Investment with Alaskan Brewing pays off
Workers have been buying firm's stock since last year
Since starting at Alaskan Brewing Co. in 1991, Curtis Holmes has worked on the bottle line, in the brewery lab and in sales and marketing. Last year - along with about half the brew crew - he assumed the moniker of investor.
"I think that most people wanted to invest because of the brewery itself," Holmes said. "Investing on the Internet you never know if the people are trustworthy."
Starting with a staff of four in 1986, the crew at Alaskan Brewing has grown to about 50 in-house employees.
Last year, it opened investment opportunities to employees who had been with the company for at least five years, said Alaskan Brewing Chief Operations Officer Linda Thomas. The employee investment plan allows workers to buy stock based on the number of years they've worked with the company, she said.
She said the stock, which originally was worth $5,000 a share, split last year when it became available to employees. Splitting the stock made more shares available and affordable for employees, Thomas said.
She noted that the stock's value did not change when the shares split. The stock's value today is proprietary information that remains within the company, but Thomas said its value has increased.
Profits have been so good, Thomas said, the company has provided profit-sharing benefits since 1996. Based on yearly profits and budget projections, the company sets aside a yearly dividend that is split between employees and shareholders.
Many employees jumped at the chance to buy stock when it became available last year, but it wasn't as easy for the company to find investment capital in the mid-1980s.
Alaskan Brewing was launched in 1986 by Marcy and Geoff Larson.
After spending about five years researching the industry, Geoff, an avid home brewer with a degree in chemical engineering, and his wife, Marcy - both in their 20s - set out in search of investors.
Finding $500,000 during the oil bust days was no easy task. The failure of the Eagle River-based Prinz Brau Brewery in the 1970s also made potential investors wary of the feasibility of operating a brewery in Alaska.
"It was kind of a strange time to be starting a business of any kind really, much less a brewery in some place like Juneau, where you're looking at raw materials having to come in and those kind of challenges," Thomas said. "People were walking to banks and turning in keys for houses and cars that they literally couldn't afford any more."
She noted that the majority of the original investors still are with the company.
Charles Gasparek, one of about 80 original investors, and his wife, Joan, bought one share in 1985.
Gasparek had toyed with wine-making and said he was enamored by the idea of investing in a local brewery. Gasparek said he has bought additional stock when other shareholders decided to cash in on their investment.
The success of the company has far exceeded his expectations of the original investment, he said.
"There are a number of people around town that felt that they should have (invested in the company) but didn't," he said.
The company has experienced tremendous growth over the years. During the first 10 years of operation, Alaskan Brewing grew at a volume rate of about 35 percent a year. In the first year of production the company produced 1,500 barrels. In 2001, it produced about 80,000 barrels.
In 1995, the company purchased a $1 million brew house that increased its production capacity tenfold. Additional fermentation tanks were added, warehouse space was tripled, and the 10-barrel capacity was expanded to 100 barrels. It allows the company to produce 100 barrels at a time. The brewery also upgraded its keg system and bottling line in 1996.
The new brew house allowed distribution to expand past the original markets of Alaska and Seattle. Today, the company also distributes to Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, Nevada and California.
Along with stock value and production volume, the variety of beers available at Alaskan Brewing has increased over the years. The first batch in 1986 consisted of 234 cases of Chinook Alaskan Amber Beer.
In 1988, the company added a second year-round flavor: Chinook Alaskan Pale. A trademark lawsuit caused the company to drop the Chinook label in 1989. Today, the company produces four year-round styles of beer: amber, pale, ESB and stout. It also produces seasonal beers in summer and winter and a limited-edition smoked porter.