Death of an Iconic Micro-Brew Brand
Most people that travel in the 'craft-beer' circles know by now the fate of Anchor Brewing Co. This isn't the first time the brewery has run into hard times and recovered with new ownership so it may or may not be the end. I first encountered Anchor beer in the mid-1990's while the company was in full swing and the craft-brew craze was spreading across the country. There were few craft-beer choices available in local markets, including high end grocery stores that catered to specialty ales during the era of enlightenment. I should mention that in the early to mid-1990's everyone I knew, including myself, called craft-beer micro-brew but in keeping with current times, I'll stick to the modern nomenclature. But, I digress. Nearly every beer that Anchor Brewing has produced from the 90's onward has been through my liver except Old Foghorn Barley Wine Style Ale. The latter is lamentable as barley wine ales are among my favorite styles.
I'll spare the lengthy history of the company of which you can read here: https://www.anchorbrewing.com/about-us/the-anchor-story/. The part of their history for me concerns the annual release of Anchor's well loved Christmas beer which is dated for each year of production and adorned with a different tree for each release. Their Christmas ale began in 1975 and the flavor evolved over the years but I didn't have my first one until somewhere around 1995 or so. Since 2019 I began saving a few from each year to sample with the next release and in that way I could get an idea of how much the flavor was evolving. 2022 was the last year and it was not my favorite either. I had no idea then that it would be the last release, as far as we know, otherwise I might have bought a couple of cases to savor the end of an era.
Fast forward to Christmas 2023, when we learned of Anchor's doors closing. Knowing that there was a very low chance of a Christmas release I decided that I needed a new Christmas favorite. Don't think that that was the only ale that I consumed at Christmas time because it wasn't, but it was the one that I made sure to save for the 24th and 25th of December. This year the hunt for a new Christmas favorite began in early November, as Oktoberfest was just wrapping up. There is a plethora of holiday release beers on the market every year. This year I found three that made it very difficult to choose a favorite. The first one is Merry Monkey from Victory which is a Belgian style ale with holiday spices coming in at 10% ABV. Next is Everything Nice from Ommegang Brewery which is a Belgian style blonde ale coming in at 9% ABV. Lastly but not lastly is The Cranfather from Founders Brewing Co. which is a fruit and field beer coming in at a whopping 11.1% ABV. The trouble is picking just one to make sure that it's on hand for the big two days of Christmas in my family. Since we don't know if any of them will be released each year going forward, I'd have to pick one of each for each of the two days. But if I had to pick just one I think that it would be The Cranfather for it's hearty cranberry flavoring and very high ABV. If it were down to cost it would be a toss-up between Merry Monkey and Everything Nice. All things considered, I will have something to think about for many months to come, and hopefully all three are available next December.
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