I'm Not Dead!

Wow it has been a while. Part of it was being broke, I did not have much in the way of exploration to be sharing, then I got a job and things got busy. So my early New Year's Goal is to actually update this thing once a week or so.

Today I am going to talk about Anchor's Christmas Ale 2010. This one actually snuck up on me. I was sort of keeping an eye out for it, and lucked into the last six pack that Full Throttle Bottles had. I wanted to get a couple of them for a project that I am launching, but I had to settle for what I could get. The project is to keep an inventory of the Christmas Ale from year to year, allowing it to age and do vertical tastings each year.

I got this idea from my friend Marc Gaspar. He was an incredible brewer and a very kind mentor. When I first started going to meetings at Kansas City Bier Meisters homebrew club, Marc would always be willing to taste my beer with me. He would then give pointers as to what we were tasting. What the problems were, and offered suggestions on how to fix them. He made me a much better brewer and never made me feel bad about my early efforts.

In any event, when they cleaned out Marc's beer cellar they brought it down to the memorial we held for him. In among the bottles of homebrew there were several years worth of Anchor Christmas Ale. This is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, Anchor changes the spices they add to the beer each year. They don't go over the top, just enough to give it a unique character from year to year. Second, being a dark beer it does age quite nicely. Marc inspired me to begin my own project this year. I only have one six pack at the moment, and I drank one of those as we will see below. I want to get my hands on at least one more six pack to age around 10 for the base of the project.

Here are my tasting notes from bottle I drank tonight.

Aroma: Dark roasted malt, low hop aroma, caramel notes and faint spice.

Appearance: Dark brown with ruby highlights, tan head with medium persistance and a fine texture.

Flavor: Bitter roasted malt. Notes of orange, chocolate malt. Light hop flavor, variety does not show. Warming alcohol, Clove? Grains of Paradise? Aftertaste fades from lingering bitterness into coffee flavors. As it warms it presents more malt sweetness, some sour twang, and faint anise flavors.

Mouthfeel: Medium carbonation, light body with some astringincy.

Over All Impression: Unlike many winter warmer and Christmas beers, Anchor's Christmas Ale is a standard 5.5% ABV. This helps to keep it from being too filling to drink more than one at a time, and may make it harder to age. The tannins should help this beer age gracefully, much like they do in big red wines. It will be interesting to see how this beer compares back to these notes over the next few years.

On a more personal note, I am now employeed so I hope to be able to get out and expereince what Seattle has to offer in the future. I have attened many things I should have shared with you, such as the Cider Festival and the Winter Beer Festival, but life was sort of crazy at the time. I said early my New Year's Goal was to update this more often. Note I did not say Resolution, the only one of those I ever kept was to quit making them. Now I set goals for the year to come. Sometimes I do alright, sometimes I suck.