Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale

Man, it is soooo easy to make me happy with very little effort.

My favorite bottles to put my homebrew in were the ones from Anchor Brewing.  They are kinda short, fat at the bottom and they barely have a neck at all.  They are curvy and very feminine, but still hold 12 oz of beer.  Suddenly, a few years ago, they kept the shape of the bottle, but started making them twist tops.  Bastards!

I had almost a case of them, but over the years they have broken or not been returned by people I’ve let taste my homebrew.  I might be down to my last 6-pack of those wonderful bottles.

Fast forward to yesterday, and the Anchor Christmas Ale is out, so I pick up a 6-pack.  They are freaking pop-tops!  I don’t know if this is just something that Anchor did for this batch or if, like Sierra Nevada earlier this year, they are going back to pop top. 

I don’t know.  But I am stoked.

In case it turns out to be just what they did for the holiday beer, you should buy a couple of cases.  If you need help drinking this beer, to get the bottles of course, I would be happy to recommend my services.

 

I actually called Anchor a couple of weeks ago inquiring as to the ingredients in their yearly "Our Special Ale". Yeah, I knew it was top-secret, but I thought I could get ahold of some proud blabber-mouth that wanted to toot the Anchor horn. No such luck. I did come away with the oh-so-valuable info that their brew contains water, hops, a mess o' malts, spices, and a bunch of hype to boot. As to bottles, the phone rep seemed to think that the pop-top offering was out of the ordinary and not the beginning of a scheduled transition from the lame-o twist offs that still manage to hurt my delicate brewing hands.