Anchor Our Special Ale (2004)

Formerly brewed at Anchor Brewing Company
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
San Francisco, California USA

Been in the cellar for about a year. Aroma is toasted with some mild coffee. Almost all hoppiness has vanished. Additional smells of allspice and nutmeg. Head is creamy, light-brown with excellent lacing. Body is clear/flat and black in color. Initial flavor is lightly sweet with a short fonish. Taste is watery/flat with a moderate alcohol finish. I don’t think this stood up as well as some people think it does. I can’t see holding any of this for another year. Didn’t progress well, at all.

2004. the overdone spice and bitterness plus the lack of malt and alcohol makes this beer harder to drink, yet it is still pretty good itsbut its just like using twice the ingredients to make one batch of gingerbread cookies. it could have been more subtle.

04 with harmfuld. this is tight. pours dark coffee color small bubbly head. smells like date and ginger. taste like coffe with nutmeg and ginger and a little raisin. mmm

Bottle from Utobeer. Very dark brown with beige head. Dark roast malt and spicey aroma but with good hop too. Softer than the 2005 that I had a couple of weeks ago. Good dark choc flavours, it also has good depth and length. I love this stuff. It’s like a mulled porter, but the spice is integrated in this.

Aroma: touch of plastic, spices & liqueor. Very spiritous. Appearance: cloudy brown/red with ruby highlights, tan head and small lacing. Flavour: Spicey and bitter, tobacco and chicory. Palate: lingering sour and bitter.

Like Christmas pudding, this is a sweet indulgence and a little goes a long way. But damn, it’s nice while it lasts. It’s a fine-looking beer, an opaque walnut with a 1cm head that laced well. Delicious aroma. Mmm... puddings. A classic Christmas seasonal. Strong nutmeg notes in there, plus cinammon, molasses, sherry and grout. Medium bodied and gently carbonated. Arguably a little flat in the mouth but it complements the style. The spices are immediately evident. Bitter chocolate, nutmeg, cinammon, figs, oak and a tangy curacao finish. It’s sweet but not overly so - this is a nice balancing act. This is streets ahead of the only previous year I sampled (2000). (355ml bottle, IBS Perth, bb October 2006)

Aroma of burnt wood, fig, cinammon, and nutmeg. Appears a deep port color; mostly brown with some orange on the edges, and with no head to speak of. Flavor is currant, sweet yet tart, with some woody notes, and with some prune in the finish. Palate is moderate in every way. Overall, this beer is equal to the sum of its parts.

One bottle of this and already I’m hooked. This was lovely, and it had the Xmas spirit all gift wrapped into that stumpy bottle in the form of a moorish little beer. Tasted from the bottle, into a chalice at around room temperature. Beautiful to look at and raising the biggest head of all the Anchor beers; all thick, creamy and steadfast, leaving behind thin patterns of lace in it’s wake. The body of beer was opaque and almost black with only a tinge of brown showing in the shallow of the glass. Dry and extremely spicy on the nose towards the point of tickling deep into the nasal cavity. Notes of sage, cloves and nutmeg, and fresh picked thyme give a wonderful bouquet underlying hints of rose petals. First sign of malt comes in up front in the mouth. Dusty cocoa and some bitter, dark chocolate offer a contrast to the spicy, and reasonably dry flavours. Notes of cloves and nutmeg follow into the long, unusually rich swallow that leaves dark chocolate lingering in the mouth between swallows. I could honestly have settled for drinking this all night, had it not been for the fact I only purchased one bottle. Beer drinker’s 1st rule to drinking beer- Always buy more than one... D’oh!!! (355mL, BBE 10/06, Int’l Beer Shop, W. Leederville)