New Albion Ale

[G.M. Gillman]

This beer is a recreation by Samuel Adams of the legendary beer made by Jack McAuliffe at his New Albion Brewery in Sonoma, CA from 1977-1982. McAuliffe participated closely in the recreation and they used the original yeast which had been maintained all these years in a yeast bank.

New Albion Brewery was the first modern craft brewery in America, thus trumping Anchor Brewing of San Francisco, CA whose roots are in the 1800's. (Despite this of course Anchor had a huge influence on craft brewing since Fritz Maytag essentially reconfigured the brewery as a craft brewery after gaining full ownership in the late 60's).

I hope to obtain some quite soon but if any of you border hounds have some now, how about some taste notes?

Based on what I've read, the beer is quite light in colour from pale 2-row malt, has a Cascade hop accent but without the heavy hit of a typical modern APA, and has a "crisp" finish which some (e.g. on BA) have likened to a lager despite that it was fermented as an ale. Jack McAuliffe has said that the recreation is the same beer as he last brewed 30 years ago. We should take this at face value: he was there.

Liberty Ale from Anchor preceded New Albion Ale by a couple of years and was the first American beer to use Cascade for potent aroma hopping - it was dry-hopped in fact. Nonetheless, based on some recent reading, I understand that the 1975 Liberty Ale was a limited release and also had a brown colour. It appears it didn't become a regular release, and the Liberty Ale we know today, until 1984 when it was patterned on a previous Our Special Ale - the annual Christmas releases issued since 1975. That is what Maytag states at any rate on a video I was just watching on youtube. He states the model was the 1983 Our Special Ale but a BA review of that beer, although many years later, states it was red in colour, so perhaps the model was 1982 Our Special Ale. In any case, unlike now, the Our Special Ales were light-coloured, and non-spiced, between 1975 and 1982 or so, so Liberty Ale as we know it today seems to have evolved out of them.

New Albion Ale can probably be said to be the first regularly available ale of the style now known as APA - at least that is my conclusion to date.

In any case, apparently the word is that New Albion Ale as compared to the typical industrial lager of 1978 (or today of course) was very distinctive but not necessarily as compared to today's typical APA.

Gary

[G.M. Gillman]

I should have a bottle shortly to review but meanwhile, have been reading reviews on beeradvocate and ratebeer and elsewhere on the interweb. It is extraordinary how they vary. Quiet a few say it tastes like a lager or pilsener, e.g. one duo reviewing it thought it was like a Stella-type beer, and also thought it was "skunky" (no other review I read said that). One said it was like a BMC beer without corn or rice. Another thought it tasted of corn. (It is all-malt). Another thought it was quite English pale ale in style.

Some people thought it was typically APA but lighter, less assertive than many today. One said it seemed to be a proto-Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, which fits into the latter view. One called it a "transition" beer, meaning a bridge between mass market lager and modern craft beer. This fits into that view as well.

Numerous people felt it had a sweet edge and finish, but some thought it tasted dry. Many felt it was "light" in flavour - so did the late Jim Robertson, reviewing the original back in 1982 in his Connoisseur's Guide To Beer.

Some said it looked hazy, some thought, most I think, it looked clear. (I believe it is not bottle-conditioned although the original was).

One person who had tasted the beer a few times from the original brewery (between '78 and '82) thought the recreation was better than the original! He recalled the original as usually cloudy and as sort of (I am paraphrasing) an upgraded home-brew.

A large range of reactions.

Mine will be up soon.

Gary

[mintjellie]

Could the occasional reference to a hazy appearance be chill haze? The beer itself is fairly fresh, so any chill haze wouldn't be permanent yet - the beer would clear up as it warms. If some people are reviewing it colder than others, then that would account for the differences in appearance.

[G.M. Gillman]

Good point.

