A Year of Craft Beer, Vol. 2, 2012 Anchor "Our Special Ale"

This is the 38th edition of Anchor's Christmas ale as I gleaned from the bottle.  I'm not going to be all Wordsworth tonight about this beer like I was last night, only to have read someone elses take on Black Ops and thought my post was shite!  I definitely need to learn!

Number One:  I like the bottle.  It pours nice and is compact and can be used for homebrewing!  What comes after that is a nice dark brown in color ale.  In fact, it may even be a brown ale, sweeter than most but built upon with the various spices that were added.  And not the usual nutmeggy type spices either.  It has a pleasant caramel nose to it and that flavor takes you all the way through to the end which ultimately has a very slight hoppiness to it.  Somewhere in the middle mellow bittering hops evolve to remind you that this tastes very English.  English ales being my favorite.  Unfortunately that celery that you see in the picture left a very strong smell on my hands and is mucking up things a bit.  

There is a very smooth mouthfeel and towards the end of the glass one notices that the beer is actually a dark coppery colour and very attractive.  The head, although thin, has stayed the 20 minutes that I have taken to drink this beer.

I wish I could lend more information about this beer in the way of ingredients, malts, hops, adjuncts, etc... but truth be told, I have no idea.  I could google it, but so could you!  Ha ha ha, I am a lazy bastard tonight!  All that I need to know right now that this is quite a good beer and because of it's intermediate alcohol percentage is VERY drinkable and not hot at all in the way of ABV taste.  I definitely have to give this beer high 9's or even a ten in it's class!  I love it!  I would drink this beer all year round!

Do you notice the lamp in the picture?

Just in case you are wondering what happened to those veggies: Anchor "Our Special Ale" Turkey Stew!

Have a great night everyone!

-Fish