Anchor Our Special Ale (2005 and later)

Brewed by Anchor Brewing Company
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
San Francisco, California USA

Magnum. Brownish black with big white head. Aroma has lots of spices - ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon - also brown sugar, caramel. Palate has medium thickness and lots of carbonation.

2009 version from bottle. Pours dark broown almost porter like with a small tan head that leaves a good amount of lacing. Very spicy aroma dominated by cloves and some cinnamon. Medium bitterness and almost sticky on the palate leaving a long warm spicy finish.

This tastes like a Chirstmas tree! very strong flavor and aroma of treacle, cinnamon, nutmeg, and loads of other spices. The strongest flavor though, is Cloves- like a fancy cigarette, this beer stays in your mouth for a very long time, thus the epic palate score. Fantastically deliscious. Bottle at Zeke’s, Miami Beach.

(draft at Trinity in Colorado Springs). Black color. Small tan head. Light spice aroma. Sweet malt flavor with light spice. Avg duration. Smooth finish. Thin texture. Moderate carbonation. Spare lacing.

THOUGHTS: Tons of spices. It just tasted like Christmas. It was a little over spiced though. I loved the aroma and initial flavor, but the finish was a little too heavy on the spices. My mouth felt like I’d poured dry spices in my mouth and tried to wash them down with a great beer. Got way better as it warmed. A bonus point for being so damn Christmasy. TECHNICAL: Bottle. Poured a dark brownish red (it looked almost like birch beer) with an average to large, off-white to tan head that kept a nice sheet and left fair to good lacing. The aroma was moderate to heavy cookie and molasses; light piney hops; raisin, brown sugar, holiday spices and maybe a little orange zest. The initial flavor was sweet and acidic; while the finish was sweet, rather acidic, lightly sour and lightly to moderately bitter with an average to long duration, There was spiced cookies, a bit of pine, citrus and sour cherries. The medium body was a little syrupy and then rather dry with rather tingly carbonation and a dry, chalky and moderately astringent finish.

2006 A nice dark brown colour with beige lacing. Spicy treacle aroma. Tastes of licorice, vanilla. A really nice beer! 2007 Dark brown with beige lacing. Earthy aroma. Malthy and earthy flavour, not a bad beer, but not as good as the 20006

Bought the 50oz magnum at Safeway ($15) to serve at a holiday/seasonal beer tasting that I organized. I have to admit, I expected a ’bigger’ flavor from the legendary Anchor Brewing Co. I’m not sure how this compares with their other Christmas offerings, but I found this year’s edition to be unremarkable. Maybe that’s their intention since its meant to be served in a group setting where tastes and preferences vary widely. This ale will not offend anyone, but will not inspire either.

12 oz. bottle. Dark color. Very sweet nose, with hints of cola, cloves and cardamon. Despite it’s color, no chocolate or coffee notes at all. Thin bodied and quite tart and acidic. No real hop notes at all. Very unique. Kind of like beer tea. Also tried the 2008 earlier this year and liked it better.