Gary

[G.M. Gillman]

I've been waiting to taste this since I first read about it in about 1980. When I first got to San Francisco in about 1983, there was none left. This is as close as I'll ever get. Here goes:

It has a light but certainly evident nose and a very firm bitterness. I'd guess the Cascades are used here mostly for bittering, not for aroma. Also, I get a fairly pronounced yeast background even though the beer is filtered. It does pour clear but probably is roughly filtered only, there is a faint haze and I didn't chill it much. I can see it might have more haze if well-chilled.

I think it is based on a typical English bitter of the straw-coloured kind except it is stronger (6% ABV), it reminds me quite a bit of cask Boddington's in fact, or Young's Bitter (not the Special) in the early 80's. It is very natural tasting, nothing processed or "commercial" about it.

Perhaps some Scots heavies (bitters basically) were like this too when Jack McAuliffe was in Scotland in the mid-60's serving with the U.S. Navy.

Commercial lagers are nothing like this, this is much more hopped for example. However, it uses a very pale malt, as some pale ales did historically and into the 20th century, and there is no crystal malt in it, so that explains I think why some people get lager.

It is kind of a cross between a Granite IPA and Granite Ringwood, for those who know those beers. Black Oak Pale Ale also comes to mind, that kind of English-oriented taste.

Does it taste like a Stone IPA, say or a Headstock, no, it is a different kind of beer. We must remember too that English pale ales were quite diverse, some had no aroma and lots of bitterness, some were very pale, some were aromatic and amber-coloured; it really did vary.

I love it! Well done Jack McAuliffe, well done Jim Koch at Sam Adams whose pilot plant brewed this with Jack leading the way. You guys did great and if this was regularly available including on draft it would be a hit I'm sure.

The wait was worth it.

Gary

[Bytowner]

Thanks for reporting back Gary. I wonder how the experience of the tasters influenced the notes you relate to us up above.

[G.M. Gillman]

Well it gave a partial context I would say, some reference points. But I think my assessment essentially differed from theirs because if you look at the average score of the beer on ratebeer and beeradvocate, it is not that high. This reflects the view of many people that the beer didn't make a big impact, wasn't as big in taste notably as a typical APA. It clearly caused some let-down in that regard.

But the context I can give is knowing what a certain kind of pale ale is, not just from my trips to England over a long period, but reading pale ale history. For example, many tasters who know about brewing seemed surprised that the beer used one malt and one hop - they found that "simple". In fact, that is typically how pale ale was brewed in the early to later 1800's (until sugars and crystal malt came in). Jack McAuliffe in my opinion brewed a beer that goes to the origins of the style, right down to the ABV, and I like that.

So their comments gave me a perspective largely of today or rather reinforced it, since I am well aware of how pale ale/IPA is viewed in America today. I added to that from my own history of interest in beer from the late 70's on, and from historical knowledge, to come up with my own view, which as I say was generally much more favourable than theirs. I think what many of the critics or those indifferent don't see is this other side of the picture, in other words. Of course, they are entitled to like what they like, as I am.

Does this mean the New Albion style of pale ale is objectively better than Headstock IPA, say? Not at all. They are different and equally valid representatives of the pale ale tradition.

Gary

[iguenard]

The 100 dollar question: is it better than Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, or Sam Adams Boston Ale?

[G.M. Gillman]

It is as good as each, but different. You mentioned three beers I particularly like, but for different reasons.

Gary

[G.M. Gillman]

I'd like to give a further report after not trying the beer for some days.

First, full chilling does give it a bit more haze than when warm. I like it best half-chilled, both to reduce the (harmless) haze and especially for flavour.

Second, I am getting now what some tasters on BA or RB reported, which is a sulfur-like taste and smell. That is why, I now see, many think it tasted like lager, since most good European lagers have some of that character (from the lagering yeasts). Creemore lager, any version, is a good example of the effect IMO.

