Anchor Our Special Ale (2003)
Our Special Ale, a dark, rich, heavily spiced ale with a recipe that changes with each passing year.
3.6
355 reviews
San Francisco, United States
Community reviews
12oz bottle. Pours a clear dark brown color with reddish hues and a one finger khaki head that fades to nice swirls. The aroma is sweet honey, caramel, winter spices, roast, and slight oxidative notes from the 7 years of age. The flavor is great. A little sherry-like from the age, but this works pretty well. Sweet honey and caramel malt, pumpernickel bread, toast, nutmeg, allspice, and slight anise. Medium bodied with soft carbonation, maybe just a tiny bit watery. This is another good vintage of this beer. I’m really not sure there is a bad one.
Lots of cinnamon and pumpkin spice on the nose. Medium-bodied and malty with holiday spices of cinnamon, nutmeg and creamy chocolate underneath. Rich but light on the palate, and a bit short on the finish, but certainly festive.
Bottle shared with and from madvike. Thanks Matt. Very complex and thats the only good thing I can say about it. All spice and something not good! Lots of spice and different flavors in there I am just not digging any of them. I thought a 1998 was bad, bull the 03 is no better.
Bottle from JCapriotti...thanks Jason! - Pours dark brown with a small foamy off-white head. Nose is complex and spicy, with ginger, Christmas spices, molasses, brown sugar, and black licorice. Has some off-putting soy sauce nose. Super complex, but not my thing. Taste is less complex--malty and still with a soy sauce and licorice component. Fairly watery and limp. Odd.
2003 Vintage
4/29/2010: Anchor Our Special Ale 2003... Aroma: Aged fruit cake and cooked caramel with some clove, ginger, and maple poking out. Appearance: Deep maple color with a small, but mostly lasting beige head. Flavor: Caramel and licorice blended cooked raisins, golden raisins, and cooked chocolate pudding with some cocoa with subtle spicy quality (nothing distinct really jumps out); falls off a bit in the finish. Palate: Medium-bodied; smooth. Overall: Quite good; it’s surprising how well these hold up despite their relatively low alcohol content.
12 fl. oz. bottle (3OU) from IrishBoy via trade. Thanks Richard! Rating #333 for this beer.
Bottle shared by shigadeyo. Poured a clear reddish brown color with an average frothy light brown head that lasted with good lacing. Moderate to heavy complex sweet spicy aroma. Medium body with a sticky smooth texture and flat carbonation. Moderate to heavy spicy sweet flavor with a moderate to heavy sweet finish of moderate duration. Complex good brew.
12 oz. bottle shared by shigadeyo. Thanks Craig! Pours a clear dark brown color with a medium sized beige head. The aroma is sweet caramel malts, some maple, generous amounts of holiday spices (especially given the age) and some oxidation. The flavor has more sweet caramel malt, holiday spices, roast, smooth chocolates and some light fruitiness. It surprises me that this ages well being a smaller beer.
Bottled. Poured deeper cola brown with a short, splotchy cap of beige head. The aroma picked up well-reduced, sweet molasses, maple, and caramel spiced up by nutmeg, cinnamon, and ashy smoke.. syrupy impression with great complementary spicage.. I’m not the biggest fan of OSA, but this drew me in. The flavor found more of the molasses and maple, with smoky, dry-roasted chocolates extending outward.. warm darker spices around that left a long, scratchy impression on the finish. Medium-bodied and increasingly spicy as it warmed up.. dry, too.. really well made, and it held up superbly.
Bottle 12fl.oz.
Clear dark brown color with a average, frothy, good lacing, mostly lasting, beige head. Aroma is moderate to heavy malty, roasted, chocolate, vintage malt, dried fruit, light to moderate oxidide. Flavor is moderate to heavy sweet and bitter with a average to long duration, light oxidide. Body is medium, texture is oily, carbonation is soft. [20100314]
Bottle @ Copenhaniacs Tasting Pt 1. Pours dark brown with a small creamy off white head. Nose is caramel, liquorice, dark fruit and glogg. Flavor is chocolate and spices. Smooth and vinous. Vaguely oxidized. Nice
Bottle at Papsø’s - Thanks. Clear dark brown - offwhite head. Roasted, licorice, fruity, high malty, oxidation, dusty, chocolate, caramel, overriped fruits.
clear dark amber small smooth light brown head.
old hops, spices, sweetness.
flavor is roasted grains, coffee , dark bitter caramel.
Clear red mahogany with a medium beige head. Sweet and somewhat oxidated aroma with roasted malt, caramel. Sweet and oxidized flavour with roasted malt, overripe fruits, chocolate and caramel.
