Travel Reference
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business. Dayton Canaday, the first employee they ever hired, is still there, and now they
are using employees in their ads. A cutout of Brent Kesey, the head brewer, stands in the
lobby holding a king salmon. Starbucks could take lessons from ABC.
“We voted on the new brewery,” she says, and then shows it to me. Stainless steel ves-
sels line up like a tank farm, the bottling line snakes back and forth on conveyor belts, and
the warehouse-sized cold box is full of shiny silver kegs and cases of bottles stacked up to
the ceiling waiting to be shipped. “We've got an average growth rate of 35 percent,” Kristi
says, which explains why practically every piece of equipment is brand new and bigger.
They've got a new palletizer, a new steam cleaner for cleaning kegs, a new bottling line
(“The old one looked like Laverne and Shirley”), a new caser. “When I started,” Kristi
says, “we hand packed the cases.”
I ask Kristi how many awards the brewery has won and a pained expression crosses her
face. “I'll have to get the list,” she says, and comes back with a full page of very small
print, listing eight awards for my favorite, Alaskan Amber, alone. ABC's Smoked Porter
is the most award-winning porter in America. The brewery consistently sweeps awards at
the Great American Beer Festival every year (“It's kind of like the beer Olympics,” Kristi
says, “if you like beer it's like Disneyland.”).
The Smoked Porter story is part of the brewery's fast-growing legend. Taku Smokeries,
a local smokehouse specializing in smoking salmon and halibut, used to be across the
street from ABC. In the fall, when both businesses used to have a slow season, the ABC
crew and the Taku crew would sit around together and eat rejects off the smoking line and
drink rejects off the bottling line. Finally Geoff said, “Maybe we should try alder smoking
the grain.” They did, and “It was a hit,” Kristi says.
The Smoked Porter is Kristi's favorite among ABC's brews, and while I'm not a big fan
of dark beer her description makes me salivate. “As the beer ages the smoke wears off, be-
comes more of a subtle background, plum, raisiny, sherry. After a while it reverts back.”
The brewery puts up only 300 barrels of the porter each fall, and “we get emails and calls
from all over. It's really got a cult following.” Her husband puts it in his beef stroganoff,
his specialty. Kristi reports that it is heavenly.
I could care less about beer awards, all I know is it tastes good. Kristi pulls me a snort
of Alaskan Winter Ale. Oooh. Traditional English old ale. Malty, all the taste buds on my
