A Dispatch from America's Last Frontier
Pandemic reopenings, pandemic closings, and 36 damn ounces of beer
Hello from the weird, wild, and wonderful state of Alaska. This past week has been a once-in-a-lifetime visit to the 49th state, and I saw a Southeast Alaska that nearly no visitor has seen: one devoid of cruise ships and a healthy tourism industry. My past four days have been spent in Skagway and Haines, two towns that are typically fed by visitors off cruise ships and by road from the Alaska Highway over the Canadian border. With the border closed and large cruise ships not expected to visit until late July, I had the tourist town of Skagway all to myself, as Broadway in downtown is pictured above at 9pm on Monday night. In Haines, I was a novelty as a visitor, much to the bemusement of the locals — “wait, why exactly did you come to Haines,” was a common utterance. In both towns, I was kindly welcomed into breweries and had some great conversations with brewers and staff. One, Skagway Brewing Co., even opened their normally-closed doors on a Tuesday morning so I could look around and purchase some crowlers. I can’t really say that my experiences are indicative of what you’ll experience in these places if you visit once the tourism industry roars back, but I’ll treasure my experiences this past week forever.
Back to normal? Bars and restaurants grapple with lifting of all restrictions
On Tuesday, the state announced that with 70% of New Yorkers with at least one vaccination, all remaining Covid-related restrictions would be lifted. This decision appeared to be the one that some venues in New York City saw as a green-light. Torch and Crown Brewing, for example, announced they would remove all barriers and go to 100% capacity, with standing and ordering at the bar returning. d.b.a. East Village officially reopened on Monday after a nearly 15-month hiatus. Some privately-imposed restrictions remain, and you should obviously continue to respect any rules as directed by service employees, and treat them exceptionally well.
Meanwhile, there is still no clear direction on whether to-go and delivery alcohol polices enacted by the State Liquor Authority will continue beyond their current expiration date, July 5th. The New York Assembly and Senate did not pass a bill to make these permanent before their session ended earlier this month, which leaves this policy up to the whims of the SLA. The authority has not indicated that they will suspend these rules, but in Pennsylvania, a state with an absurdly strict liquor control board, bars that had offered to-go drinks and outdoor dining had the rug pulled out from under them within hours of the legislature ending the governor’s emergency declaration.
Milk & Hops Ramen Bar closes its doors
Meanwhile, as some beer-centric bars are reopening, another one has announced it could not sustain the time it had bought during the pandemic. Milk and Hops Ramen Bar, a popular beer bar, beer shop, and noodle purveyor on the Upper East Side, announced its closure this week. “It's bittersweet that New York City is reopening as the expenses of the pandemic come due and force us to make a difficult decision,” a post to the bar’s Instragram profile explains, where they also cite those leaving the neighborhood and working from home for a lack of business upon reopening for on-premise drinking last June. The bar had been open since for nearly four years and was the third iteration of Milk & Hops in Manhattan. The first, on Broadway in Greenwich Village, closed in 2018. The second, in Chelsea, will continue to operate.
Brewery Tracker
Total brewery count: 2,255
New breweries in 2021: 181
Breweries visited in Alaska: 16
Brewery Visit of the Week
Brewery #2254, Haines Brewing Company, Haines, Alaska (Visited 15-Jun-2021)
Paul Wheeler has been brewing professionally in Haines, Alaska, a town of little more than seventeen hundred people, for over two decades. His beer shows a deep appreciation for both simplicity (the Buster Board Lager) and complexity (the Rye Barrel IPA aged in barrels from the local distillery in town, Port Chilkoot Distillery). It’s a feat to have opened a brewery in 1999 that’s still around today. Many that opened that year barely saw the back half of this century’s first decade. The self-taught brewer grew his business into a beautiful new location about five years ago, and his brewery has been very reliant on two major events in Haines: the annual beer festival, which hasn’t been held since 2019, and the local fair, which will be held this summer but without being able to draw visitors from across the border in nearby Yukon Territory, Canada. Paul told me his production was cut in half last year compared to the year before, and 2021 isn’t looking too much better.
On a brighter note, this small town has rallied around their local brewery since the tourist trade vanished during the pandemic. Paul and his wife Jeanne knew the name of virtually everyone who stepped through the door, and a lot of people stepped through the door in my three hours visiting. Business was swift, as it has been all winter. After Haines suffered an incredibly tragic natural disaster in December, it felt like the town rallied around its local businesses more than ever.
And here I am, this tourist from New York City, having very little in common with anyone at this taproom, but still feeling welcomed as part of this community, if just for a night. It was hard to leave this place. Unfortunately, Alaska’s beer laws made it necessary, as it didn’t allow me to have another beer.
Alcohol Policy Nerdity of the Week
Ugh, don’t get me started on Alaska’s thirty-six-ounce limit per person, per day at brewery taprooms. And really don’t get me started about how the simple, uncontroversial acts of playing board games or strumming on an acoustic guitar are illegal in Alaskan breweries. And really, really don’t get me started on how two legislators that were bar owners proposed a bill in 2018 to reduce the limit to twenty-four ounces. As is the case with a similar rule in Montana, the root cause of this is that Alaska is yet another state that sets an artificial limit on the number of liquor licenses. That’s sensible, but then Alaska idiotically allows the holders of those licenses to sell them on the open market, rather than surrender them to the state and let new license holders apply. So when the value of your license for your shitty bar hits six figures and someone has the gall to want to sell two pints of beer that they manufactured on-site with a three-thousand dollar license, you see that as a threat. Dozens of states have figured this out, but Alaska is another one that cannot seem to recognize the very obvious problem isn’t breweries — it’s the licensing, stupid.
Beer of the Week
HammerStone
Klondike Brewing Co. (Skagway, Alaska)
American IPA
7.6% ABV
I might have spent more time hanging out with Joel Probst and Damian Olivato from Klondike Brewing Co. than I did in my own hotel room while I was visiting Skagway. When I walked into the brewery on Sunday afternoon, we immediately hit it off. These two were incredibly kind to show me around the brewery, talk shop, talk about life in Skagway, and pour me countless glasses of this impeccable IPA after-hours. It’s sneaky as it approaches 8%, but the citrusy, pleasantly bitter hop character on the HammerStone, along with a nice, mild malty sweetness and, most importantly, you can see through it. This beer was everything I wanted in a West Coast IPA, and it stood out on a menu that included three clean, flawless lagers, a barrel-aged Blonde Ale, and a delightfully boozy Imperial Stout. I really hope our paths cross again, guys.
Long Read of the Week
It’s not long, and it’s more university communications than journalism, but it’s exciting to see that Cornell AgriTech is finally launching a hop breeding program for New York State. New York’s hop industry needs this in order to continue its growth, and it would be thrilling to have unique New York (sorry, Anchorman fans) hops that brewers here could celebrate in their beers statewide.
One more thing
There’s nothing else to say, because while you’re reading this on Thursday morning, I will already be awake to catch an ungodly 5:10am AKDT flight back towards New York. This is without a doubt the earliest flight I’ve ever taken, as local time goes. Don’t pity me — this whole trip was totally worth the early wakeup call, so here’s a picture of some sea lions I saw yesterday morning:
Cheers,
Chris