Anchor Brewing Our Special Ale 2012 (Anchor Christmas Ale)

Brewed By: Anchor Brewing Company in San Francisco, California  

Purchased: Single 12oz bottle bought at Evolution Wine & Spirits in Chicago, Illinois; 2012

Style/ABV: Christmas/Winter Spiced Beer, 5.5%

Reported IBUs: ?

Anchor Brewing Company is "America's first craft brewery." The brewery can be traced back to the 1849 California gold rush, where German brewer Gottlieb Brekle arrived in San Francisco with his family. In 1871 Gottlieb purchased a beer-and-billiards saloon, and turned it into a brewery. In 1896, Ernst F. Baruth and his son-in-law, Otto Schinkel Jr. bought the brewery and named it Anchor. In 1906, Baruth passed away, and a fire and earthquake destroyed the brewery. In 1907, Otto Schinkel Jr. was run over by a car. The brewery was maintained by Joseph Kraus, August Meyer, and Henry Tietjen. During the 1950s and 1960s, the brewery went through hard economic times, and Anchor was shut down twice. In 1965, Fritz Maytag purchased Anchor saving it from bankruptcy. In 1971, Fritz began bottling Anchor Steam beer; and by 1975, Anchor had four beers, their Porter, Liberty Ale, Old Foghorn, and Barleywine Ale, and their annual Christmas Ale. In 1979, Anchor moved to its current location, on Mariposa Street, where the brewery currently resides today. Since then, Anchor continues to brew beer (and distill spirits), and remains one of America's most traditional breweries. Definitely check out the company's history page, HERE.

Like Anchor Brewing, tonight's beer is quite the historic brew. Every year since 1975, Anchor Brewing releases a unique Christmas Ale (available from November to January), that features a different recipe with each year. Along with the unique recipe, each year's bottle is branded with unique bottle art. This year's bottle features the Norfolk Island Pine (a tropical-looking tree that thrives in sandy soil and coastal climates). This year's beer clocks in at 5.5% ABV, and features "top secret" malts and hops. One last thing to note is that Anchor's Christmas Ales can be aged, and should age nicely (if stored properly). With that said, let's glass this up.

Anchor Christmas Ale

The pour yields a dark brown/purple/cola black colored beer, with 3-fingers of coffee/tan/cola head. In low light, this beer is surprisingly dark. When held to a bright light, you can see through the beer, and the beer is clearly a red/ruby red color. There is a lot of carbonation in the form of mid-sized bubbles in this. As the head pulls away, there is nice lacing, and a creamy covering of head remains. 

The aroma on this is huge nutmeg and clove. I'm also getting some ginger cookies, like the Toruń gingerbread cookies I always ate as a kid (yes, I'm Polish). There's a HINT of pine in the back.

Up front is a fruity kick (plums, raisins), along with big clove and nutmeg; I'm getting a lot of nutmeg and clove in the middle; and on the back end I'm getting hints of smoke, light campfire, light charcoal, light roast, and strong anise/licorice. The sweetness up front seems to be accentuated by some smoke/roast/barley, and big anise on the back end. There's some artificial candy sweetness throughout. 

This is an interesting beer...as a seasoned beer drinker, I'm not finding this terribly difficult to drink. However, the strong anise/licorice presence, coupled with the smoke and the big nutmeg flavors, give this beer a pretty unique profile. That said, this is medium-full, especially for 5.5%, with slight stickiness. This has nice density, with subtle carbonation; good palate depth, good complexity, and a smokey/licorice finish. Again: up front is fruit and nutmeg; middle is lingering fruit, maybe a flash of hops, and big spices; the back end morphs into barley roast-smoke-anise-licorice, in that order.

Rating: Average

I'm feeling a Strong Average on this. I feel about the same way I felt about Southern Tier's 2XMAS. This is a good, Christmas-y beer, but the anise/licorice and nutmeg are a touch overwhelming down the stretch. I would stop at two of these, and I'm glad I opted for the single bottle rather than the six pack. Also, this has a pretty prominent licorice/anise/smoke flavor on the finish, which may not work for everyone. I think it compliments the nutmeg, and tastes pretty dang Christmas-y. But I'm weird. I would pair this beer with a gingerbread cookie, or some roasted duck, roasted turkey, or smoked ham. I kind of regret not grabbing a second bottle to throw into the cellar for a few years...but whateva. At 5.5% ABV, this just heavy enough, but you might want to dial the ABV up when it really gets cold. 

Random Thought: So far, the Christmas beers aren't doing as well as the Pumpkin beers. Well...that's not true. When I think Christmas, I think about big Belgian Ales and beers that are going to warm me up. In Anchor's defense, they've brewed this Christmas beer 38 times. That's a lot of different recipes.