Craft breweries Juneau?

[surgie]

We have one day in Juneau in July 2024 on a RCCL cruise ship stop (1:00-10:00). We have an excursion planned with time at the end. Some people in our family enjoy local craft beers. Is there a particular one you'd recommend that also has good food and is suitable for kids (5-11)?

[Aquahound]

You'll need to take about a 20-minute taxi ride to Auck Bay, but Forbidden Peak is my favorite craft brewery in Juneau.  They serve food, are kid friendly, and have a great view.  It's more of a locals brewery, which means less crowds.  It's very spacious.  

 

If you want to stay in town, Devil's Club is walkable from the ship.  The beer is good but due to location, it gets pretty full with ship tourists.    

Edited November 15, 2023 by Aquahound

[Coral]

14 hours ago, Aquahound said:

You'll need to take about a 20-minute taxi ride to Auck Bay, but Forbidden Peak is my favorite craft brewery in Juneau.  They serve food, are kid friendly, and have a great view.  It's more of a locals brewery, which means less crowds.  It's very spacious.  

If one is whale watching - you would probably be close to this. You could combine activities.

[nini]

My DH and BIL really enjoy Alaskan beer. They have a storefront in town and you take their shuttle from there to the brewery and tour. It is really popular beer here in the Northwest.

 

https://www.alaskanbeer.com/

[Jeeden]

Yup, as said above, Alaskan Brewing was great for us last summer. Our large group all did the glacier early in the day and then we split to downtown/fish hatchery with the kids and met back up at the downtown Alaskan Brewing Public house for beers and afternoon snack before going back to the ship. It was a great location with plenty of room in the back. Pretzel bites and beer cheese were incredible, we got like 20 orders of them and the beer was good.

 

Edited December 27, 2023 by Jeeden

[nini]

34 minutes ago, Jeeden said:

Yup, as said above, Alaskan Brewing was great for us last summer. Our large group all did the glacier early in the day and then we split to downtown/fish hatchery with the kids and met back up at the downtown Alaskan Brewing Public house for beers and afternoon snack before going back to the ship. It was a great location with plenty of room in the back. Pretzel bites and beer cheese were incredible, we got like 20 orders of them and the beer was good.

 

 

Yes, we did whale watching first and then met my sister and BIL for the Alaskan Brewery tour. It was a great day in Juneau!

[Vagabond Knight]

On 11/12/2023 at 7:59 PM, surgie said:

We have one day in Juneau in July 2024 on a RCCL cruise ship stop (1:00-10:00). We have an excursion planned with time at the end. Some people in our family enjoy local craft beers. Is there a particular one you'd recommend that also has good food and is suitable for kids (5-11)?

My husband and I are also craft beer aficionados (and home brewers).  We have been to Alaskan Brewing on a couple of cruise stops but the last one was 2016 and so I don't know if things are the same there or what may have changed by now.  We went to the brewery itself and not the public house. If it's still the same, you wouldn't take kids to the main brewery because there's no food there AND they'd be bored to tears.  Alaskan Brewing beer is wonderful, especially their smoked porter, so it sounds like the public house would be a good stop for you.

 

If you will also be visiting Skagway, make it a point to go to Skagway Brewing.  Their food was amazing when we visited, as well as their beer.  They moved to a larger location a few years ago and we can't wait to see it.  Hope it retained the warm and friendly character of the old location.  It's one of our favorite stops in Alaska!

 

We also took some kind of gold dredge excursion in Skagway that bored the heck out of us, but we got through the boredom encouraged by the fact that there was tiny nanobrewery onsite or nearby that we planned to visit after the tour.  I have forgotten the name of the brewery, but it was awful.  They had four beers on tap and one taste was worse than the last.  We try to be supportive of small breweries, but we couldn't even bring ourselves to buy a "pity pint" there.