Homebrew supply store's expansion reflects demand

WASILLA — What started as an ad on Craigslist for home brewers seeking supplies has resulted in an establishment for the increasingly beer-savvy masses.

Brian Walters “opened” Alaska Home Brew Supply online in 2011, after realizing the severe lack in local resources for home brewers in the Mat-Su Valley.

“The only place to go was Anchorage,” he said.

Walters had begun brewing his own beer as a hobby just a couple years prior, and after seeing the prices for the ingredients available in state, he set out to look for a cheaper way to provide Valley residents with high-end hops and grains.

He pulled in his connections in the shipping industry in the Lower 48 to arrange cut-rate delivery to his garage, where customers could pick up what they ordered. Word spread and demand increased to the point where Walters decided the Valley was ready for a full-blown, walk-in brewing supply store.

This summer, he opened a shop at 617 S. Knik-Goose Bay Rd., in the Wasilla business complex south of the Valley Native Primary Care Center.

“The web business really helped a lot as far as building a customer base,” Walters said.

It also showed him that he is by no means in the minority as a home brewer. According to an American Homebrewers Association survey from 2012, there are more than 1.2 million home brewers in the United States.

“The home brewing hobby has been growing pretty steadily over the last 10 years,” Walters said.

Part of the reason for that may be access to quality ingredients. When Walters was brewing in the mid-1990s, brewers were “really limited” in what they could get, “and the quality was suspect,” he said.

Now, “you’re able to get the exact same stuff the breweries are getting,” he said.

That’s certainly true in Alaska, where operations like Bleeding Heart Brewery in Palmer (not yet open) and Odd Man Rush Brewing in Eagle River have been ordering from Walters in the same way any home brewer would.

Bleeding Heart co-founder Stefan Marty said he found Walters’ business while “frantically scouring the Internet” for last-minute supplies several years ago. After that, he never looked back.

“He is an incredible wealth of knowledge and an incredible brewer,” Marty said. “He could pretty much answer any question you have about brewing.”

Marty said once Bleeding Heart is open for business and in full production mode, the company will likely be ordering from the Lower 48 directly. But having a supply store close by will allow the brewery to conveniently make quick test batches.

Walters has been making or arranging deliveries all over the state, and Valley residents aren’t the only ones who are starting to see the promise and relevance of Alaska Home Brew Supply. Eagle River resident James Strzemtka — who calls himself a “beer connoisseur — said he would “totally drive out” to Wasilla for his home brewing needs. He described Walters as “more personable” than supply business owners he’s dealt with in the past. Strzemtka gets most of his supplies in Anchorage, where he said the vibe is much less intimate.

“I’ve spent thousands of dollars a year there and they don’t even know my name,” Strzemtka said.

However, the Valley as a whole is just a different place than Anchorage, he said, and the tighter community may mean more success for Walters than elsewhere.

“All those farmers and everything are out in the Valley,” he said. “It seems like the style of living out there is going to support home brewing more than Anchorage would.”

But wherever a home brewer is located, having an artistic side — in addition to a local supply of ingredients — will help him or her in the brewing process, Walters said.

“If you can think of it, you can make it,” he said.

It helps to start with the recipe for a kind of beer you already know you like, Walters said, but after making a few batches to understand the general science of home brewing, it’s no holds barred — whether that means dropping a bratwurst into the mix like Marty once did, or simply adjusting the fermentation temperature for a slightly different body and flavor.

And with the kind of access to quality ingredients and home brewing knowledge people have now, whatever a brewer makes — even on the stove top — is usually something worth sharing.

“It’s not labeled as grandpa’s hooch anymore,” he said.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.