Alaskan Brewing Introduces Alaskan Smoked Porter

In 1988, Alaskan Brewing Company in Juneau introduced Alaskan Smoked Porter. Rather than reproduce a Bamberg Rauchbier directly, the brewery combined a porter base with malt smoked over alderwood, traditionally used in Alaska to smoke fish and meat. Alaskan Brewing smoked portions of the malt itself in a repurposed commercial salmon smoker, giving the beer a distinctly regional interpretation of smoked-malt brewing. Alaskan Smoked Porter became a landmark of the American craft-beer movement and one of the best-known smoked beers produced outside Franconia. Its repeated success at the Great American Beer Festival and other competitions demonstrated that smoke could support styles beyond Bamberg’s traditional Märzen-like lagers. Later craft brewers expanded the idea further through smoked porters, stouts, lagers, and experimental beers made with different woods and levels of smoke.