The Thirsty Traveler Visits Alaska

I have to say, I love my TiVo.  There is a feature called Wishlist where you can enter a keyword and TiVo finds all programs with that word in the title or description.  So, being who I am, I entered “beer.”  I waded through the results and found a few shows that seemed interesting.  The one that jumped out as a very interesting show was “The Thirsty Traveler.” 

The show I caught was a feature on Alaskan beer.  He started with a trip to Anchorage and Sleeping Lady Brewing Co.  Apparently the folks of Anchorage like their beers strong as most of the beers prepared at this pub are 9% and up.

The next segment took him south to Juneau to Alaskan Brewing Company.  This included a trip to the Taku Smokeries, where they usually smoke salmon, but Alaskan has their barley smoked in alder for a day and a half for their famous Smoked Porter.  What I really liked is they showed the full brewing process.  Most homebrewers could follow along, knowing what was going on, and for the novice, they did a fair job of explaining grist, sweet wort, and all the other funny words us brewers use in the process.

After an introduction to the “brew crew,” they did a potluck at the head brewers home.  There was some great recipes for marinated black cod in Smoked Porter, salmon in their amber and dungeness crab, a local favorite here in the Bay Area.  The gave brief description of the recipes, but posted the salmon marinade on their website for those who want t try it at home.  I’ll be trying this at some point and sharing the results with you all.

The show finished  with the host attempting, unsuccessfully, to catch some salmon on the Yukon River.  At the close he pulled out a growler from Sleeping Lady and toasted with his tin cup.

I took a look at the episode guide and they have a handful of beer themed shows.  From the other episodes I’ve seen, this guy likes to drink and eat well.  It’s a fun watch, and for beer fans, he didn’t seem to dumb down the subject.  Check it out on the Fine Living Network, it seems to be on a lot.