After 127 years in business, Anchor Brewing has closed.
It is sad.
Back in the Spring of 2019, the family visited San Francisco, and shortly after, I brewed a California Common beer in honor of Anchor Steam, their iconic classic beer. (see Bridge Fog California Common (Batch 231)).
Upon hearing about the closing of Anchor Brewing, I decided to brew another beer inspired by Anchor Steam.
The American Homebrew Association published a Clone Recipe of the beer, which I used as a base to my recipe ...
Alexa told me that it was likely to thunder storm overnight, so I did not set up the Foundry on the patio to heat up before I got up.
I was up a little before 6AM and got the water into the Foundry then.
The yeast I decided to use was the Altbier yeast that I harvested from Gypsy Magic Bière de Garde (Batch 339).
I didn't make a starter the day before. Instead I collected some of the wort from the mash and diluted it with ice to get a "vitality starter going".
It was time to go to church around the time the mash was to be done, so I decided to let the wort sit at 190ish while I left. I also let the basket drain the whole time I was gone.
Even so, I squeezed the bag and got a fair amount of liquid out.
My pre-boil gravity and volume was pretty much right on plan.
After getting home from church, I started the boil.
For the second time, I used my hop spider. It seems to work well, although there isn't much agitation of the liquid inside the spider, so I stirred the liquid in there from time to time.
After the boil, I chilled the wort to around 80 with my hose water. I then switched to recirculated ice water to get the wort down to the mid-50's.
I had the wort in the fermenter and the yeast pitched before 11am.
I'm using my cooling system to keep the beer cool. For the first 24 hours, I kept the fermentation slightly below 60. Then, I let it rise to 64ish.
After a couple of days, I will off the cooling system and let the beer finish off at ambient temperature.
I am looking forward to trying this beer. I am sure I will like it.
R.I.P. Anchor Brewing company
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