an entire store devoted to one craft beer brand’s merchandise, let alone two. Some quick background on Alaskan Brewing Company for context before I get into the details of their two-storey main store: Founded in 1986, Alaskan Brewing was the 67th brewing company in the US (of a now 3000+ craft brewpubs and microbreweries), and is now the 19th largest craft brewery in the country. It is the Great American Beer Festival’s most awarded craft brewery. So it’s not a microbrewery; it has both distribution reach and awareness in the “Lower 48” states. In Juneau, the brewery cellar door is located out of town and has a reasonable range of merchandise – for a brewery. There is also a small merchandise outlet on the wharf. Some Alaskan Brewing apparel is also ranged in the Kroger-owned supercentre store chain Fred Meyer, albeit that’s for local rather than tourist shopping. Tourist mecca But the main store on South Franklin Street is in the middle of the cruise ship tourist shopping zone. In the summer, Juneau’s resident population of 33,000 is nearly doubled on a daily basis by tourists. During our stay, the average daily number of cruise boats was five, disgorging tourists numbering upwards of 20,000, many of whom would have heard of Alaskan Brewing before they got there. The original store opened in 2009 and moved to its present South Franklin Street location a couple of years ago. While it carries the usual T-shirts and hoodies, it’s the scale and scope of both apparel and other categories – all Alaskan Brewing Company branded – that make the store stand out. It is like walking into a mono-branded souvenir shop. Apparel includes not only T-shirts and hoodies but also bike jerseys, tanks (singlets), checked flannel shirts (the unofficial uniform of Alaska for men and women, it seems), pyjamas, caps, beanies and socks. Within categories there is also range, such as multiple colours and sizes of hoodies for individual beers. Drinking vessels include flasks, mugs, thermoses, coloured plastic travelling cups and a broad range of glassware. Beer transporting products include growlers, zip-up bottle and can stubby holders, insulated six-pack holders and insulated tote bags. Home brewers welcome Mancave paraphernalia includes “historic” wooden signs, tap handles, bar towels and mounted bottle openers, as well as all the constituents required for home brewing, including books, fermenters and copper chillers. And then there is the pet range, including portable dog bowls, collars and squeaky toys. (Note that one of Alaskan Brewing’s best known beers is Husky IPA.) Other branded souvenir shopstyle merchandise includes bottle openers, key chains, postcards, magnets and stickers. The purist category manager in me would have liked to see all similar categories grouped together and segmented, such as T-shirts by women’s and men’s, then segmented by beer type, and perhaps some signage delineating women’s and men’s apparel. But from the point of view of the retail experience, the randomappearing layout created a sense of discovery. Upstairs, the customer can find a small area with the history of the brewing company. The store also offers a shuttle out to the brewery for US$25 per person, which includes a tasting paddle of four beers. But, sadly, after the visit to Alaskan Brewing, the world of beer merchandising returned to normal. The half a dozen craft breweries we’ve visited in the three days since leaving Juneau have featured just the usual one wall of apparel. Norrelle has 20 years’ experience in retail, category, channel and customer strategy, marketing and research, working in and with global retailers, manufacturers and research houses.