It's February...Must be Time for a Beer Fest!

It's the middle of winter here on the Kenai, with a foot of snow on the ground and temperatures in the teens. That means it's time for Alaska's only outdoor winter beer festival, the Frozen River Fest. The first FRF took place in 2015, meaning that this year's fest will be the 5th iteration. As someone who was part of the group of people who first dreamed up this crazy idea and made it happen the first couple of years, it's very gratifying to see what the Frozen River Fest has become. These days the Soldotna Chamber of Commerce runs the event (so send any compliments or complaints to them), but I still love attending each winter.

The original logo from 2015

If you're going to be in Soldotna this Saturday, the fest will run from 4 to 8 pm. Admission for non-drinkers is free, persons under 21 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian, and admission for beer drinkers is $20. Breweries, wineries, & cidermakers from as far away as Fairbanks will be in attendance. Buy your tickets in advance online via this link or at the gate.

Click to enlarge

As part of gearing up for the fest, local establishments have held beer dinners in the past. This year, Kenai River Brewing Company decided to hold a beer dinner on Saturday, February 2th. Despite choosing not to advertise the event or publish the menu in advance, the 70 seats available still sold out rapidly, which is a testament to the quality of the food and beer regularly on offer at KRBC. Here's a copy of the menu:

click to enlarge

As someone who attended, I can attest to the excellence of all the courses (especially the roasted garlic soup!) and the wonderful way each of the beer choices paired with them. I sincerely hope that Kenai River Brewing can see it way to eventually offering beer dinners like this one once a month over the course of the winter season.

As I mentioned in my last blog, this is the week Skagway Brewing moves to its new location. The brewery has been posting lots of great photos of the new location on its Facebook page; they are well worth checking out. To whet your appetite, here's one of them. Note the new brewhouse visible through the windows in the background.

Photo courtesy of Skagway Brewing

Alaskan Brewing has just released its Spruce IPA again as the spring beer for this year's seasonal rotating releases. This is the second year that Spruce IPA has filled that slot. The beer won regional and international recognition, leading with a World Beer Cup gold medal in its first year as a seasonal product, and another gold in the Pacific Northwest’s Best of Craft Beer Awards. It will be available through April.

Alaskan Brewing also has a new beer in its Rough Draft series on limited release around the state:

Click to enlarge

Bearpaw River Brewing has announced that it will be releasing another batch of the iconic Valley Trash Imperial Blonde on March 16th. The brewery first reproduced this famous creation of the defunct Great Bear Brewing Company of Wasilla last August.

That's it for the latest beer news. Let's do some beer reviews.

I've been laying fairly low since my last blog post, so I've only tried three new beers.

Rogue Brewing's 2018 Old Crustacean Barley Wine: I picked this one up at the Costco in Anchorage. It poured a translucent honey color with a nice, cream-colored head. The aroma had a good amount of hop notes. Mouthfeel was medium with great carbonation. On the palate there was decent bitterness up front, followed by the strong malt notes you expect from a big burly barley wine. In keeping with the American barley wine style, the overall hop flavors were excellent. A nice example of an American barley wine, though I still can't help feeling the ceramic bottle with its swing top closure is a bit over the top. 10.75% ABV.

Bearpaw River Brewing Company's Smoked Scottish Ale with Lapsang Souchong Tea: As its name implies, there's an awful lot going on in this beer. I'm not much of a tea drinker, but I love both smoke and Scottish ales, so I decided to give it a go. It poured a clear ruby color in the glass with a small cream-colored head that dissipated to a collar. The smoke was definitely evident in the nose. Mouthfeel was light and the carbonation level was okay. The flavor profile had the clean malt elements that you expect from a colder fermenting Scottish ale, plus a strong overlay of the smoky notes. I had a hard time picking up the tea (though perhaps that's because my palate is a bit "tea ignorant"), but I finally thought I picked up some tannic dryness that could well have been the tea's contribution to the overall flavor picture. A very unusual beer, but one I found I liked, a bit to my surprise. 5% ABV.

Sierra Nevada's 2018 Bigfoot Barley Wine: Like most craft beer drinkers my age, this beer and I go way back. I've been drinking Bigfoot for over 30 years. I can remember haunting the one liquor store in Honolulu in the early 90s with a decent beer selection, waiting for the Bigfoot to appear following its annual March release. Over the course of those three-plus decades, I decided that I like it best after it's been cellared for a year. So I'm only now opening the bottles I purchased last year. This batch poured a slightly cloudy honey color with a small but peristent cream-colored head. The nose was chock full of American hops and sweet malt notes. Mouthfeel was medium and the carbonation was excellent. On the tongue it was smooth, with both hop bitterness and hop flavor, attached to the strong malt backbone. The first of the American-style barley wines and still, in many ways, the best. An American classic that is simply not to be missed! 9.6% ABV, 90 IBUs.

Well, that's it for this post. I'll be doing some interviews for my radio show at the start of the Frozen River Fest on Saturday, so if you see me there and would like to be on the radio, don't be shy. Just step up and say hello and you can tell my listeners what you think.

Until Next Time, Cheers!