Hammers Family Birch is an Alaska company built around one remarkable tree: the white paper birch.

From wild-fermented Birch Brew and pure birch syrup to wild Alaska chaga, we create products that reflect the versatility of birch and the character of the boreal forest.

Each spring, we harvest certified organic birch sap from wild trees outside Talkeetna, Alaska, transforming it through fermentation and traditional syrup making. We also source wild Alaska chaga through a trusted network of local harvesters.

Our approach combines northern tradition, modern food craft, and thoughtful forest stewardship.

Our story begins in Riga, Latvia, where birch sap has been part of springtime tradition for centuries and where our dad, Arvid, and grandparents once called home. Before World War II, our family owned the only chain and nail factory in Latvia. They had built something of their own. Then, after the Soviet occupation and facing deportation to Siberia, they were forced to leave it all behind.

Our grandparents and dad fled in the middle of the night and eventually spent seven years in displaced-persons camps in Germany before immigrating to America through Ellis Island. They rebuilt their lives first in Chicago and later in Springfield, Illinois, where our parents, Arvid and Julie, raised our family. That story of loss, resilience, and beginning again is woven into everything we do.

In 2014, our dad us back to Latvia on. a family trip. Walking the ground our grandparents once knew, we rediscovered birch sap not simply as a drink, but as a living connection to our family’s history. For centuries, Latvians have tapped birch trees each spring, welcoming a new season with a tradition deeply tied to the land. Fresh birch sap was enjoyed during the brief spring harvest and fermented as a way to preserve it for longer. Traditionally, it was also consumed as part of a springtime cleansing ritual after the long winter.

We came home inspired. Soon after, together with our childhood friend Chris Sorensen, we founded Hammers Family Birch with a vision of bringing this remarkable northern tradition to America. Birch Brew grew from that idea: a wild-fermented birch sap beverage rooted in tradition and crafted for modern life.

For Ted, that vision eventually meant leaving a career in Big Law in Los Angeles in 2022 to build something more closely connected to family, land, and purpose. That journey led us to Alaska.

In 2023, we were honored to acquire Kahiltna Birchworks, one of the pioneers of commercial birch syrup production, along with Alaska Wild Harvest. Today, we harvest certified organic birch sap from thousands of wild birch trees in the boreal forests outside Talkeetna, carrying forward more than three decades of birch craftsmanship while continuing to innovate through products like Birch Brew.

Alaska is more than our home. Its rugged boreal forests gave us the opportunity to build something with our own hands while honoring traditions that shaped our family generations earlier. In many ways, this is the continuation of a story that began long before Hammers Family Birch existed.

Our grandparents knew what it meant to build something extraordinary and they knew what it meant to lose everything. When they immigrated to America, they weren’t beginning from nothing; they were beginning again. They came to America with the hope of rebuilding the life and opportunity they had been forced to leave behind.

Two generations later, we have the privilege of continuing what they started. From a factory lost in Latvia, to a new life in Illinois, to the boreal birch forests of Alaska, ours is a story of resilience, renewal, and the enduring promise of the American Dream. The opportunity to build a family business, steward a remarkable forest, and create products inspired by our ancestral heritage is something our grandparents made possible through their courage and sacrifice.

What began generations ago in Latvia continues today in Alaska, rooted in family, strengthened by resilience, and connected by the birch tree that has been part of our story all along.

The Hammers family's complete immigration story, including Arvid's firsthand account of fleeing Latvia in 1944 and spending seven years in German refugee camps before arriving in Chicago, is preserved in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library's oral history collection.