Anchor Steam Beer

Anchor Brewing Company is a legend among the beer cognoscenti. If you go back to the middle 70's most of the smaller regional breweries were going out of business. We were left mostly with the national giants Miller, Budweiser and Schlitz with their pale watered down excuse for a beer. I have to admit I drank a lot of Miller back then and enjoyed it. The major brewing revolution that created the fantastic flavorful beers of today was still in the future. Anchor was formed in 1896 by Ernst Baruth and Otto Schinkel Jr. The reason it is called steam beer is lost to the mists of time however by 1896 Steam Beer was the term for most west coast beers. Anchor stumbled along in one form or another for the next 70 years including doing what no one knows during prohibition. In 1965 the brewery was set to close again when the hero of the story Fritz Maytag appeared on the scene. Fritz enjoyed drinking Anchor Steam at the Old Spaghetti Factory in San Francisco. When owner of the Spaghetti Factory mentioned to Fritz to go see the brewery before it closed he rushed down there and soon bought 51% of the operation. It took Fritz 10 years to turn the old girl around but Fritz and Anchor were pioneers in what is now known as micro brewing. I have been to San Francisco and had bottled Anchor Steam. Now out of the blue I have found Anchor Steam on draft in Western Mass. It is not a big bold beer like many of the new creations . Anchor Steam is a nice amber rich but smooth drinking beer slight hop flavor and nice head. 6 caps is my top rating but I had 8 of them last night so you know I kept on drinking this beer.

If you are a beer fan you have to drink an Anchor Steam at least once in your life as Anchor Steam is one of the bedrocks of our modern beer drinking experience.