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26-10-2013, 08:06
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http://goodfoodgoodbeer.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/img_0985.jpg?w=300&h=225 (http://goodfoodgoodbeer.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/img_0985.jpg)Don’t get me wrong; I love Anchor Brewing (http://www.anchorbrewing.com/).
Those dumpy, skittle-hipped bottles, the gorgeous, rough-hewn labels – even the term ‘Steam Beer‘ is all romantic and rose-tinted to me, recalling the fog devouring the Golden Gate Bridge and steamy, seamy summer months spent hunkered in a bar with a cool glass of Anchor’s flagship beer. Even the famous Fritz Maytag ‘popped in for some food and a beer, bought the brewery’ (http://www.inc.com/magazine/20050401/26-maytag.html) story is an enduring favourite with me, although I’m sure there’s more to it than the myth.
…And they are still producing such great ‘Core’ beers ,too. Sure, Steam is a beer that I’m perhaps over-familiar with; so much so that it’s often thought of as ‘just a fridge beer’, but it’s more than that. It’s a leader of the style – a style that actually isn’t particularly well-copied anywhere else. Porter is my favorite porter out there, butting up alongside Fuller’s London Porter for top spot in my heart. Christmas is still the only beer I buy a yearly release of, such is the flavour and difference between vintages. Humming and Brekle’s were fresh, bold new flavours to add to the range, and you could create a whole new blog post about the virtues of Liberty and Foghorn. Stone. Cold. Classics.
Yet I was quite disappointed with the two ‘new’ (to us) offerings from Anchor that have appeared this Autumn. First up, and the one I was most excited about, California Lager (4.9% abv). Apparently it’s brewed to ‘an authentic Gold Rush recipe, before the days of refrigeration’, which, although I can’t possibly corroborate, deflated any hopes I had for a fresh, snappy lager. Perhaps my hopes were too high from the outset, as what I got instead was an incredibly sweet, cereal-led golden ale; there is a crispness in the finish but that sweetness lingers. I felt it more akin to a light version of the Steam beer, rather than a ‘lager’, per se.
http://goodfoodgoodbeer.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/img_1032.jpg?w=300&h=225 (http://goodfoodgoodbeer.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/img_1032.jpg)Big Leaf Maple*(6% abv)is quite possibly the most autumnal-named beer on the market; in fact, Anchor think so much of it that they’ve seemingly trademarked the term ‘Autumn Red‘, which feels a little ridiculous, but there you go. It is red when plonked next to light, and carried a pleasingly tan head that dissipates quickly, leaving a comforting russet beer swirling around in your glass. It’s brewed with Maple Syrup, of course, but I didn’t get much of that in either the nose or the flavour of the beer; which is a shame because it’s one of my favourite flavours. There’s something other than sweetness in Maple Syrup, a woodsy, deep note that I can’t explain. Perhaps I was too eager to find it here, and was left wanting.
What it is instead is a richly sweet (again…) beer with an aroma, curiously, of Parma Violets and Brown bread, backed up by some ginger-bread spiced notes. *Again, the body is fairly light for the abv yet is rich enough to satisfy. I found the whole package similar in flavour to Goose Island’s Honkers Ale, if you want a yardstick with which to measure against. Still, it’s worth seeking out; not unpleasant at all – just devoid of Maple to this reviewer. Which, if you stick it on the label, I want to be able to taste.

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