Last Night's Tipple

Okay, okay, the title of this post is incorrect: I didn't actually drink this last night. Someone who shall remain nameless held me hostage last night until nearly midnight while she beadazzled a plastic cup for a friend's birthday, and I just felt like going to bed when I got home. I had a bottle of Anchor Porter this afternoon during the second half of the Texans' game against Carolina, but "This Afternoon's Tipple" doesn't have quite the same ring to it as "Last Night's Tipple."

Anyway, Anchor Porter is a product of Anchor Brewing Company, based in San Francisco. Anchor Brewing Company is the brainchild of Fritz Maytag, and is, along with Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, one of the most important pioneers of the American craft brewing revival in recent decades. Anchor's main claim to fame is their Steam beer, which is brewed using lager yeasts at ale temperatures. Porter is another one of Anchor's continuously-brewed varieties, and it is pretty popular, too. I don't have the breadth of experience or the tasting vocabulary to do much with beer, but I can tell you that Anchor's porter share one thing with the myriad of microbrews that are on the market today: it's extravagantly hoppy. American brewers seem to think that the hoppier the beer, the better. Well, that's okay, at least in this case. I enjoyed it -- it was dark and chocolaty, with a nice hop kick.