DR. FERMENTO: Matanuska Brewing Company launches

The team at Matanuska Brewing Company in Palmer is busy. They're not only producing Glacier Brewhouse beers that are now available in cans in a unique partnership where both brewers came from, but they're on the cusp of launching the Matanuska Brewing Company line of four initial beers that will debut on May 16 during a special celebration at the Palmer City Alehouse.

The Glacier beers started showing up in grog shops across the state in early April. The Matanuska Brewing beers will follow. Destined to become one of the larger production breweries in the state, things are full steam ahead.

"So far we've made 1,600 barrels of beer in two months," says Glacier's former brewer Kevin Burton. "That's 40 batches. We started brewing right at our capacity," says another former brewer, Jason Wood, or "Woody," as he's know in the industry.

Burton started at Glacier 20 years ago. Burton opened the brewery in Anchorage working part time. He brewed his first beer there in March of 1997 and became head brewer in 2001. Woody was Burton's assistant brewer. They both went their own way. Burton left Glacier and did a stint at Midnight Sun Brewing Company, then came back to Glacier. Woody moved away from brewing and headed into the brewing world to work for Alaska's renown craft brewing distributor - Specialty Imports.

"I started at Glacier, worked there for five years, then 'rested' for 15 years at Specialty, where I watched the industry from the other side," says Woody. He lives in Palmer and covered the Matanuska Valley for Specialty.

Burton is ecstatic with Woody's coming back to the brewing side. "I couldn't believe Woody was available and wanted to come back to brewing," he says. We worked so well together at Glacier. We think the same way and we're in sync. We're a bad ass brewing team."

Woody's just as excited, but it's taken some adjustment to get back into the more physical brewing world. "I take a lot of ibuprofen and I've lost a lot of weight. It came back rapidly actually; I love it, love it, love it. I feel been re-baptized; it's the greatest choice I've made. That was the best decision I've made in a long time. It feels really good to rediscover my passion," he says.

Woody's found a purpose and a new lease on life. "It's a beautiful thing to combine the science and art and wake up and to that every day. I did a lot of miles every month; now I'm five miles from the house. As soon as I am not working 14 hours a day I'll start riding my bike here."

Woody loves Palmer; he's lived there most of his adult life. "I'm all about Palmer," he says. "There's plenty of room for more brewing out here. There's room for everyone in this market, even our large brewery. We're not really competing with anyone out here; we're just adding more choices for local beer. The community is really behind this."

Burton knows this; Woody wasn't involved in initially getting the community to come on board with the idea of another brewery to move in alongside Palmer's Arkose Brewery and Bleeding Heart Brewing Company, already firmly entrenched in that part of the Matanuska Valley.

But with the plans of taking over and revitalizing the historic Matanuska Maid Creamery property and infusing a little cash into the community, Matanuska's plan quickly found favor.

"Oh, everyone was stoked," Burton assures me. "We bought the property. It was commercial, but light industrial since the 1950's. We made the big presentation to the community council. We convinced them that we're not a big smokestack polluting industry; far from that. We want to bring something to old town Palmer," he says. "When it came time for the vote, the first one was 'not only yeah, but hell yeah,' and it went around the room like that," says Burton of the enthusiasm.

The brewery's massive production uses a lot of grain. "It's a much larger scale than I'm used to," says Burton and Woody, comparing their new operation to the former brewing schedule at Glacier Brewhouse. "We'll use up to 10,000 pounds of malt a day. I've got another 100,000 pounds coming in this week," says Burton of current brewing operations.

This isn't bothering the community and in fact, the used or "spent" grain makes an excellent addition to the diet of the Valley's livestock. Palmer's reindeer herders have chase the stuff from our local breweries for years. "We're talking to a cattle rancher and a bison rancher. She watches with her binoculars from a couple of blocks away where she can see us brewing. As soon as we're pushing it out, she's coming to get some of it," says Burton.

There won't be any lack of it. "We're triple brewing three times a week," says Woody. "We're cranking out at capacity and churning out 240 barrels a week. That's three 40 barrel batches into 120 barrel tanks. It takes from around 7 am until at least 9 pm on those days," he says.

To help out, Burton also brought on another ex-Glacier employee. "We all share all of the responsibilities," says Burton. I brought on Josh Irish who used to work for me. He was washing tanks, knew the cellar and has a lot of experience in the micromatic draft system we use. He'd probably still be at Palmer, but couldn't make the commute any more. We're three strong brewing guys, and we'll have a total of five people out here working this week," says Burton of his efforts to ramp up for the busy summer season.

Burton's adding a tasting room attendant to serve beer from the brewery. Understand Matanuska is a brewery and not a brewpub or restaurant; the tasting room is pretty much for samples only. People are directed to Palmer City Alehouse across the street for now, where good food and both Matanuska and Glacier beers are plentiful, along with other beers from around the state and nation.

Palmer City's Matt Tomter is part of the team at Matanuska and has the beer on there and at his other two establishments, Eagle River Alehouse and Anchorage Alehouse. If you want a sneak peak at some of Alaska's newest beers, until the opening celebration on May 16, chase it now at one of these three locations. Pack Raft Red, Long Track IPA, Snow Bike White and Sky Cab Gold Pale Ale will bait your palate from Matanuska Brewing Company in the coming days.

Once everything's adjusted and things are humming along, Burton plans on beer festivals on the lawn between the brewery and the Alehouse, music events and block parties. As for brewing operations, there aren't any plans to take over the valley or the world. "Oh, the brewery will be thriving 10 years for now for sure," says Burton. Alaska's our target market for now. We only want to get so big. We want to get to a certain level, make the quality consistent and we'll grow from there along with the demand, I guess," he says of his objective of just getting 12 pack cans of Matanuska beer to market while continuing to serve the demand for Glacier's beer.

Pencil the 16th in on your calendar. Head out to the Palmer City Alehouse and join in the celebration of the official launch of Matanuska Brewing Company. Nervis Rex will be on hand, so come out, try the beers and meet Alaska's newest, but highly seasoned brewing team.