Anchor Brewing Co. to build 2nd brewery on San Francisco's Pier 48; quadrupling production

That would be nice. The porter, for the record, is still pretty decent.

Anyway.

I don't pay attention to natural flavor labels, as that's not a criteria that I use to pre-judge a beer. I've enjoyed the last three Christmas Ales from Anchor quite a bit.

Use of any extract has to be disclosed as "natural flavors added". No big deal.

I always thought Liberty Ale was wayyy too soapy

After the new construction, their beers may be even more sawdusty.

I give an nfa beer a second-thought every time. I will still try it and if it's decent, I'll drink it. I bought a sixer of 21st Amendment Fireside (total coincidence!) Chat last night. I don't know if it counts, but this had "spices added" on the label, which I didn't notice until I brought it home. I didn't buy this for the cap, as it is in a can, but I generally like their beer and wanted to try it. I was actually pleasantly suprised by it, not a bad beer at all.
To be honest, I don't think I would have bought it had I looked closer. But having bought so many beers for caps over the years, I've found nfa beers to be the crappiest. Exept for Bud, which I usually find some victim for and get the cap off myself. I've also had Anchor Christmas for the last 25 years in a row, give or take, and it seems like the last couple of years were way sweeter and overly spicy. Anyway, have a good weekend and I hope you find time for at least a few brews, whatever they may be...

Where have you found BBC's brewing capacity listed at "about" 6 million barrels? Most stats for their Cincinnati brewery, even after BBC's expansions over the years, still put it around 1m bbl. Though Schaefer once listed the brewery in eastern PA at 5m bbl. and under Stroh in the '80's it was 3.5m-4m bbl., BBC has always put it at much less than that - usually around 1.6 - 2 million barrels a year. That could be because of longer aging times (less tank turnover), changes in the brewery when it was owned by Diageo, and BBC supposedly only brews a batch about half the size of the original 1000 bbl. brew kettles because they're doing all malt beers, not the adjunct brews the place was designed for.

You are correct. The 6MM barrel figure was how BBC defines a "small" brewer: http://www.samueladams.com/culture

So you try not to drink a beer if it has "natural flavors added" and you won't drink a Bud but want the cap? It's all beer man, relax and enjoy them all.

Oh, OK- thought they may have done some big changes to one/both of the production facilities.

That's not BBC's definition, BTW, that's the Brewers Association's (of which they are a member, of course) and is based on yearly barrelage, not capacity - not that any current craft brewer is close to it in either respect.

Funny, I just had an original Anchor Steam bottle last week and it was as tasty as ever. And their Porter is truly excellent.

Typical young American BA comment.

Their yeast signature in that beer (the porter) is just awesome, and truly makes it a standout beer after all these years.

Try them all, maybe, but enjoy them all? I guess you've never tried Cool Colt (Colt .45 w/ menthol flavor). Bud, by the way, makes awesome caps.

I hate to be that guy, but that would be the worst idea. The point of their beer is balance, the kind of stuff I could drink any day.

Weird, what you call balance is what I call half-assed, inoffensive beer.

sage wisdom from EXTREME PALATE.

With all that capacity coming on line will they start brewing Brew Dog?

TF...It's thinking, nonetheless. Build your brand, build your product...expand. Anchor Steam is old school and widely marketed. Shit sits on the shelves in the midwest. If they have the cash (and clout) to build a multi-million shop in San-Fran...so be it. But, requesting an investment in a *possibly* better product is equally a wise move and not just *typical* as you say.

Sadly, my experience w/these growing *brew pubs* is not exactly preferred to bettering the product. We'll see.

Regardless of the opinions, this is a good step for craft beer. I like anchor steam!

Yes, they clearly gained their reputation on half-assed recipes and more IBUs = instantly better beer.

No, I just find both their Liberty and Steam beer boring when fresh and soapy when old. They built a reputation for being one of the first craft breweries and offering some color to an homogenous industry in the 70's. I wish they would just offer one super flavorful brew year round!

Old Foghorn has a pretty strong and complex flavor to me. The new Cali Lager is tasty and will be year round too.

Yes, so exactly. Yawn, these old folks know crap-all about BEER!

Or, more than you.

