One year of making tracks at Bear Paw

Last year on December 19 I drove to Wasilla to attend the grand opening of Bearpaw River Brewing Company. The wind buffeted Ms. Fermento’s SUV and a stiff breeze tugged at our clothing as we left the vehicle which made walking into the warm, spacious tap room all the more welcoming.

Brothers Jack, Jed, Jake and James Wade paced around nervously waiting for their father to tap the first beer at this family-run, family-oriented brewery in the Valley — the second to open in Wasilla — joining Last Frontier Brewing Company.

“It’s a big family business, there’s no doubt about it,” says Jake. “Everyone does their part. My wife is in here with me today doing the chalk board with the beer menu on it.”

Each of the brothers has a part, but Jake’s the full-time guy you’re most likely to run into on a daily basis at the Palmer-Wasilla Highway location. Looking back over the past year, he’s learned a lot.

“I guess we knew it would be a lot of work, but I underestimated the amount of hours it takes,” he admits. There’s no one else going to do it for you. No one’s going to mop the floor except you. I’m down here seven days a week, even still.”

Success comes at a price, but it has rewards. “We were surprised by how well we’ve been received,” he told me. “We had no idea if it would start slow and gradual, but the tap room is certainly the heart of the business.”

Beer’s all about people, especially in Alaska where breweries quickly become community gathering places. “The best part about this business and the best part of my day is the people,” says Jake, although he spends the majority of the time in the back tending to brewing operations.

“I’ve met people that live down the street from me that I would have never known. Our locals are our regulars. I see them coming in every week getting a growler filled, having a pint or two and talking to their friends and neighbors. We definitely have a following and a core group that keeps our doors open, and it’s nice to be able to sit down and chat with them and catch up once in awhile.”

There was never any concern that Bear Paw would be in competition with Last Frontier or Palmer’s breweries—Arkose Brewery and Bleeding Heart Brewing Company—the same people frequent them all. “There’s a lot of room for beer in Alaska. We’ve always said ‘The more the merrier.’ My dad asked me the other day, ‘After a year do you still feel the rising tides float all ships?’ I do. The other breweries aren’t taking business from me and I’m not taking business from them; we all get along because we all know it’s good for the industry,” Jake said.

Bear Paw’s never had global aspirations. “You can only sell beer as fast as you can make it. We’re not planning on distributing our beer right away. We’re going to sell out of the tap room for a couple of months and see how it flows. I don’t want to commit to a bar or brewery and run out,” Jed told me last year.

Jake understands this, too. The brewery started self-distributing to select accounts in Anchorage. Jed works and lives in Anchorage and works sales for the family operation. “I had a red ‘91 F150. We would sling the kegs in the back and drive them to Anchorage. It was like in month five that it really started moving,” Jake explained. “It got very difficult because we didn’t have a structure for self distribution; it was never going to be a long-term thing.”

“[Anchorage Specialty Imports] picked up beer for the first time in mid-December. We couldn’t be happier. As far as growth is concerned, you have to be very careful because you can’t run out. The advice Specialty gives us is to grow at the speed we can and want to. We want to grow, obviously, but carefully. Specialty gets this and they are like part of the family,” says Jake. “It’s better to not gain an account than to gain one and not be able to service it”.

The family would rather focus on making good beer and serving it to the community than struggle with distribution woes. “It’s really complex and when we started feeling it, that’s when we contacted Specialty.”

Distribution changes things. “I just brewed when I felt like it when the tap room needed beer. I made whatever I wanted,” says Jake of the early days. “The tap room is still the focal point, but beer’s getting picked up every week and I have to have beer in kegs, on a pallet, all wrapped up and ready to go every week. The production side of things added the need for new organization and scheduling skills.”

Another milestone for Bear Paw is bottling beer. The brewery’s anniversary beer, an Imperial Stout, will release in 22-ounce bomber bottles at the anniversary celebration at the brewery on December 17. The brewery won’t be distributing the beer any time soon, so you’ll have to visit the tap room to score a bottle.

Bottled beer is personal to Jake. “There’s something special about a bottle of beer. You can bring it home, pour yourself a glass and read the label and even sit it aside to look at once in awhile. It’s something more tangible.”

Bear Paw’s approach is slow, calculated growth. “We’re going to have a little cooler in the tap room, like most every other brewery. Doing it in house lets us ride the learning curve and not rush it too much. We have more control over it here at the brewery. We don’t want to rush it and we want to get it right before we distribute it,” says Jake.

There are no expansion plans for 2017 in the works. “We really kind of just grew into our space the first year. We learned and acquired some of the tools necessary to make a decent amount of beer and make it right. We got a forklift. We bought more kegs a couple of times,” Jake says.

“There’s so many things you go into and you think you have all of your bases covered. The first year taught us to go slow.”

And for Jake and his brothers, slow and steady seems to work. “We’re a 10-barrel brewhouse with four 10-barrel fermenters and two 10-barrel bright tanks. We’re brewing twice a week and we’re pretty much in the groove. The tanks are always full, we don’t feel stretched or cramped, but we’ve got room to grow,” he says.