Anchor Steam Beer:
Ah, good evening fellow readers/beer drinkers/fans of a good time and let’s jump right to it.  It’s been a while since we’ve done a run on a single brewery here at the beer institute for higher drinking so let’s start one today and we are going to go with a classic.   A long, long time ago (1869) in a galaxy far away (San Francisco) there was a brewery founded in San Francisco by German immigrants that made beers based on German traditions at a brewery named Anchor that lasted through troubles times on and off till the late 50’s and early 60’s when America fell for lighter beers and lost their taste for craft brews and Anchor fell on hard times.  Flash forward to 1965 and an life saving investment puts Anchor back on the map and back to brewing their patented Steam beer that was first crafted pre-prohibition.  So today we look at that beer, a steam beer that is not only historical, but pretty tasty too.  The beer pours a light amber color with a nice head around two fingers in depth that dissipates down to a quarter inch rather quickly but is very thick and creamy and leaves nice lacing on the glass.  The nose is strong on the caramel malts and hops with a bit of biscuit underneath it all.  The initial sip is very hoppy and bitter but moves to a subtle sweet caramel notes on the mid-tongue while the back-end and aftertaste is very hop filled, similar to a good pale ale.  A very good beer, one that is to be drunk by everyone at least once.  This brewery, along with Samuel Adams, led the way in the revival of craft breweries and while Sam gets a ton of attention, Anchor does as well.