Consider, for instance, the case of the India Pale Ale or IPA. Most of you have probably heard the story already: in the early 1800s, British expatriates living in India wanted familiar British pale ales shipped to them from home. At the time this involved a voyage of anywhere from six months to a year depending on the season and the weather. To help preserve the beer for the trip English brewers would brew it to a higher alcoholic strength than normal and pack it full of extra hops. The resulting brew was called India Pale Ale to distinguish it from standard domestic pale ales. Improved transportation options, along with other innovations like pasteurization and airtight glass bottles, rendered this practice obsolete during the 20th century. While many English breweries still label their product "IPA" (such as Greene King IPA from Suffolk), these are really ordinary bitters that don't have much in common with their strong, hoppy namesakes. Today the extra-hoppy IPA style (as we know it) is virtually non-existent in Britain. However, it has become a staple of American microbreweries and a favorite of their patrons - who tend to appreciate aggressive hop flavor and high alcohol content. Thanks to the efforts of craft brewers, there are currently hundreds of IPAs available throughout the U.S. (none of which, to my knowledge, are earmarked for a year-long sea voyage to the subcontinent).
Whether by copying European brews or resuscitating forgotten styles, American microbreweries tend to identify themselves with one or more European brewing traditions - usually English, German, or Belgian. Meanwhile, when people think of "American" beer, the examples that come to mind are your Miller Lites, Budweisers, High Lives, and what have you. Now, I'm really not trying to hate on those brews - I personally love an ice-cold Miller Lite - but the situation does lead to an interesting question: other than those mass-produced lagers, is there a truly unique American beer style out there? You can probably see where I'm going with this: the answer is yes. In the old days it was known as "steam beer." It lives on to this day in the form of a beer you may know as Anchor Steam.
When gold prospectors poured into California during the mid-1800s, entrepreneurs of all stripes were quick to follow. Breweries, along with other businesses, popped up rapidly in California in the 1850s and 1860s. Like many American brewers of the day, the brewers who came to California to ply their trade were mostly German immigrants who wanted to open German-style lager breweries. But they encountered a problem that was unknown in other brewing centers like Milwaukee, St. Louis, or Philadelphia: there was no ice available in California. This meant that the newly-minted Californians were unable to cool their beer down to temperatures suitable for lager fermentation (i.e. around 50 degrees). So the brewers just pitched their old-school lager yeast into warm beer and hoped for the best. The beers created using lager yeast at warm temperature became generally known as "steam beer." The exact origins of this name are uncertain, but it was probably related to unusually high levels of carbonation. Fermentation tends to be far more vigorous at warm temperatures, creating high levels of carbon dioxide in the process. When fermentation was complete and the brewers tapped their casks, the carbonation would then "steam" out of the vessel like freshly poured champagne
Of course, no idea is 100% original. Breweries had certainly tried brewing lager beers at warm temperatures before. At that time there was even a popular type of ale in Germany called dampfbier - literally, "steam beer" - and we can only assume that some of the German immigrants to California in those days were familiar with the style. But the California steam breweries introduced techniques that really had no parallel in the Old Country. For instance, steam breweries poured their fresh product into wide, shallow wooden vats that were open to the air. This was opposed to the traditional method of using tall, sealed casks. The vats were designed so that the cool night breezes from the Pacific would carry off as much heat as possible from the surface of the liquid. The open fermenting vats would have also allowed all kinds of bacteria and wild yeast to infest the beer while it fermented, thereby making the taste and quality of steam beer extremely variable. At the turn of the century, steam beer was considered a working-class beverage that was cheap to produce and probably fairly low in alcohol. Perhaps as a result of these factors, there was never much of a market for steam beer outside the West Coast. Most of the steam beer breweries shut their doors during Prohibition in the early 20th century, never to open again.
Which brings us to the Anchor. Anchor Steam certainly wasn't the first steam beer ever created, but it owns the distinction of being the only authentic example of the style to survive into modern times. The Anchor Brewery opened in San Francisco in 1896 and has produced steam beer ever since. It has survived Prohibition, earthquakes, two brewery fires, and was almost shut down for good in the 1950s due to poor sales. Anchor Steam is certainly a one-of-a-kind beer that would never be mistaken for a European lager or ale. It's a golden-amber color with a strong head and sharply bitter aftertaste. It has a complex flavor that blends toasty malt with aggressive, earthy hops and the fruity notes produced by warm fermentation. Perhaps the thing I love most about Anchor Steam is that it really is a tangible, drinkable artifact of pre-Prohibition beer culture. We may not know much about the myriad other steam beers which have long since gone extinct, but we can always drink an Anchor Steam and remember a unique time and place in our country's history.
We'll never know whether Anchor Steam was truly typical of other steam beers of its day, but it is a great brew by any standard and a worthy testament to American ingenuity.
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