Eagle River Alehouse — Restaurant in Alaska

You know this place is popular when half the cars are parked illegally, and by that I mean every which way and no organization, just where ever you can fit. That and the lines are blurred even before you get here.

My lunch visit was filled with local craft IPA’s, pizza, sandwiches, fries and great conversations. I was turned onto ERAH, or as some recent Marine buddies call it Oorah because that’s their thing. You walk in and it’s a classic beer place, tons of signs, both neon and non of what seemed to be hundred’s of different beers. They don’t have quite that many, but their selection is excellent and that’s coming from a San Diegan.

Pizza is big up here in Alaska, so I was hoping that both supply and demand would raise the bar. 3rd best pizza I had that week. My bar buddies spoke highly of their chicken ranch bake which is a pulled chicken sandwich with bbq and ranch dressing. It’s a little sloppy, but pretty darn good. Fries are nice and crispy and yes the portions were large. I also went with the lunch special slice of the day, with a salad, soup and drink. BBQ chicken pizza was only ok. The crust was bland, the toppings were good alone, but the just BBQ didn’t blend it all together. My salad was good, nice and thick on the ranch, skip the olives. My soup was way too thick from crème and lost it’s tomato-ness, almost chunky. Soda’s are the large 20oz old school plastic style which I like because they have Mr. Pibb. My pepperoni pizza was much better with a nice cheese melt and crispy pepperoni’s, but again that dough does nothing to enhance things. They also really like adding fresh tomato’s to top their pizza’s which makes it feel like bruschetta.

A bit more of a sports bar feel the staff is nice. Food comes fast and service is great once seated, but it’s jamming during lunch. Prices are good and the locals love this place. Décor is a bit of a snow lodge feel with a wood heavy vibe and large windows facing the street, tall roof for 2nd floor which I didn’t check out. I expected to see pies being tossed, but don’t recall them at all, see what I mean about blurred lines.

Beer, I had a few local IPA’s. For more on that you can find my untapped profile. I did like how they offered a variety of styles like a few gose’s, sours, lambic’s, and saison’s. Very heavy on the IPA selection and they haven’t been overly inundated with labelling or carrying unnecessarily labelled “sessionable” beers. It’s actually a term that hasn’t hipsterfied Alaska yet. You session your Coors lite and I’ll session my Ruination.

All in all it was a great place to come for a big meal, some good beers and a...

First restaurant we dined at when we moved to Anchorage. The wait wasn’t long at all, although my husband and I had to yell across the small table we were seated at just to be heard as the music was entirely too loud. The food was amazing and our blueberry brews (?) were absolutely wonderful! Our “nachos” for our kiddo were a little lacking as they were soggy tortilla chips with melted shredded cheese that hardened up so fast, they stuck all the chips together. Made for a very frustrated two year old, and a frustrated set of parents as his semi-expensive, semi-inedible plate of food was being flung all over the floor. My order (quesadilla - nothing extra, no special requirements) took forever to come out because our server continued to forget to place the order for it, even tho my sister ordered the exact same thing and hers was brought out with the rest of the food. Slightly disheartening. However, the same waiter that continuously forgot to place my menu item on the order DID come over and try to console our kiddo so we could eat a quick bite. He swept up all the chips/food that was thrown in the floor, no matter how many times it happened, with a smile on his face, and joy in his eyes. He played peekaboo at our table on his knees so he was eye level with our kiddo, and chatted up with us while he made his rounds, and they were slightly slammed that night.

Overall - it was a good first experience at Eagle River Alehouse and I do believe we’ll be going again...

As many other reviews have mentioned, the service leaves a lot to be desired. We had a large party here that was pre-planned, and the downstairs hostess seemed to be really confused at first and started to give us the wrong information. Easily cleared up, no issues other than a couple wasted minutes.

Our server seemed busy, but actual service was just extremely slow. As people trickled in, we got different orders in. The upstairs bartender left early into the evening, so all drink orders seemed to be coming from downstairs (where there was already a fairly large crowd to begin with). About 20 minutes between drink orders and getting something, but only about 3 drinks at a time for more than 15 people. Food was the same way, took a very long time and came in waves. This seems to be a common occurrence judging by the reviews, so you have to begin to wonder what the root cause of it is and why it isn't being addressed.

I will say the beer was awesome, and they seemed to have rotating selections. The mega-steins were a great deal, and came out ice-cold. The food was nothing special at all, quality was pretty mediocre at best and the menu seems like a random jumble of way too many different things.

If you go... I recommend the beer, the pizza, and a lot of patience. Unfortunately, I feel like I won't be going back, considering how many other (better)...