas and breweries like Cambridge Brewing Co in New York are trying out barrel ageing with wine, spirits and port wine barrels.

There are a few breweries mentioned in the programme that I need to look up the next time I am drinking beer in America.  The programme is still available on iPlayer here if you want to listen for yourself.

What's My Story?

I have only been drinking beer since 2008. I thought you might like to know
how this came about, so here's my story...

I have tried beer at various times throughout my life. My grandad and uncle
would dip our dummies in their pints when we were little. As I got old
enough to drink alcohol myself I didn't really like beer. I was girl, I
drank fruity drinks.

In 2007 I began work on cruise ships and the crew bar only served beer and
wine. I'm not a big wine drinker. I only really like white wine and sweet
ones at that. That left me with Smirnoff Ice.... Which was so sugary it
gave me indigestion. I had to find something else to drink...

I suffered the lack of suitable beverages until the summer of 2008. I was
on a different ship by then and with new people. While in the crew bar one
night one of my male friends went to buy me a drink and the conversation
went something like this:
Him: What do you want?
Me: A Smirnoff
Him: I'm not buying you that, it's basically Sprite, I'm getting you a beer
Me: But I don't like beer!
Him: You've never had a Sam Adams, have you?

He was right, I hadn't... I loved it! To this day Sam Adams is still my
favourite. It opened me up to a whole world of hoppy goodness. From there
I wanted to try more - lagers, ales, stouts, fruit based. I have found a
world of flavours in beers and I want to find more!

Let Me Tell You A Little About Myself...

Hello! Welcome to the first post of my new blog.

My name is Joanne and by profession I am a wardrobe supervisor. Most of the time I work on cruise ships traveling the world and doing arty things. I embroider, watch movies, read books and hang out with my friends. Recently, however, I have realised that I have another hobby. I really like beer.... and I really like tasting beer! Where ever I am I like to try the 'beer of the land'.

I only started to drink beer in 2008 but since then to date (April 2012) I have tried 127 different beers and my list is growing all the time.

On this blog I am going to start writing about the beers I try and the beer adventures I have. I also hope to learn about beer while I'm at it. I'm no expert, I just like drinking beer! I want to learn about types of beer, brewers and all that jazz and hopefully give you my unique perspective on it - as a woman, as a traveler, as an artist and as an amateur.

Follow me on my journey, why don't you and have a few brews with me :-)