Every year when Anchor Brewing releases its new Christmas Ale, we pick up a six pack and compare it to the previous year’s beer. Last year we finally finished our first six pack.

This year the holidays and various events have conspired to prevent us from holding our annual comparison before Christmas. But, I felt like it would be a shame to pass the holiday without featuring Anchor Christmas Beer on the Blog.

While every year the beer is a spiced brown ale, every year the mix of spices and character of the beer is a bit different. It also has a different tree on the label. This year is Quercus lobata (Valley Oak) a California Native. I detect vanilla and maybe a bit of citrus in the beer. As it warmed it almost had a sour character. Pleasant. Still, one bottle of this type of “spiced cake beer” is plenty for me.

Supposedly, Beer geeks know how to interpret this unusual sequence of numbers and letters for the information it contains. I put this up for their benefit and enjoyment.