Regretably, ive never had Old Foghorn. Which is pretty pathetic considering ive lived in SF for 8 years. Too busy drinking Pliny, I guess. I guess if youre just looking for a sessionable, easy going brew, Anchor is good for that. Id still take SNPA over any Anchor any day(im not even that big on SN either)

Ouuuchhhh, that stings. lol

this is great news - love to hear it and I have a lot of love/support for Anchor.

i love this beer. in all the press & hype of Citra hops get, this gem is often overlooked. Brekle's is a single-hop brown ale w/ only Citra hops that is brewed year-round. I love it and often have some fresh Brekle's in the house.....

Awesome news. Really rediscovering in the last couple years just how solid the Anchor lineup is as a whole. Old Foghorn is my favorite & highly recommended, I'd try anything by Anchor.

Beer is old school. Anchor Steam is deftly built to perfection. Is it a big dumb your tongue IPA? No. Is it a crank the ABV to 10 or more RIS stuffed in a whisky barrel? Nope. It's a fucking classic near sessionable beer that is appreciated world wide. It's a American style which Anchor has cornered the market with. No one even bothers to compete. I can't think of one of their beers that would benefit from doubling up on the hops. Leave that for brewers who foolishly believe that over the top hops, alone, is recipe for greatness.

Good post. I don't get those that call for it to "double the hops". It has the same bitterness as a German pilsner nowadays yet it has the yeast character that comes from higher fermentation temperatures. I think it's delicious. The only thing I would object to is any notion about historic authenticity, Fritz Maytag has admitted that the beer that they originally made wasn't very good, and that Anchor Steam in fact is a revised recipe. So it doesn't harken back to the late 19th century as far as taste goes, but on the other hand it says alot about the American beer scene anno 1970s (which to me is just as interesting as the beer of the 19th century). This beer had and still has taste, it's a lager beer brewed at higher temperatures with the bitterness of a modern German pilsner. As such I think it's really tasty. I really don't understand this sentiment where everything has to be an IPA or borderline IPA to be worthy of drinking (and if it's brewed with dark malts it better be hopped like an IPA).

I think Maytag's emphasis was always more on the steam beer technique and process (warm, shallow, fast bottom-fermentation), rather than any adherence to an authentic "recipe". He did claim that "steam beer" was whatever a steam beer brewery brewed, and since he bought the last surviving one, anything he brewed was rightly called "steam beer". For all his interest in preservation of the style and traditional brewing ingredients and methods (whole hops, dry hopping, kraeusening/bunging for carbonation, etc) he was also willing to adopt new techniques when he thought it meant brewing better beer (he was an early US adopter of flash pastuerization).

When he bought Anchor the beer was adjunct-brewed, the "dark" steam beer they sold was simply the regular steam with caramel coloring added and the lager yeast was simply "borrowed" from various local SF and bay area breweries on a rotating basis (i.e., no unique "steam beer" bottom fermenting yeast). Wahl & Henius' Handy Book (1902) noted that steam beer was then being brewed as an all-malt beer, or with grits and/or with grains and sugars. 100 Years of Brewing (1903)section on steam beer noted, in reference to steam beer brewers, that "...old-timers use barley malt exclusively, which produces an article just the right thing for the pure malt beer apostles!"

It's funny how many different stories about Anchor Steam are around. In the book Michael Jackson's Beer Companion, Jackson claims Anchor was using bakers yeast when Fritz got involved. I wonder if even Fritz knows?

Pretty sure Jackson and Maytag's relationship went way back to '70's when the former was researching his World Guide to Beer. In his first US edition of The Pocket Guide to Beer he writes of a 20+ year old bottle of Ballantine Burton Ale in "private circulation" which turned out to be Maytag's, according to a discussion between Jackson and Sam Caligione about the latter's Burton Baton a few years back now.

Maytag discussed going to the back door of local Bay Area breweries (at the time Falstaff, Lucky, Burgemeister, etc.) and getting yeast from the local brewmasters in this recent brewing convention talk (13 minutes in, but the whole talk is worth a listen - especially the relationships between Anchor/Maytag, the regionals and the nationals). It's also discussed in this MBA article. Of course, by the time Jackson came along, most of the SF breweries would have been gone.

The other info I posted is from various other interviews with Maytag himself. I agree that there's a lot of Anchor info out there, some of it does contradict other accounts - which could be based on the brewery's numerous locations, owners and even simply changes in the decade long period of Maytag's partial/full ownership and subsequent improvements he made that predated the coming of the rest of the "craft" breweries.