posted on 10 May 2010 by tom
Orignal Post November 2009
Anchor Brewing Company has been producing quality beers for over a century. Started by German immigrants after the California gold rush in 1896 Anchor became known for Steam Beer which was brewed without the use of ice. Anchor has been a trusted name in beer long before the craft beer explosion of recent years. Beginning in 1975 Anchor began brewing Liberty Ale and Anchor Porter to go with their already popular Steam Beer. This same year Anchor produced their first Christmas Ale. Now in its 35th year Anchor Christmas Ale is anticipated each year like Black Friday, Santa Claus, and Eggnog… Well at least to those in the beer community.
Just as people get a new Christmas tree every year each Anchor Christmas Ale depicts a different tree on its label. The bottle states “since ancient times, trees have symbolized the winter solstice when the earth, with its seasons, appears born anew.” So this seasonal ale is not just for Christians but pagans, Jews, and gentiles alike. While the tree motif remains constant the beer itself is different every year. As if brewed in Santa’s workshop the ingredients for each seasons Christmas ale are kept secret.
The 2009 Anchor Christmas Ale pours dark brown with hints of red when illuminated. Hints of chocolate, nutmeg, and other holiday spices are evident when sniffing a fresh poured glass. The dark color of the beer shows up in the taste. It has a strong malt and yeast character with the suggestion of chocolate and coffee flavors. As you get farther down into the glass a stronger bitterness becomes evident with a subtle taste of hops. Overall this is a wonderfully balanced beer that has just the right amount of winter flavoring without overwhelming the palate.
Available in 6 packs and 1.5 liter bottles, Anchor Christmas Ale makes a great gift or great drink while wrapping presents. Make sure to ask about our selection of cellared Anchor Christmas Ales from years past. Compare the 2009 edition with older Anchor Christmas ales. This beer if aged properly remains drinkable for years, changing character with each passing season.
Tags: anchor brewing, christmas beer, pagan
Category: Beer Reviews, The Beer Blog | Comments (3)
posted on 27 June 2009 by dan
We waited and we waited, but it’s finally arrived: Mad River’s Steelhead Double Dread Imperial Red. It’s the most recent entry in the brewery’s High Gravity series, an uber-limited series of full-throttle brews.
For those of you just hopping on the dT blog-wagon, we’ve been waiting (sort of) patiently for its arrival since a tasting over at the Cambridge Common a couple months ago, when the M.R. president promised us a slice of the High-Gravity-pie. We tasted the then-current Serious Madness Black Ale back then; we gushed and sputtered over it. Which led to our Double Dread anticipation.
Was it worth the wait? Abso-effing-lutely. I waffled with sampling it for this posting, it being limited and whatnot, but in the end, I caved and bought a 4-pack. The side of the pack claims 8.6% booze, but it’s hardly noticeable, what with the sweet malts and the prickly hops tap-dancing about on the palette. It manages to refresh, despite its weight and claims at heavy-headiness.
The coolest bit of all, though, comes at the top of their brewery description: “…we were astounded to see light literally dance and refract in its ruby depths.” Aside from that being a poetic and beautiful and apt description, it also reveals considerable information re: the integrity of M.R. in general. Any true art controls the artist as much as the artist controls it; the Double Dread reflected something unexpected back to the brewers. What else could you ask for from a beer? This is craft beer epitomized, people. Dig it.
Tags: California, double imperial red, imperial, mad river, red ale
Category: Beer Reviews, The Beer Blog | Comments (0)
posted on 26 June 2009 by dan
By which I’m not joking; so many beers come out with these fancy titles talking about “double espresso” this and “blueberry pie” that and for the most part, while the referent beers are often outstanding, the flavor itself is accurate only in a sort of secondary sense. It tastes like blueberry beer or chocolate beer or what-have-you. So, witness Southern Tier’s Creme Brulee Imperial Stout. It tastes like somebody melted down the custard, shook it up, and bottled it.
Whether or not that sounds appetizing comes down to whether or not creme brulee sounds appetizing in the first place. Me, I dig it thoroughly, but then I’d order the creme brulee off a menu at a chicken shack. If you’re like me, trust me trust me on this beer. Sip on it, close your eyes; you’ll swear you’ll need a spoon. The back of the label reading like a philosophical equation of history, the only clue to how S.T. arrives at the brew is the inlcusion of dark caramel malt and vanilla beans in the recipe. The sum is more than its parts. This ain’t your typical vanilla beer.
Tony and I sipped on a pint just to see if anything’s changed since it came out last summer. This year’s tastes almost the same as last year’s batch, except that its got this bitter kick on the finish that, in context, conjures up a dark chocolate glaze. The nose is just as intoxicating, that vanilla apparent as soon as the bottle popped. It’s that combination of smelly nose and thick vanilla stout that manages to mask the 10% alcohol in the bottle. Don’t be fooled: sweet, yes, but also brawny enough to lay flat the unaware.
We got this is in last year and couldn’t keep it on the shelf. Right now, we’ve got ten cases or so in the basement and a promise of further availability, but… well, future availability is enlightment: fun to talk about it, difficult to acheive without constant perserverence. Dig it while the diggin’s diggable.
