Marcy: It went by so fast—in some ways. It seems like forever ago that we were first were trying to raise the money and all that, but on the other hand, it’s a fast 25 years when you look back.

Geoff: It’s also amazing, boy, what the industry’s gone through, what was believed to be the course to success 25 years ago. That really was a different era.

What would be the major differences?

Geoff: There wasn’t an awareness of craft beer, beyond a small eclectic few.

Marcy: “Craft beer” meant dark beer. Everyone said, “Oh, you must be making dark beer.”

Geoff: And the idea that if it’s gonna be made locally, it’s gonna be cheap: cheap ingredients, cheap manufacturing, cheap flavor. There were very few breweries when we started, and today it’s a different world.

Even among that unusual group of people who opened microbreweries back then, you choose a remarkably challenging location. You knew from the start that everything but the water would have to be brought in from outside.

Marcy: We did. We actually did several iterations of our business plan until we were really convinced that this could work.

How did it all begin?

Geoff: This is Marcy’s story, but she’s losing her voice. Our background is eclectic: her training was in photo-journalism, but she had a real knack with numbers, like accounting and bookkeeping. My background was engineering. We both enjoyed working: we took our jobs home. And then, we also enjoyed beer.

The idea came up in ‘80 or ‘81, about starting a brewery in Alaska. Marcy had a full-time job in the Department of Revenue and I had a job working at a gold mine. When the mine shut its doors, we made a decision that this was the time to start pursuing what it would take to start a brewing business.

Neither one of you is from Alaska originally. Had you experienced the beginnings of craft brewing culture elsewhere in the country?

Geoff: Not at all.

“We have no earthly clue where this rumor came from,” says Alaskan co-Founder Marcy Larson. “At first we thought it was a joke, that maybe someone had hacked into the CBN.”

The CBN also referenced Alaskan’s slower volume growth among other top 20 craft brewers, which Alaskan explains was the result of consciously limited distribution and a planned pricing decision.

“We have not engaged in the price wars or rapid expansion of other craft brewers and we have remained profitable,” said Brewery co-Founder Geoff Larson. “Over the last ten years, the price of oil, a cup of coffee and nearly everything else has gone up.  Even the price of mass-produced beer has gone up, yet craft beer pricing remains at levels lower than those of a decade ago. In 2010, we chose a sustainable pricing strategy over the volume chase and are happy with where we ended up. We are proud to say that our growth has allowed us to issue profit sharing to our employees and investors for the last 15 years running and we are investing in state of the art brewing technology to help us remain a sustainable, profitable and independent brewery in Alaska for years to come.”

As a celebration of their 25th year of operation in Juneau, Alaskan is releasing a limited-edition Russian imperial stout brewed with alder-smoked malt, birch syrup and fireweed honey from Alaska. Named for the local mining history and the unique challenges of brewing award-winning craft beer from a remote Alaska town, Alaskan Perseverance Ale releases this September.

This beer is part of Alaskan Brewing Company‘s Pilot Series. The beers in the series get draft-tested before making the jump to being bottled in 22 oz bottles. As a draft this was known as Alaskan XTRATUF® IPA, its name coming from the iconic boots that are a spring time staple in Alaska (as well as in brewhouses).