Anchor Our Special Ale (2012)

It’s now December, which means it’s probably close to Christmas. The 70-degree temperatures here in New Orleans don’t exactly send any number of lords leaping or chestnuts roasting, but I’ve set my inner Clark Griswold free and blanketed our house with a few thousand watt-stealing bulbs and I couldn’t be more excited about the holidays. I think I enjoy the winter seasonals more than any other seasonals.

Anchor makes some quality beers. I can’t say I’ve ever been disappointed in one. Their porter is ranked as one of my favorite porters, which is a short list comprised of most every porter I’ve ever had. Okay, bad example.

Anchor’s Christmas seasonal is different every year. I haven’t had previous years’, so I can’t do any comparisons, but it probably wouldn’t be fair to the 2012 beer if I compared it to it’s older brother and then gave it some sort of complex and and then maybe that type of behavior would spill over to his younger brother 2013 and the whole line would just be ruined.

The beer was a nice deep, brown color, like maybe the color of a reindeer’s fur. It poured with a nice caramel-colored head that was thick like a caramel-colored snow bank. It retained the head for quite a while, too, which is not only a testament to the beer’s properties, but also the cleanliness of my glass.

It has a sweet aroma with some hop smell and a hint of something sort of licorice-smelling. I may be off on that description, but Rhea concurred on the licoriceness of it, and I trust her nose more than my own.

The flavor was really very interesting. It was a bit confusing to my tongue, but I told my tongue to get over it and drink on. There’s notes of licorice in the front. That’s followed by some hoppiness and then a sweet malt finish, which is then followed up immediately by some more licorice flavor, dashing through the snow. It’s important to note that the licorice flavor is nothing like a black jellybean, but more like some sort of root-based flavor. It’s kiiiind of like what I imagine a fruitcake tastes like. That’s not a bad thing. I like to think fruitcakes taste amazing and everyone in the world is missing out.

I also noticed a hint of cloves after a few sips. I could also taste some cinnamon right before the beer hit my tongue.

Overall, this is a good beer. It’s not as piney or spicy as most Christmas ales go. It’s an absolutely unique Christmas beer. It’s worth trying. I’ll most likely try it again at some point this month, maybe if Avenue Pub throws some on tap.