California Common

by

Scott Morgan

Hot and Steamy, Highway One California Common

Its time to hit the brakes and take a huge left turn with this month's beer.

It is time to leave the UK and head over the Pacific to the West Coast of the USA. Very few brewers in Oz would have savoured this particular Beer. I have yet to see it on sale in Oz much to my disappointment. But, as Craft brewers this should never stop us from giving a beer style a go as long as we have style basics to work with.

Take a look at the information on the sidebars and please make any comments or ask any questions.

Happy Steaming!

Scotty.

Perspective

A few years ago I was lucky to live in the USA for a year. I headed to the USA to complete my last semester of Uni and ended up extending the visit and staying the whole year. I would have stayed longer if I had had the money as is always the case when travelling. I lived in country Massachusetts about 2 hours west from Boston and went to The University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

At this time craft brewing was growing rapidly in the USA with beers such as Sam Adams and Harpoon becoming major regional brewers. At first I lived on campus in a 300-person dorm called Baker. The dorm was full of stoner-ippy wanna-be freshmen and sophomores. Out of the 300 I think 3 people were over 21, and I was one of them. We all kept it a secret to most otherwise we needed to hire a semi-trailer every time we headed to the bottle shop! After six months of more Grateful Dead, the smell of Zinfandel wine after it bounced out of someone's stomach and pot smoke than you could imagine it was time to go. Together with 5 friends I moved into a huge New England style house 7 miles away in the nearby town Northampton. Living in Northampton was an amazing time for all of us. We loved the house and the friendship. Leaving the house and returning home was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

Saturday nights lazily spent drinking Harpoon or Catamount, the buzz of living in a town full of life and terrific bars I still miss. One of my housemates was a stoner called John "Totally" Tiegan. John was a free-loving outdoors type of guy whose every second word was "totally". No matter the subject John could add "totally" and get away with it. John had spent the previous summer on-board a salmon boat in Seattle. He had travelled extensively through the West Coast after finishing on the boat. He now lives on a ranch in Montana.

One night after a day hiking in the woods he walked through the door with a smile from ear to ear. John had under his arm a brown paper bag and commented "I am so totally happy, I have found the totally best beer in the world at the liquor store". John was renowned for his vagueness and returned from the kitchen with a couple of these beers under his arm.

Sitting down he pulled from under the coffee table his famed Mount St bong called the "Leaky Lizard". John had had the lizard shaped bong for years and loved to watch people spill bong water all over themselves due to a large crack in its tail. It was always a barrel of laughs to see the person try and figure out why the hell they smelt so bad; and why there was a wet feeling in their crotch. Whilst John mumbled sentences about his "totally wicked" hike in the woods that day, he packed the Lizard's bowl and showed all in the room his amazing talent of being able to take the biggest bong-hits known to stoner-kind.

He was a consummate pro with the Lizard, and when done popped the top of this "Steam Beer". Sitting there watching John I also popped the top of a bottle of the beer. Lifting the bottle with trepidation I took a cautious swig. As I took taste of the beer, time slowed, my world closed in and my socks blew right through my shoes. It took 2 days for me to find my socks, they blew off with such a velocity that the sonic boom was heard for miles. I had in my hand and had just tasted the most incredible beer ever. Malty, bitter and clean; absolutely amazing is the only way to describe the experience.

With such a sensory explosion I had very little to comment on for the rest of the night. Exiling myself to the corner my only noises was a muttering of "more Steam beer=85.moorrrreeee pppllleeeaassseeee". The rest of my time in the USA was dedicated to buying Anchor Steam whenever I could. I had to have more of this beer, it was so damn good I became just a bit obsessive. Funnily enough it was not until a few years later when I was living in Japan that I stumbled across Anchor's other beers, a wonderful Porter and an equally impressive Pale Ale. At 200 yen a bottle the liquor store's sales jumped dramatically in Anchor Beer. It is a shame that they never used to stock it in any of the beer vending machines I used to frequent late at night. More than happily I drank these beers in Japan.

It was not untill a much-needed holiday back to the US from Japan that I made up for lost time with my obsession for Steam Beer. No matter the city we were in I would hunt down the poor unsuspecting beer and buy more than a few. A sales spike would have been easily mappable by Anchor Brewing as I made my way across the country from Chicago to New York, Boston, Indianapolis, and LA and then up to San Francisco.

On this trip and after a horrible few days in LA, SWMBO and I made the decision to get out and head to San Francisco. A mate I worked with in Japan told us to drive to San Fran via Highway 1 if possible. With haste to get out of LA we hired a car and made it onto Highway 1 heading north. From such a horrible place as LA, the coastline of California is amazing. Small towns like Monterey, Carmen and San Olisbispo made us wonder why the hell you would live in LA.

Absolutely amazing vistas with miles and miles of amazing scenery made the best touring that I had ever done. Hitting San Fran was a disappointment after 2 meandering days along the coast. But this quickly disappeared when I was yet again standing in a bottle shop with a 6 pack of Anchor Steam in hand. After 4 days in San Fran I was on first name basis with the guy behind the counter and we had an absolute ball whilst in San Fran. It was with much sadness that we headed to the airport to return to Tokyo. After such an amazing trip up the coast and about 20 million Anchor Steam's the only consolation was that we had only 4 months left in Tokyo and we would be back home.

