Hammygoodness wrote:
I was glad to see Anchor Steam make the list. I definitely liked that beer.
Ham
Some beer trivia for you then: Steam bear (which is a trademarked name of Anchor brewing, California Common beer is the technical style) is considered the only 100% pure American style.
Other styles may have been heavily influenced by the US, but no others have been completely invented here.
The back story is; German lager brewers eventually made their way to San Francisco by boat and brought their lager yeast with them. But of course there were no ice caves near the city to lager or ferment in. So they used their (cool) lager yeast at (warm) ale temperatures and combined with the local ingredients came up with steam beer (named because of the SF fog that would occasionally roll through the brewery which to this day still employs open top "cold ship" fermenters.
So drink some Anchor steam on the 4th of July, it's as American as apple pie.
I have about 2 gallons of Cal. common left in my kegerator to be dispatched shortly.
