San Fran cans panned

My first, and only, bottle of Anchor Liberty Ale came from The Vintry in Rathgar in 2007 where it had been sitting in a south-facing window for an indefinite period of time. Over the years I've felt the occasional twang of guilt about the review I wrote at the time, in which I described it as somewhere between a weissbier and a tripel, utterly ignorant that it's actually an IPA, the first of the wave of craft IPAs which arrived in the late 20th century and went on to have a huge impact on beer enthusiasts worldwide. So, I've been meaning to get hold of a better-kept bottle of Liberty and give it a re-run, with the benefit of an extra nine years' beer writing. And now it comes in cans! Even better! So I nabbed one in DrinkStore and here it is.

And it still tastes like a cross between a weissbier and a tripel: I totally get where that guy was coming from in 2007. Banana fruit esters are the first thing I can distinguish in the subtle but complex flavour, and when combined with the soft texture it's weissbier all the way. Behind this is a very dry and tannic brown bitter effect and while the hops are present in this, it's not the pine or citrus typical of modern American IPA: it's far more restrained and pleasantly peppery, which is where my tripel analogy comes in. That dry English bitterness is how the beer finishes. It's pleasant, but not especially impressive. While I like that beers like Liberty still exist to show where pale ale brewing has come from in quite a short time, and I'd happily drink this in the proper context, I don't think it deserves classic status for taste alone.

With that kicking delivered to an innocent old beer, I turn to a younger sibling. Brotherhood Steam has been brewed for the band Chris Robinson Brotherhood, is a similar strength to Liberty at 5.6% ABV, and a very similar orange-amber colour. This has, however, been dry-hopped, with Citra and Nelson Sauvin, no less. And yet it's rather a plain deal, led by toffee malt but with a quick lager finish, befitting its status as a steam beer. The commercial copy tells me to look for citrus and mint in the aroma but you'd need a lot of imagination to pick those out. I do get a pleasant citrus hop kick right in the centre of the flavour but it's smothered quickly by the malt.

This beer is neither here nor there. You could pass it off as a slightly wonky version of any number of styles: märzen, bitter, amber ale, zwickel, but it wouldn't satisfy an enthusiast of any of these. There's nothing wrong per se, but there's nothing to latch on to; nothing that makes it stand out. For that reason I don't think it quite works, struggling for even one-dimensionality.

Sorry, San Francisco. I'm just not feeling the love today.

Pure independence

I'm fairly sure that my interest in craft beer began when The Porterhouse opened in Dublin back in 1996. One of the first international craft beers I ever encountered was the one often credited with starting the whole craft beer movement: San Francisco's Anchor Steam Beer. And yet in all this time I never got around to tasting it. Until now.

It reminds me a lot of the French bière de garde style: a medium-weight amber ale, strongly carbonated with a light dusting of sediment. There's a lot going on in the flavour department, with sweet caramel on the lips, a rich malty middle, subtle hops at the back of the palate and then back to a filling treacle sweetness at the end. Something is wrong though: the date on the bottle suggests that it's fresh enough, but there's a dry sour musty character to the beer that I'm not sure is supposed to be there. Either it doesn't travel well or it's not made to my taste in ale.

Anchor also make the paler, stronger Liberty Ale. Again, this is thick-headed and slightly cloudy, though golden rather than amber. Tastewise it's somewhere between a German weiss and a Belgian tripel: having a much greater complexity than the former in terms of fruit and spice, though definitely not as engaging as the latter. Dry, rich, malty and definitely a cut above its sister ale.

Over on the right-hand coast is another craft beer pioneer: the Boston Beer Company, who brew the Samuel Adams brand beers. Their Boston Lager is fairly well known in these parts (reviewed here), but recently I spotted their Black Lager for the first time. It's a humdinger. It pours a deep deep red with light fizz and a short-lived head. The taste is an up-front smack of smoke and liquorice, fading to treacle and malt afterwards. Of the three beers in this post, this is the only one leaving me wishing it came in bigger bottles, 'cos I could do a pint of this. And then another. Why they didn't call it "Dunkel Sam" is beyond me.

Of course, these days you can hardly move for excellent American craft beer from a variety of small producers around the country. But for this post, given the date, I thought it appropriate to explore some of the origins of American independence.