Tags: beer, imperial stouts, vanilla
Category: Beer Reviews | Comments (1)
posted on 18 June 2009 by dan
Here’s what summer beer’s really all about:
There’s an Australian in my house. A few years ago, my fiancé lived with her in Costa Rica, both of them working for a Peace-Corp-ish program, chopping down jungle pathways, dancing with locals, the like (you haven’t seen sexy until you’ve seen the picture of my fiancé holding a machete, a wary Costa Rican hovering in the background). Now, the Australian is on a sort of world tour of similar programs; she’s kicking it off with a six week stay at our house. Which is pretty cool. It’s like having an ambassador-in-residence. I’m learning all sorts about the other end of the world - mostly tidbits like how they have 30 different words for drunk and refer to spaghetti bolognese as “spag-bog”. Which language idiosyncrasies tickle me immeasurably.
The relevance to dT’s humble little blog here being that she’s pretty willing to reinforce the whole stereotype of the hard-drinking Aussie (see above-mentioned 30 words). She’s never heard of the majority of our humble American craft brigade and she’s more than agreeable to some consistent experimentation. New night, new beer - or two or three new beers. So, last night, I came home from our beer tasting and found her 4 in to a 6 of Brooklyn Summer. Here she is: sitting on my back deck, eyes closed and head-nodding to some sweet, lilting down-under music.
Brooklyn makes good beer. Hailing from Wiliamsburg, that uber-hipster neighborhood in the eponymous NY borough, the brewery boasts a 20-year history of quality offerings and the Summer lives up to the catalogue. What with its light body and that bready, feisty yeasts, it perfectly satisfies the promise a summer beer implies: refreshing, easygoing, backporch drinkin’. After how many summer beers now? it’s this one that finally ropes in that oft-tongue-tipped analogy: this beer’s refreshing - and with the same doughy quality - as the last drops of vodka sauce mopped up by the last bite of a dinner roll.
But that’s not really what summer beer’s all about.
What all summer beer’s about, has nothing to do with the profile, or the brewery’s history; a summer beer’s about the moment between analysis and judgment, moments such as this: titling back the bottle on my backporch, jawing with my Australian boarder, listening to music and to crickets, cool whispers of an early summer breeze shushing in the air. She plays a song. I play a song. Time kind slides by into the night and it gets later, but we don’t notice.
“You’ve never heard of this band,” she tells me. “Nobody in Australia, really, heard about this band yet.” The song is nice and simple and relaxing. If there’s such a thing as man-at-rest, it would describe me just now, the Brooklyn Summer cocked and pouring between my lips and everything serene as the music drifts. The day seems weeks away and the winter, years, at least. My heart, languid and easy, th-thumps in drowsy rhythm, a gentle syncopation with that puh-limp… plimp of raindrops from the roof into the gutter.
“It’s a nice song,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says and nods. “Yeah, it is.” We sip our beers. There’s nothing left to say; nothing’s left in need of explanation. We aren’t an Australian and an American, here. We’re two people laid out on the backporch and everything is nice.
dJp
Tags: backporch drinkin, Brooklyn, summer beer
Category: Beer Reviews, The Beer Blog | Comments (0)
posted on 6 June 2009 by dan
In a recent post, I wrote about a conversation I had with Tyler (of The Second Glass fame) re: the dearth of mom-and-pop breweries in Eastern MA. Wish I had a little more, uh, clarity at the time. I would have dropped Haverhill Brewery on him. 45 min. up 93, in (obviously) Haverhill, and attached to a brewpub called The Tap, these guys couldn’t embody Boston any more cohesively. Let’s run the list:
1) Named after, and located in, a city out-of-towners can’t pronounce? check…
2) Housed in what used to be a shoe factory? check…
3) All brewing overseen by a local boy (his name’s Jon Curtis)? check …
4) Brewpub features New England clam chowder with chowder spelled with an ‘aah’ instead of an ‘er’? check…
and, finally, the most relevant to our discussion,
5) Offers a beer whose label appeals to Red Sox Nation? check… and check.
Which label adorns their newest beer, Homerun American Pale Ale. Dig on that old-timey young lady in a baseball skirt-uniform that all y’all Bostonians will recognize as aping the Red Sox getup. All blue and red and white, with just a hint of cleavage tossed in to… y’know… hook the guys. I dig it, that hometown flavor. See it there, to your right?
So, what’s up with the brew, then?
Here’s what’s up: pours out a healthy, rich brown and a plush beige head; sweet malts balance out well against the sharp hops; finishes with a similar interplay, but finishes quickly. Overall, it’s a solid APA. Is it fantastically complex? No, not really. Does that have anything to do with anything? Nope, not at all. Sometimes, it’s the simple things that satisfy.
We could drink on this all day long. Perfect backporch drinkin’… and plus, anybody taking a peak in our recycling bin will know exactly where I’m from. We’re drinking Boston, here, ladies and gents, and that makes the whole experience that much more gratifying.
dJp
Tags: backporch drinkin, brewpub, Haverhill Brewery, local, pale ale
Category: Beer Reviews | Comments (2)
