When I mentioned to friends my intent to visit Alaska in January, most of them thought I was quite insane. But the opportunity to visit Anchorage for their much-respected mid-winter Beer and Barley Wine Festival was not something I was willing to pass up, regardless of what snow and cold I might be risking.
As it turned out, though, the weather up there was little different than the weather in Toronto at the time - temperatures hovering on either side of freezing and very little snow. And while I expected to find some very good beer in Alaska, having tasted brews from such impressive and lauded operations as Juneau's Alaskan Brewing and Anchorage's Midnight Sun, I was scarcely prepared for the remarkable seafood that awaited my appetite.
From the day I arrived, I feasted on some of the freshest and most flavourful fish I have ever had the pleasure of encountering. Even the modest pieces of lightly battered and fried halibut that they serve as an appetizer at Humpy's Great Alaskan Alehouse were almost impossibly tender, juicy and delicious, to say nothing of the stunning sushi, king crab legs, white and red king salmon and other assorted delicacies I was able to try over the course of my five days in town.
I will return to Anchorage and hope to visit other parts of Alaska as well. But next time I'll go with a ravenous appetite for the state's remarkable seafood as much as with a taste for their fine ale.
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