12 fl oz bottle. Pours dark brown with a small tan head. Aroma is oxidised and dark malty. Fruity, overripe, dark malty, slight spiced and lingering breadish flavoured. Slight citric and wooden finish.
Anchor Brewing Company--Our Special Ale--2003 12 oz. Bottle. 5.35% ABV? (4.5 / 5.0) Thick.Light head. Clear burnt black red color. Spicy spruce nutmeg mild hop front. Roasted dry sweet burnt cherry spice smooth crusty body. Clean mellow burnt spice mild piney citrus hop end. X-Mass! Sampled 1/9/2004.
Bottle. Pours a brown color with a small off-whitehead. Has a spicy malty aroma with hints of caramel. Slightly roasted malty spicy pine flavor with hitns of caramel. Has a sweetish malty spicy pine finish.
Pours to a deep brown body with a very thin tan head. The aroma seems to be deeply malty with some mace and sweet cinnamon. The flavor has a lot of malt on the backbone with some earthy twigs and cinnamon. Earthen milk chocolate and perhaps ginger? The palate is medium bodied and easy to drink. Has a light note of tang.
Aroma is strange, like Christmas and farts.
Maybe some chocolate, but probably not.
And some sugary sweetness.
Taste is sweet spices, juniper, subtle hops, and sugary malts.
NIce!
Finish is sweet, a bit spicy-bitter, and that’s it.
Decent.
You’d have to be a real grinch to get angry at their special ale. It’s a gift, don’t be ungrateful.
Bottle from Liquid Solutions. Pours extremely dark with a small beige head. Aroma of sweet xmas spice. Very mellow. Full bodied with creamy carbonation. Flavor seems a bit evergreen, with lots of mouth coating stuff. Nuts. Maybe chocolate. Pretty malty, but something like juniper cuts that right down. Lots of spice. Xmas type stuff. Finishes somewhere between sweet and dry. Maybe ending with a mild toffee note. Complex as all heck.
This bottled brew from a rating party poured a small sized head of foamy finely sized brown colored bubbles that were and left behind a opaque chocolate colored body. The aroma was brown malt chocolate and nutty. The mouth feel was weakly tingly at the start and at the finish. The flavor contained notes of spices brown malt and herbal. A decent one but not one that I would consider buying again.
2003 bottle courtesy of my Secret Santa. Pours murky brown with almost zero head. The nose is spice, tobacco but not as much as the 2000, and malt. The taste is dark fruits, spice, light chocolate and tobacco. Medium flat mouthfeel. I really dig these beers with some age on them. Thanks Wayne!
12oz bottle from Liquid Solutions. Thanks for hooking this one up Matt! Pours a deep, cloudy rusty amber color with a 2 finger beige head that left some spotty lacing. Nose was quite deep and complex, reminds me of a milder version of Sam Adams Triple Bock. Nose has that kind of BBQ, Worcestershire action to it. Flavor was very rich and really coated the tongue. A little different than I expected, then again, I never really expected to try this brew.....
The aroma is complex. My immediate thought is spruce, lots of pine. There is also a sweetness--caramel or melted sugar. I also detect some nutty smells, mostly macadamia.
Deep brown, too dark to shine light through a regular pint glass. Beige head that dies quick but leaves a thin layer of tiny bubbles and dramatic lace.
Very rich beer that offers multiple malt flavors--roasted nuts, slight chocolate, sweet crystal, a touch of black patent. Very low hop, but it doesn’t need it since the flavor is already so robust. Highly carbonated, but subtle because of the oily nature of the liquid. The post-swallow flavors are chewy, dark and dessert-like.
This is a beer to have by the fire with great friends and great conversation.
had from a donated 1.5L .. . I like the smell, not overly piney, some spruce .. . has done very well for a 5 year lay down .. could have gone longer .. cool stuff .. .
Bottle thanks to BMan1113VR. Brown in color with a small off-white head. Aroma is of toast, leather, pine, and roasted malts. Taste is of pine, a little bit of raostiness, and lots of spices.
Like taking a walk in a Christmas tree lot. Slight rum cake and spiced cookie notes in the nose with toasted caramel and marshmallow characters. Nice and clean finish.
Bottle thanks to bman1113vr. The smell is spruce, malts, paper, and spiced. The look is clearish in a dark brown in color with almost no head. The taste is malty, spiced, spruce, and slighty oxidized.
bottle thanks to bman1113vr. poured brown with a beige head. aroma of liquid smoke. flavor had berry and some liquid smoke as well. a good brew. i will have to pick up the current year special ale and give it a try.
Bottle thanks to BMan1113VR via paistie2002. Almost no head sits atop a black brown body. Nose is nutmeg, and gingerbread. Taste is winter mulling spices, and toffee and rum cake. Short watery finish.