Stout When It's Great: Wellington Imperial Russian Stout

[markaberrant]

Everything is just bigger, the malt and especially the hops. The bottled is always reliable. Any of the Anchor beers would be a great find on draft here but I've never seen it.

Gary

My first taste of Anchor Porter was on tap at their pub in the SF Airport about 4 years ago. Maybe had a lot to do with a long day of travel, but it was absolutely stunning. Incredible richness and depth for a beer of reasonably mild strength. Very more-ish.

The bottles are indeed enjoyable as well.

[G.M. Gillman]

And the funny thing is, all forms of Anchor's beer are pasteurized. They would surely be even better unpasteurized. Yet the company has never changed this, which shows its pre-craft beer roots. I thought after Maytag sold the company this practice might be changed, or eased, but this has not occurred I believe.

I am a huge admirer of Maytag but I've never bought into this part of what they do. He has often been quoted as saying that his goal was to go back to the most authentic way to brew beer, and clearly that is so in the ingredients he uses. E.g. he stopped using all adjunct and colouring after taking over full control at the company. But pasteurizing is rarely done by the craft fraternity, and of course it could not have been done for real ale as defined by CAMRA and ancestral in England. Nor was most German beer sold domestically pasteurized, not when Maytag took over in the 1960's and not even today I believe.

Nonethless the Anchor products do retain a lot of character despite the heat-sterilizing applied to them.

Gary