For the love of song and drink

MAT-SU -- Bill Weith believes in tradition. He believes in people drinking beer together and singing together. He believes in good conversation and good food.

Weith believes in these things so much, he decided to do something about it. He built a bar on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway where these things could take place -- Schwabenhof.

After 25 years as a law enforcement officer -- five in California, 20 as an Alaska State Trooper -- Weith retired and, as he put it, "my wife said if she had to work, I had to work. So I opened this place."

Weith said there were two ideas behind the making of Schwabenhof. It had to be as Alaskan as it could be, so he built it with his own two hands out of logs. And the building had to be an octagon. While working in Athabaskan villages on the Yukon River for five years as a state trooper, Weith noticed that all the village halls were octagon-shaped.

"The halls are as round as they can make them with logs. Everybody is equally important, everybody should have their say, nobody is left out," Weith said. "I didn't want any dark corners in my place for people to sit and feel lonely and left out. I wanted people to be comfortable."

Comfortable is a word that describes both Schwabenhof and Weith himself. All the more so because Schwabenhof is a kind of embodiment of Weith, an extension of his personality and vision.

Weith was raised on a dairy farm in Wisconsin by a Swedish mother and a German father. His father was a welder and his mother ran the dairy farm with the kids.

"We were poor farmers," Weith said. "We never had a TV. Our entertainment was sitting around the table singing songs."

And Weith still sings. He sings bass for the Alaska Chamber Singers; he sings with his friends' bands when they come in to play and he spontaneously sings German drinking songs behind the bar whenever there is a request, which is almost every day.

Growing up on the farm in Wisconsin, Weith ate German and Swedish foods. He learned how to prepare real Bavarian kraut from his mother, and now he serves it at Schwabenhof on the weekends.

"People who don't think they like sauerkraut will come in and try some, and next thing you know they've ordered up a full plate of it," Weith said. "But I make it the traditional way, which most people haven't ever had."

But if Weith has educated his patrons about real German kraut, he has enlightened them about real German beer. It was a mainstay growing up on the farm; Weith remembers having good German beer with dinner when he was a child. Beer was always around, but drinking wasn't about getting drunk, it was about being together. This attitude, like so much about Weith, has shaped Schwabenhof.

"No one should come in here expecting to get a cheap drunk," Weith said. "A lot of these German beers have quite a bit more alcohol in them than a normal beer, so it forces people to pace themselves and drink responsibly. And it's really about relaxing and talking anyway."

There are three things Weith says he loves to do that have nothing to do with making money or running Schwabenhof: Drink German beer, cook German food, and sing songs. His business has exploded, he said, and grown far beyond his expectations. So far, in fact, he says it's time to sell it.

"It's just too much work," Weith said. "A small place like this has to be hands-on. I have to be here watching it and taking care of it every day. I prepare and serve the food, it's part of my personal involvement in the place. Could I hire someone else to do it? Sure, but it wouldn't be the same."

And despite the hard work, Weith says he loves the community that has been established at Schwabenhof. When things get really busy, it's the kind of place where the regular customers start helping out behind the bar and ask for nothing in return.

"Not a day goes by where I don't sing a song and have fun," Weith said. "My wife and I will miss all the wonderful friends we've made through this business."

When the place does sell, Weith will devote his time to finishing his own log home, which he put on hold while he built Schwabenhof. He also has seven antique John Deere tractors, ranging from 1937 to 1955, that are all in pieces, waiting to be restored.

And he will travel. Weith said he is going to buy a Harley hog and go down the old Route 66 with his wife, from San Diego to Chicago.

For the time being, though, Weith will continue to sing, serve up kraut, drink good German beer and enjoy the community he has created in Schwabenhof. But he will not miss it.

"I've been here, done it, had my fun," Weith said. "It's just like when people ask me, after wearing a badge and a gun for 25 years, do you miss it? Hell no. I enjoyed it while I did it, if I could do it over again I wouldn't do anything different, but it's time to move on."