RIP Anchor Brewing

Sam Adams has been sneakily doing the hard cider and seltzer bit for the last decade.

 

When I was 21, I spent the summer taking courses at Berkeley. Coming from absolute rural Ontario, I thought I was quite the sophisticate ordering Anchor Steams in various establishments. High sentimental value for this rube.

 

There are a bunch of great breweries in the Berkeley-Oakland-San Leandro area -- Drake, Linden St., 21st Amendment (in S.F.), Elevation 66, Triple Rock, Trumer. Beer Revolution is a couple blocks east of Jack London Square. .......

 

Rare Barrel out of Berkeley also offers some great beer.

21st Amendment is great. They have a blood orange IPA I make a point to get when I am stocking up.

 

Cleophus Quealy was a cool place in San Leandro. Had several beers up to 8 ABV.
Linden St. had a black lager that was the bomb.

 

These are tough times for anchors.

 

Up until a decade ago, Newcastle was my beer of choice. You can't even find it anymore.
Sam Adams used to be a big deal. I haven't had one in years except for I do enjoy Octoberfest in the fall. Boston Lager? Don't remember the last time I had one.
When Yuengling hit the scene, I'd bootleg it across state lines. Now it's ubiquitous, and I generally move along.

 

Narragansett Beer Spearheads Efforts To Save Anchor Brewing. (forbes.com)

 

For the most part the craft beer thing here in Toronto didn't do it for me. Overpriced, often lousy, beer that, as been mentioned here, focused on mega-hoppy, heavy IPAs to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. And if you happened to find a beer you liked, it might never be found in your local liquor or beer store again due to distribution issues at the source.

There are some places making good beer, Mill Street (bought by Labatt), Henderson and Trestle, a brewery in Bobby Orr's hometown of Parry Sound that I try to hit whenever I am up that way. But I stick to the brands I drank long before the craft beer thing: Labattt 50, Molson Export and Old Vienna. Can't go wrong with the classics.

 

Unibroue in Quebec makes some fantastic Belgian-style beers. They aren't cheap, and you won't want to quaff a few after mowing the lawn. But I don't think any brewery in North America matches Unibroue's Fin du Monde, Maudite and Trois Pistoles.

 

Fin du Monde, end of the world indeed! Definitely not the kind of beer you chug by the pool!

 

I think Maudite goes back to about 1990 or so when I lived there. Montreal had its own version of Sam Adams/Anchor Steam back then - St-Ambroise. It’s still going but not sure how popular.