Historical Perspective

"Steam Beer" is a registered trademark of Anchor brewing. The company today is the sole producer on-mass of the style and due to the trade mark the common reference for the style is Californian Common (Daniels pg 191)

"Steam Beer" as a style began in the mid 1800's with the California Gold Rush. The distinctive characteristic is that the beer is brewed between 16-18 c with Lager yeast. Just like our Craft brewed beer and English Real Ales the beer is naturally conditioned.

Following the '49 gold rush, brewers from the USA's mid-west headed to the East Coast. These brewers were Germans used to brewing lagers and conditioning in the colder ambient conditions of the mid-west. With San Francisco's higher temperatures the brewers had to improvise. (Kitsock pg 28)

Traditionally the beer has an all-malt grain bill, but more than one brewer has used adjuncts over time. The beer is perfect for craft brewing due to being able to ferment at ambient temperatures and condition naturally. The main reason the beer was brewed this way was a lack of refrigeration or cold ambient temperatures during the mid 1800's and a huge demand for beer at the time. Brewers had to get the beer to market quickly to meet demand and long lagering would have given competitors an opportunity to move in on one's territory. (Kitsock pg 28)

San Fran was a booming city in the mid 1800's, and had more than 25 breweries producing Steam Beer. Out of state brewers like Pabst, Anheiser-Busch, Bass and Guinness were also available to the discerning San Franciscan palate. (Kitsock pg 29) Prohibition bought an end to this in the early 1900's. Prohibition destroyed much of the local brewing industry whilst making Al Capone a wealthy man!

Anchor survived by making malt for food products and such. When prohibition was repealed, Anchor was left as the only brewery making Steam Beer.

A History of Anchor Brewery

Anchor Brewing was founded in the mid 1890's. The original brewery was destroyed in the 1906 Great San Francisco Earthquake and rebuilt the following year. The brewery survived the earthquake and prohibition, and then through the war years making its signature beer.

Forwarding to 1965 the brewery was not in good shape. The summer of love was about to descend onto San Fran and the doors of the brewery were about to shut due to poor sales, poor quality beer and a debt- ridden operation. The brewery was averaging less than 600 barrels of beer a year, using bakers yeast and had a lack of resources such as a lab and bottling facilities. (Kitsock pg 29)

One night a young Stanford graduate and Grandson to millionaire entrepreneur Fritz Maytag, Fredrick Maytag, was enjoying a meal at his favourite haunt called "The Spaghetti Factory". Enjoying a glass of Steam Beer, the waiter mentioned that Fredrick should enjoy the beer whilst he could as the brewery was about to close. Sentimentally Maytag decided to visit the brewery the next day.

On a whim Maytag offered to cash in some of his inheritance from the family business and bail out the brewery. Maytag bought a controlling interest in the brewery. Coming into the business Maytag switched to an all-grain beer and borrowed lager yeast from other Californian breweries.

Maytag quickly found that the beer was a hard sell due to its chequered past. Regardless Maytag kept brewing and in 1969 bought the remaining share of the company. In 1971 the brewery was expanded to a new 55 barrel German kettle and in the same year began bottling beer. In 1979 the brewery moved to its current location in an old coffee plant at 1705 Mariposa St (Kitsock pg 29)

Slowly and surely Maytag built Anchor Brewing into one of the major independent craft breweries in the US. The brewery outputs an average of 100,000 barrels of beer a year and is one of the most modern. Little wonder with the quality of the beer that is now made. (Kitsock pg 54)

The Beer

Whilst I love Anchor Steam why limit ourselves trying to just emulate the beer exactly ?

This recipe is based on a very good brewing mate Eric Young's prize-winning recipe and shares many of the original's characteristics.

For this month I will brew via all grain, but the change to an extract based beer is easy. Just remove the mashed adjuncts and up the extract quantity marginally.

The yeast used is critically important for this beer. I use White Labs San Fran lager yeast, but give another a go if on hand. It may not be to style but whose telling!!!

Let's Brew

• In a small esky of larger pot add the ingredients into the mash at 72c or so. I used 4litres of water, with about 1 litre lost to the mash. (Remember the temperature drop!)
  
  
• Stabilize to 67c for one hour and let mash complete.
  
  
• Once time has elapsed sparge the grains. I use a Phil's Sparge system for all grain or a colander for partial mash.
  
  
• Boil in a kettle large enough to hold all the volume for 1 hour.
  
  
• Cool beer as best you can. I have a cooper chiller, but you can cool a partial mash in a sink using a water bath.
  
  
• Added to fermenter when enough.
  
  
• Pitch Yeast and let the good times roll!

References

Daniels, R, Designing Great Beers, 1996, Brewers Publications Boulder Colorado

Anchor Brewing

Crystallites of the beer Anchor Steam viewed under a polarized light microscope.