I have read that some ale yeasts produce sulfur-like smells too, sometimes when high fermenting temps are used, but sometimes just depending on the strain. E.g. Burton ales were said to have this taste and you can still taste it in Marston's beers for example and Bass (any version).

In fact, this New Albion now reminds me a lot of Worthington White Shield as it was in the 1980's and presumably before. It was quite light in colour, with a marked Burton nose except I got also a banana-like ester in it. The New Albion doesn't have that. White Shield would have been quite available in Bass pubs in the mid-1960's when Jack McAuliffe was in the U.K. and probably in off-licences. I wonder if that was a model, or one of them, for this beer.

Once others get to it I'd be interested in your reaction whether good, bad, indifferent.

Gary

[JeffPorter]

Gary, thanks for this thread...

It's so cool that you're reporting on this beer and I think we're kind of enjoying the experience vicariously through you.

It's kind of making me want to go grab a six of Liberty Ale and kind of "taste the past".

Makes me wonder about that beer too. Since it's almost 40 years old, has the recipe changed over the years, or does today's liberty ale taste pretty much the same as it would have in 1976?

[G.M. Gillman]

Good points Jeff. I believe Liberty Ale, which has its own interesting history, is substantially the same as when it became a regular offering from Anchor from about 1983. This is because the late 70's Our Special Ales Robertson reviewed in his 1982 book I mentioned, which apparently formed the basis for the beer, sound (by his reviews) similar to Liberty Ale today. Plus, unlike with New Albion, I bought the first ones in 1983 and they tasted like the beer does today. Very big and hoppy. I think Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is closer to Liberty Ale than to New Albion, in other words. I would definitely go get some from LCBO, it is still an excellent beer although I wish it wasn't pasteurized. IMO based on what I've read, it really is the first modern craft pale ale if we disregard that Anchor started up in the 1800's and continued to the Maytag era interrupted only by Prohibition. If we don't disregard that, then New Albion is the first modern craft pale ale (commercial pale ale), IMO.

Between New Albion Ale and Sierra Nevada Ale, there were a number of others that came out, most didn't last long (e.g. Cartwright Portland, De Bakker) that probably followed the taste pattern of Liberty Ale, but this is hard to say.

From the point of view of style, and partly probably because Liberty Ale and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale are so long lived, these last two formed the template for APA arguably, not New Albion. Had New Albion lasted much longer, it might have been different or maybe there would be a subset of APA that was quite bitter and Burton pale ale-like or like cask Boddington, but that hasn't occurred. Another beer New Albion reminds me of is Cooper's Sparkling Ale. If the latter was more bitter and had a touch of sulfur, the taste would be pretty close. By the way the founder of Cooper's in the 1800's came from the north in England, when bitter pale-coloured pale ale ruled the roost especially overseas for England.

[G.M. Gillman]

Here is something interesting. In Jim Robertson's 1982 book I mentioned, he reviews "Worthington's Original Pale Ale (White Shield)". This is the bottle-conditioned pale ale that was the last Burton pale ale (at that time anyway) still bottled in its traditional form. He describes the beer as "cloudy yellow, yeasty aroma, delicate and complex hop and malt palate, some yeast in the background, smooth and rich, long aftertaste". Except for the finish, this would describe New Albion very well IMO. Thus, I'd guess it was intended as an English pale ale of the older kind, since those beers were quite light in colour, yeasty, but not necessarily hoppy in the nose. Plus, I had numerous bottles of White Shield (a version is still made in Burton) in the 80's and as I said, it reminded me of New Albion. So again, I think Jack's model likely was pale (not amber or "special bitter") British ale, bitter in a fairly neutral way (i.e., no strong American or other hop aroma), and yeasty. I don't think in other words he likely was a pioneer of the "Cascade" taste - which is largely an aroma - but he was certainly a pioneer of the modern craft movement because his product was "real" in a way no beer was before - even Anchor's beers that I mentioned were bottled filtered and pasteurized, or so I've always understood.

Gary