Anchor Brewing Company,San Francisco,California, has been brewing these special Christmas ales since 1975 with a unique (and secret) recipe and a different tree on the label each year. You can view all of the previous labels on their web site and commemorative holiday pint glasses are available as well. We bought a magnum of the 2008 ale for our own holiday celebration this year. Here’s what we thought:
SALLY: Each year the recipe for the Christmas Ale differs a bit from the year before. We tested the 2008 in a magnum bottle. The color was a deep reddish brown with a thick taupe head with excellent and lasting lacing. I was expecting a richer mouthfeel, but while it didn’t quite have the legs I expected, it was nicely moderate with excellent spice notes at the front, and smooth, clean end notes. Slightly dry. It was slightly reminiscent of the spices in gluwein: allspice and mace.
MICHAEL: Rich, dark brown with red highlights and a tan head that leaves plenty of lacing. An earthy smell of molasses and chocolate. Nice medium-thick mouthfeel and a hint of malty sweetness followed by a lingering touch of spices. Chocolate is there in the flavor, too. The finish is fairly dry but not bitter. Overall a very pleasant companion on a winter’s night. Good thing, too, ’cause the bottle is freakin’ huge.
Sally’s rating: 8
Michael’s rating: 8 Ratings are 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest
Brewed by Ridgeway Brewing, Oxfordshire, England and imported by Shelton Brothers. A note on the label assures us that Santa’s “Butt” refers to a “certain barrel used in brewing — a very large barrel, in fact, holding 108 imperial gallons”. So there you go. As if there were any other explanation. It’s a 6% ABV Winter Porter that we sampled on Christmas Eve 2008. Our thoughts:
SALLY: This porter is as dark and rich as a char-broiled steak cooked to perfection. The head is a creamy off-white with decent but not overly exuberant lacing. The mouth feel is rich with subtle notes of nutmeg and other seasonal spices. It falls a little more on the malty side than I generally go for in a brew, but it is certainly a great choice for a cold winter night. I recommend pairing this with a steaming bowl of chili, and because of that excellent pairing, my rating is a tad higher than it might be on another day.
MICHAEL: Pours a cola-like color with very little head. A malty aroma with hints of coffee. It tastes a little thin and borders on being watery. The carbonation is mild — almost like a nitrogenized beer. Chocolate and some smokey aspects to the flavor. Not as rich as I tend to expect from a porter. Kind of what no-name colas are to Coke or Pepsi, this beer is to a true porter. I seem to keep coming back to that cola reference as there is something that reminds me of a grocery store brand cola in a 2-liter plastic bottle. I guess you’re buying Santa’s Butt for the name and the novelty and, as a novelty, it could be far worse. In fact, I’ll put this just above the average line but (no pun intended) given the name I have to say I was expecting it to fall far below. Not something you’d drink year ’round — but then who would order a Santa’s Butt in July? As a once a year conversation piece, it won’t make you suffer. Not bad… just not great.
Sally’s rating: 7.5
Michael’s rating: 5.5 Ratings are 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest
My friend and fellow travel photographer, Chad Case, told me about iBeer months ago before I even had an iPhone. It’s an application that runs on the phone as well as the iPod Touch and fills the device with a lifelike image of beer that you can “drink” by tipping the corner to your mouth. It’s best explained with video. Check out the clip in this review by 148apps.com. Evidently, the folks that made iBeer are now in court with Molson Coors, suing for over $12 million due to a similar app called iPint that the brewing giant developed to promote their Carling brand.
Now that I finally have an iPhone myself, I decided to check out what other (possibly more useful?) beer-related apps are available from the iTunes App Store. Here’s what I have turned up so far. I haven’t loaded any of these yet so they’re not recommendations, just a list of available offerings. Let me know in the comments if I’ve missed anything or if you have had any experience with these apps.
