Day 25 – 49th State Brewery


The tiny town of Healy, Alaska, is home to a tasty little brewery & restaurant. It is also, the home of the bus from the movie “Into the Wild”. It turns out the event that the book and movie are based on took place about 40 miles south of Healy on the Teklanika River.

After the movie came out, many people decided they had to go into the wild to see the bus where the main character, Chris, died. Many of those… can they be called thrill seekers? Or, maybe just crazy people… either drowned or had to be rescued by local emergency crews of Healy. Eventually, the Parks department had the bus removed in order to stop the treacherous pilgrimage.

Regardless of the movie notoriety, this little brewery has quite a name up here in Alaska on its own merit. The food and beer certainly aren’t just survival necessities. Our flight of beer had a smooth stout, a tasty raspberry blonde, and a tart blueberry beer. The food was delicious, as well as, unique. Pat had a ginormous Yak burger and I had flatbread topped with ranch, smoked chicken, and bacon. The flatbread was essentially like a pizza, but with a bread crust. Very tasty food, and a fun atmosphere with live edge tables, and a wall behind the bar lined with spruce tree trunks. Everything hit the spot after all our diligent mountain and animal watching of the previous days.

Cheers!

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