Anchor Our Special Ale (2004)

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

Dark Red Coloring With Big Thick Sandy Head. Cherry and Christmas Spices. Aggressive Spices on the Tongue. Hops and Warming... Make for a Crisp Bite on the Throat and Tongue...Bitter and Dry. Cinnamon Toast. Hoppy Bitterness Goes Away After Letting it Breathe, Making for a Smoother Tasting. Cold Use Some Again..

Paid $9.99 for a 6-pack. Looking forward to this year’s, as last year’s was so incredible! Appearance: deep brown with ruby hilights, huge, frothy, fluffy head. Smells: pine sticks out first... next is chocolate and raisens. Flavor is piney, chocolatey, raiseny, roasted nuts, deep orange, ginger, and more... VERY complex. Finish is smooth and completely satisfying. There’s not much better than this.

The Lure:
The darkest regal ruby redingote houses a secretive candied green fig, ouzo and piney spice cologne.

The Festivities:
Smooth dark chocolate serves as a comfy bed for the piney, sarsaparilla sprouts. From a sensual body swerves a herbal, roasted malt bitterness. All is hush-hush.

Transcendence:
A coniferous forest floor has efficiently dried out from a recent candy river flood.

(Bottle) Pours a dark brown (almost black) body with a small light tan head. Aroma of coffee, raisins, black licorice, cola, brown sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Flavor of caramel, coffee, chocolate, dark fruits, and spices. Bitter finish.

Pours amber black with nice cream colored head. Aroma...very interesting. I get ginger, orange peel and bubblegum. Body is smooth and clean, more refreshing and light than I expected. Nice roast flavors, followed by clean ginger/citrus and...bubble gum again. (Odd.) Leaves with a nice orange peel feel on my lips. A very special ale indeed. I dig. The stout-gone-citrus thing is fun. I can actually picture this being a nice beer to keep around for hot weather sipping. (Maybe the bubble gum thing will have died down by then too.)

Dark brown appearance with a beige head and good lacing. The sweeter side of the spice family shows up in the aroma, along with some chocolate. More subtle than last year, though. Medium-bodied, showing hints of pine, ginger and some nuttiness. Dry, bitter, but pleasant, with a long, peppery finish.

(12 oz. bottle) Big tan head atop clear brown-black body. Aroma is medium sweet, strong ginger, light spruce, anise. Taste is moderately sweet, caramel, spruce, ginger, light anise, finishing with light roasty chocolate. Medium body, light resin, light carbonation. Put me in the camp of those who like this beer, thoough I fully understand why the spices are not for everyone.

Huge thick and stubborn head on top a dark mahogany brown body. Few rings of lacing left behind. Nose is butterscotch and sweet malt. Flavor is of toasty and moderately spiced and coffee like cocoa bean. The spice kind of reminded me of the same eggnog has. Fair winter brew that i will store and age for later sampling.