Anchor Brewing Tour

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This morning I hopped on BART at the North Berkeley station, took it to the 16th and Mission stop, then walked several blocks to meet with my Anchor Brewing Tour at 11am. They recommend that you attempt to make your reservation for the tour three to six weeks in advance, as it is a very popular (and free!) tour. I tried to get a reservation for this week about two weeks ago to no avail. Then, I tried again about a week later and there must have been a cancellation or something, but they got me in! I am SO glad I could participate in that tour, it was a great time for me, and I discovered an Anchor beer that just kicks ass.

That beer that I discovered today is called Old Foghorn, and is actually a Barleywine beer, higher in alcohol content and sweeter. It reminded me a lot of one of my Belgian beer favorites, Gulden Draak. I drank a glass and a half of that, maybe 12 ounces total, and wow what great taste!

Really a fun experience. You arrive sober, and leave very happy. The tour is supposed to last some two hours or so. Our tour guide Andrew told us of the history of Anchor Brewing, how they weren't around from 1920-1933 due to prohibition, then how the brewery was saved in the 60s by Fritz Maytag of Maytag family fame. We then took a spin in the brew room with the mash tuns and such, and were back in the tap room after about 30 minutes total. So, you hear some cool stuff for 30 minutes, and then you get to taste six beers. We tasted the Anchor Summer, Anchor Steam, Liberty Ale, Anchor Bock, Anchor Porter, and then the really tasty Barleywine, Old Foghorn. They didn't have any Small Beer available nor any of the Christmas Ale. All that for free. Hell of a deal, if you can get in.

Anchor Brewing produces some 90,000 barrels, or roughly 3 million gallons of beer a year, roughly 75% of which is the flagship Anchor Steam beer that is fairly ubiquitous around the US. For comparison, Budweiser produces around 100 million barrels of beer a year. When Anchor's bottling line is running, it fills, caps, labels, and boxes about 260 bottles/minute.

Photos were only allowed in the tap room and in the brew room. So, I have no photos from the fermenting room (5 large rectangular stainless steel uncovered containers, one of which was in a separate room and was bubbling rather infrequently, I think that may have been a Porter batch), nor from the bottling and labeling facilities downstairs. They didn't have the bottling line running, which would have been cool to see, and the tour does not touch on the Rye Whiskies (3), nor Gins (2) that Anchor Brewing produces.

If you plan to visit the Bay area, I highly recommend you try to get yourself a reservation to check out the tour. If you like beer, you will be glad you did.

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Photos

Located at De Haro and Mariposa
Nice little neighborhood in the Mission district

Understated Entrance
My tour was just about to start beyond that door.

City View
Looking North toward the Financial District.

Gotta love those vintage prices
This is the first photo of several I took in the "Tap Room".

Three Tuns
Some mashing, some hopping, etc.

Just three Tuns total
I was surprised they only had three Tuns total. Of course, they only have 65 or so employees as well. That should equate to consistent quality on their scale of production I suppose.

Taps
Those are the six working taps that we would exercise during our visit today. On top of the cabinet are some magnums, but many samples of their Christmas Ale over the years.

Beer decorations everywhere
Hey, its what they do!

Display Case and more Beer stuff
Lots of beer marketing history in the Tap Room.

Janis Joplin and Big Brother visit Anchor Brewing
June 1966. Must have been an awesome time to be in San Francisco in general! Hope you can read the fine print.

Working area of the Tap Room
We would be putting it to use quite soon.

No Strong Beer?
Liked the sign.

Andrew our tour guide, mid speech on the Bock as I recall
Turns out the Old Foghorn is a bit pricey to make. He was to inform us of that next.

Cool Staircase
Why take the regular stairs when these are available?

Rodin's "The Thinker"
If Rodin was a beer drinker, he may have sculpted "The Thinker" in this pose, as opposed to seated with his chin resting on his fist.

Anchor's "Ironic" Beer
Its Anchor's small beer, which is only bottled in a large bottle. It was unfortunately not on tap today though, so we couldn't sample it.

Michael Jackson Magnum
No, not for the Michael Jackson of the Jackson 5. For the Michael Jackson of master beer reviewer. Guess he passed away in the last year or so.

Available for tasting today
We started out with the Anchor Summer, a wheat beer, then got into Anchor Steam, then Liberty Ale (an IPA), then Achor Bock (which was fantastic, a lighter Porter mostly as I recall), Anchor Porter, and my surprise winner, Old FogHorn.
I am not too hip to IPAs generally, so just had a half glass of Liberty Ale, also had a half glass of Porter, but then had a glass and a half of Old Foghorn. Where can I go to get myself some Old Foghorn?
Oh and yes, I was feeling no pain when I left the tour. I had had about 32 to 36 ounces I figure, and all before lunch. Yep, it was going to be a good day.

Rye Whiskey
Anchor brews three varieties of Rye Whiskey. Not sure where you can get the stuff, but they are not licensed to offer it to be tasted as part of the tour. Good idea! I would have been lit up otherwise if I had gotten into some Whiskey and Gin to boot.

A relic from the speakeasy days?
The father of a good friend of mine used to wear a sweater that said "I'm just here for the beer". That probably would not have been recommended outerwear during Prohibition.
Nonetheless, the codeword is Buffalo. That's what we are calling it now.

The Gins
Genevieve and Junipero are the two gins that Anchor Distilling produces. I hear the Junipero is really good.

Taps
We sampled kegged beer from these taps, not from bottles.

Old Foghorn is expensive!
Really, $62++ for a case of Old Foghorn? It has been a long time since I have bought a case of beer, but still! If you like that style beer though, a twelve pack once and a while would go a long way.

Fin
It was a good day! Hope I get to go on that tour again someday.