More Heart in the Heart of Palmer

Bleeding Heart Brewery co-founder Zack Lanphier graduated from Palmer High School and then joined the Marine Corps two weeks after 9/11, serving two combat tours in Iraq. “In 2004, I got wounded in the Battle of Fallujah, and we’ve made a couple of beers making fun of that because we're very irreverent. I would say our irreverence is something that sets us apart. Irreverent without being disrespectful.” Lanphier and his co-founder Stefan Marty brew "Shmurple Heart" every year in honor of Lanphier’s “involvement and subsequent wounding” in the battle. It’s a New England Style IPA hopped “with stupid amounts” of Belma, Mosaic, and Falconer’s Flight hops, finished with juice from Alaska grown purple carrots.

Both co-founders grew up near Palmer on colonial farm lands that belonged to the Springer system. “Those old farms and farmland itself in Palmer are still very much near and dear to our hearts,” Lanphier said. The carrots in their Shmurple Heart aren’t the brewery’s only symbol of local agriculture roots. Their popular Bleeding Heart Brewery Beet IPA uses beets from local growers. Another favorite, Grounds for Divorce Coffee Porter, uses locally roasted beans from Alaska Artisan Coffee. The food at the brewery uses as much protein as possible from Mat Valley Meats and produce from local farms like Vanderwheele, Spring Creek, the UAF Matanuska Experiment Farm, and more. Their small but lively menu changes often, with dishes like cottage pie, Alaskan stew, vegan curry, beer brats, and The Best Prosciutto Mac n Cheese.  

Well before they started brewing, Lanphier got honorably discharged from the military. “I was kind of lost, as many of us are when we get out,” he said. “I came back home, back to Palmer, back to a place that I knew. I just needed that, to come back to some place that I was grounded.” He started working toward his teaching degree, but didn’t feel truly impassioned till he and Marty, an old friend from down the road, started homebrewing in Marty’s parents’ garage in 2014.

Two years later, they were open for business on the old colony farm, and eventually outgrew that first space. They teamed up with Kelly and Becky Turney, old friends who own and operate Alaska Picker, to secure a location and make the move from Outer Springer Loop to downtown Palmer. Bleeding Heart announced their intent to relocate in the Fall of 2019 and began getting their ducks in a row, leaning heavily on Alaska SBDC to develop a proper business plan ample enough to get a bank on board as financier. They’d already begun construction with money on hand, though, when COVID hit, seriously slowing their roll. It was November 2020 before they finally made the move to the grand new space, tripling their indoor space, complemented with 2,000 square feet outside for summer time. They also jumped to 15 taps from eight—their new brewing system is five times the size of their old set up, which they still use for small batch pilot beers. They’re growing their barreling program for fall bottle releases and also offer house made craft sodas and a rotating kombucha, made locally by 203 Kombucha.

In the months since, pandemic and all, the brewery has helped transform the downtown scene in Palmer. Their funky space connects with Alaska Picker, just below the landmark water tower in the Matanuska Maid block of historic downtown Palmer. One can grab a beer from the brewery to drink while ogling antiques and vintage, unique junk and treasure next door. They also just installed a shared gate between Bleeding Heart and Matanuska Brewery, establishing a proper “NeighBEERhood” that makes it possible to “Park Once and Drink Twice.”

“We are a brewery that's built by a community. We want to be as involved in the community as possible, and that was difficult on the outskirts of the Springer system. But now that we're right downtown, we are the heart of Palmer,” said Lanphier. Indeed, Bleeding Heart has wasted no time building community-fueled traditions like their annual Running of the Beers event, and they got permission to light the water tower up like a Christmas tree every year. “The fact that we're downtown is extremely exciting, but we also hope to do something on a farm again someday,” said Lanphier. “We want to have two locations at some point. But one step at a time.”

Marty champions the brewing and staffs the place full time, and Lanphier spearheads their marketing and creative, for now. They’re quite the team. “Our partnership is just the two of us,” said Lanphier, “and so we have a lot of freedom. We have a lot more willingness to color outside the lines, willingness to have a lot more fun. We rarely say no.”

One “yes” they said was to the making of an MTV Cribs-inspired video about the brewery that went low-key-viral. It’s worth checking out; you can find it on their social channels, which have attracted a respectable following. Their unique blend of self-deprecation and cockiness welcomes everyone and—just kidding—no one. Eventually, they hope to start canning and distributing their beers, but till then, it’s probably best to hit up headquarters. They’ll be glad when you do, whether or not you can tell. 

Bleeding Heart Brewery is one of Alaska’s smallest production breweries, tucked away in the colonial “Matanuska Maid” block in historic downtown Palmer, right below the iconic water tower. They’re open 2-8 PM Wednesday through Sunday. Find them on social or visit www.bleedingheartbrewery.com.

This profile is part of our web series sponsored by the Alaska Small Business Development Center. Read the rest of the series.