iBeer — simulated beer for your simulated enjoyment Beer Pad — an app for recording your tasting notes Tasting Notes — not limited to beer, this app records tasting notes for wine, whiskey, tea, cigars and coffee as well BrewMath — “turns your iPod Touch or iPhone into a powerful pocket calculator for brewers”. Unit conversions, mash calculations and much, much more Beer Hero — database of over 1600 beers with information on pairings and a pub finder iBeers Pro — over 2700 beers in this database with information on brewery, bottle size, type, alcohol content, etc. See also, iBeers and iBeers Lite Beer Brands — beer database with pairing info, suggested glasses and serving temperatures, alcohol by volume and more Aleboards — displays a photo of the current “on-draft” chalkboards from Dogfish Head Alehouses Beer Counter — um… for counting how many beers you’ve had? Cold Beer — tells you how long a refrigerator needs to cool down beer in various bottle sizes Beer Finder — a game that “challenges players to find the missing beer bottles at the bar as fast as they can” Beer Duel — think shuffleboard only with pints Beer Pong — multiple versions of this drinking game in digital form
For more information on any of these titles or to purchase them, go to the App Store in iTunes and search on the program’s name. If you don’t have iTunes, you can download it free from Apple.
In our first episode, we travel to Fayetteville, Arkansas, to talk to brewmaster Steve Mazylewski — the first of a two-part interview. Then, off to nearby Miami, Oklahoma, to take a look at a restored vaudeville theater.
I ran across this article on CreativePro.com that says Pantone — the “global authority on color and provider of professional color standards for the design industries” — has announced their pick for the color of the year for 2009: PANTONE® 14-0848 Mimosa.
Pantone’s predictions reflect trends in fashion and other fields of design. Their color matching systems help to create consistent hues between fabrics, paints, printing inks, etc. While they describe Mimosa as exemplifying the “warmth and nuturing quality of the sun” I can’t help by be reminded of something else… beer. Perhaps a Munich Helles or a nice Pilsner to be more specific.
More information is available on how beer colors are referenced on Wikipedia and you can even order your own wallet-sized guide from Beer Color Laboratories. It’s hard to judge on-screen images of fabric and liquids but I’d say Mimosa is somewhere around 5 to 7 degrees Lovibond, although it looks closer to 8 or 10 SRM on the Wikipedia page putting it closer to a Weissbier or a Bass Pale Ale.
All I know is that 2009 looks to be a great year.
On another note, yesterday (December 5) was the 75th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition in the United States. Cheers!
For our first beer review here on Travel by the Pint, we popped the cork (cap, actually) on a bottle of Santa Fe Brewing Company’sSangre de Frambuesa. Part of Santa Fe’s “Big Beer” series, it comes in a big 1 pint, 9.3 fl. oz. (750ml) foil-wrapped bottle and contains a whopping 12% alcohol by volume. We picked our bottle up at their brewery on the outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Here’s what we thought…
SALLY: This raspberry Belgian ale reminds me of summers as a kid picking raspberries off my grandmother’s canes, and eating them warm swimming in heaps of half and half. Well, it does if one ignores the significant alcohol content. But it doesn’t taste as strong as it is, and the clear red hue and creamy foam head is both attractive and tasty. The complex flavors hit at both opening and finishing notes. This is a one of Santa Fe Brewing Company’s limited edition bottles that celebrate their 20th anniversary. Don’t bother to pair this special occasion beer with food. That will only distract from its quality.
MICHAEL: This is one beautiful beer. Red-copper in color with a slightly rosy head. The aroma is all about raspberries. When I took my first whiff I was immediately craving dark chocolate to pair with this beer. With the first taste I thought there might be too much raspberry — tart with a syrupy tang that sticks to the back of the roof of your mouth. But I couldn’t stop there. Taste number two and I was already adjusting to all that flavor. It’s strong — both in flavor and alcohol content — but it’s not overpowering. Not an every day beer but one great special occasion or dessert beer. As it warms, I get a little more of the alcohol flavor but it’s mostly a warming element. Very nice on a cold night. Makes me think a little of holiday gluhwein. The guys at Santa Fe Brewing did a fantastic job on this one.
Sally’s rating: 9
Michael’s rating: 8.5 Ratings are 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest
Anchor Brewing Company,San Francisco,California, has been brewing these special Christmas ales since 1975 with a unique (and secret) recipe and a different tree on the label each year. You can view all of the previous labels on their web site and commemorative holiday pint glasses are available as well. We bought a magnum of the 2008 ale for our own holiday celebration this year. Here’s what we thought:
