A weekly look at the draft selection in beer-friendly bars across the country.

Achieving the premier beer selection in Anchorage, Alaska, is probably harder than it sounds, and is a huge selling point of Humpy's Great Alaskan Alehouse. "[The bar] was created for beer lovers by beer lovers," chuckles manager Sandoz Maurer, as she recites the mantra that can be found on the pub's Web site. A quick look over the draft selection, however, proves this is no laughing matter: 50 types of brews are displayed including an astounding 18 locals!

Humpy's, a live music venue with a slew of Alaskan artists, is well regarded as a locals' hang but is also a visitor destination, particularly during warmer weather. "Summertime is definitely tourist season," Maurer says.

Tourists and locals alike can check the Web for a draft list updated daily (though it's difficult to find, look under "Daily Specials.") Find the most recent selections after the jump.

Though these suds may reign supreme in Anchorage, how would this bar stack up in your fair city? (No Palin jokes, please!)

Gourmet's Barry Estabrook investigates VP candidate Governor Sarah Palin's dealings with Alaska's salmon industry. The following is an excerpt of his findings published on Gourmet.com.

At the very least, there was something fishy about Alaska Governor (and Vice Presidential hopeful) Sarah Palin's decision to speak out publicly against the state's Clean Water Initiative late last month. There may also be something blatantly illegal about her advocacy for defeating the ballot initiative, which ultimately failed to pass when 57 percent of Alaskans voted against it.

The law in Alaska forbids a governor from officially lobbying for or against a ballot initiative such as Ballot Measure 4. To get around the law, Palin exercised what she called "personal privilege" when she said to reporters, "Let me take my governor's hat off for just a minute here and tell you, personally, Prop 4-I vote no on that."

The story continues at Gourmet.com: Politics of the Plate: Salmongate

When I first read this post over at our sister site Gadling, I was visualizing some over-sized zucchini or maybe tomatoes the size of a grapefruit, but I honestly didn't expect to see anything quite like this.

Apparently, Alaska hosts a Giant Vegetable Contest every year at their state fair. As Neil points out, the sun in Alaska barely sets during the summer, and the result of the vegetables continuously receiving the benefits of around-the-clock sunlight is that they tend to grow considerably larger than in most other places. This is extremely evident judging by the picture above, which is of the 2006 winner of the Giant Cabbage Weigh-Off. Brenna Dinkel took the title with her 73.4-pound cabbage - and no, I don't even want to know how much cabbage soup that would make.

Other records set last year include:

23-foot, 3 1/2-inch corn stalk
4.702-pound parsnip
1,019-pound pumpkin
17.195-pound yellow zucchini
67 1/8-inch long gourd
55.15-pound blue hubbard squash
21.530-pound bushel gourd

The next event will be held in Palmer, Alaska, between August 23 and September 3, 2007. If anyone makes it out for this event, send us some pictures!

A hot dog stand in a Chicago suburb has come up with a meaty way to celebrate Christmas: reindeer redhots. Fred Markoff, the owner of Redhots and Fries in Glenview, is known for serving up exotic meats, including smoked alligator and pork sausage.

Markoff opted not to serve the $8 reindeer wiener Chicago-style with mustard, onion, sweet pickle and sport peppers. The only resemblance the reindeer redhot bears to a Chicago dog is its poppy seed bun. Everything else, including the toppings of mustard and grilled onions and the meat itself, is pure Alaska.

Markoff gets the reindeer dogs from Alaska's Indian Valley Meats. Incidentally, the redhot isn't pure Rudolph. Reindeer meat is far too lean to produce a tasty dog, so the wiener also includes beef and pork. Despite the blend of meats, Markoff is considering putting a grape tomato on one end of the dog in what would amount to a most unusual display of Christmas spirit.

Jessica Vassar, age 11, had the same dream as many little girls: she wanted a horse. Her parents were both experienced horse-people who gave up their horses when they had their children. They had a 2-stall barn on their property and told Jessica that if she could raise enough money for a horse, they would let her get one.

So, Jessica started baking.

With wheat that she ground herself, she baked and sold bread priced at $3.50 per loaf and cinnamon rolls at $10 a dozen. In just under two years, she raised $1,000 and picked up a horse named Pete from the local Alaska Equine Rescue. Pete only cost $500 and the rest was used to buy a trailer to transport him. Pete may not be the horse that dreams are made out of, with 15 years of life as a pack horse in a national park in his past, but with the help of Jessica's mother, he is turning out to be the horse of Jessica's dreams.

She is still baking away, not only to keep her loyal customers happy, but to finance what she hopes will be a successful season on the local show circuit.

From mid-May to mid-June, Pacific Northwesterners get to eat the famed Copper River salmon thanks to the millions of fish that spawn up the Copper River in south-central Alaska and the thousands of fishermen that catch them.

To be in Seattle right when Copper River salmon are in season is like visiting Pamplona right when the bulls are running, or showing up in Rio just in time for Carneval, or visiting France when there isn't a strike.

Connoisseurs of Copper River Salmon say that what distinguishes it from regular salmon is its rich, nutty flavor. But I think it has more to do with the fact that it is available for two months out of the year. It's like Beaujolais Nouveau --- if the wine world's answer to Kool-Aid were available year-round, probably no one would ever drink it.

Unavailability, after all, makes things taste good.

We have some facts and figures about general drinking trends, but what about just beer? Here are a few fun bits of beer trivia, from Here's to Beer and other randomly collected factoids, to quiz your buddies when you're all relaxing over a brew and a game after work:

• According to the Canadian Ace Brewing Co., there are 6,998 drops in a 12-ounce bottle of beer.
• St. Arnold is recognized by the Catholic Church as the patron saint of brewing beer.
• A 12-ounce beer has fewer calories than two slices of standard, sliced bread.
• In Fairbanks, Alaska, it is illegal to give beer to a moose.
• The country with the most brands of beer - 400 - is Belgium.
• In Germany, you can buy beer popsicles.
• Cenosillicaphobia is the fear of an empty [beer] glass

For more refreshing beer info, check out Slashfood's beer archives!

In Nome, Alaska, ordering a pizza is easy. Just call up Airport Pizza, which delivers free of charge, by plane. Population in the western Alaska town is 3,500, but Airport Pizza delivers to almost a dozen sub-arctic villages via Frontier Flying Service, which provides the delivery free of charge, even as far away as 500 miles to a small island in the Bering Sea.

But that doesn't make a pizza meal cheap. A small cheese pizza starts at $16, and can go up to $32 for a large specialty. Fuel costs keep the the cost of getting ingredients like garlic, red and green bell peppers, and sun-dried tomatoes. These are rare ingredients in Nome, Alaska. However, reindeer sausage is not.

Over at suvalley news are various articles on reindeer and their roles in teaching, tourist attractions, clothing, shelter, and yes, food. It is a traditional food of the Alaskan natives. Some examples of fine reindeer delicacies include sausage, meatballs, stew, and simply filets. Would you be willing to eat reindeer (or caribou, as it is called when wild in North America)? And, if you've eaten it before, what do you think of it?