Anchor Brewery

Small Beer

ABV 3.2% • Vol 650 ml • bottle • USA • Expensive • Flavour 6 • Bottle Conditioned
Other beers from Anchor Brewery
Other beers from USA

Anchor of San Francisco is one of the shining stars of the US craft-brewing scene, renowned for its unique Steam Beer but also offering some other excellent specialities, such as Liberty pale ale and Porter. This occasional speciality is an example of a true small beer, made from the second runnings of the mash for a much stronger beer, a common technique in the days when beer was a safer thirst-quencher than water but extremely rare today. The stronger beer in question is the brewery's 8.75% Old Foghorn barley wine; after the wort for this has been run off, the mash is sparged again to extract the less sugary liquid used here (unfortunately I've not tasted the barley wine so can't compare the two), which ends up around the strength of the weaker British milds.
The beer is bottle-conditioned and pours golden-bronze with a nice but rapidly subsiding head. The aroma is spicily hoppy with some malt and a hint of pineapple, plus the definite whiff of strong cheese. A lightly malty, very fresh-tasting palate has a slight caramel touch and a little fruit, but a stinging bitterness soon develops in the back of the throat that lingers into the finish. Old Foghorn obviously has much to spare, for this is a well-made and tasty beer, but I was hoping to linger more over the delicate fruitiness: unfortunately the American fondness for big hops let loose on a beer that's too light-bodied to support it throws the whole thing a little off-balance.

Review submitted by: Des de Moor

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