Sunday, September 21, 2008

Anchor Steam Brewery Tour

This weekend, the CIA sponsored a Brew Tour for interested students. I jumped on the opportunity and off to San Francisco I went to visit the famous Anchor Steam Brewery. The brewery is owned by Fritz Maytag of the Maytag Washing Machine empire.
The famous bar was very unique and very inviting to a bunch of 21+ ish culinary students. Our brewmaster Tom Littig made a great and all too candid bartender. I am pretty sure his life stories proved that he was in the right profession. Needless to say, he poured a stout brew and our palate was challenged by this non-wine tasting experience.
Just me and the boys hanging out enjoying a nice Summer Ale. Rick from Arizona, and Tyson Jackson from none other than Springdale, Arkansas. What are the odds! Two Arkansans in the same bar in San Francisco! Well, really both of them are in the A.O.S Section 6 so we kinda already knew each other. Good tasting companions none the less. I forgot to tell the bartender that I very much dislike beer, but I tried them all anyway. Still don't like beer, but it was a good experience and they even make a 10% alcohol beer that by law is classified as wine which was pretty good.
These beautiful copper vats were brought over from Germany about a hundred years ago or so and are the main brewing tanks used for the traditional beer preparation.................
but what makes Anchor Steam Brewery famous, is their steam brewed beer. These giant pools ferment the beer in an open-air bath. The type of beer produced is much lighter and easy drinking and other than Europe, not many people in the states still produce beer this way. All I could think about was seeing Homer Simpson swimming the backstroke and spraying beer fountains out of his mouth. We even got to taste some fresh beer out of one of the drums that was going to be bottled on Monday morning. Word of advice, buy your beer fresh, because unlike wine, it doesn't get better with age! Neat-o experience, but I think I will stick to the juice drinks if you know what I mean. Cheers!

1 comment:

Byron said...

oh yeah! now you're living right.

I fully expect a Christmas Eve visit (or anytime visit) to The Buena Vista for an Irish Coffee review.