Summer time is here, let's have a can of beer!

Summer time is upon us. Here in DC, that means it is very much like throwing a steaming wet rag in your face and going for a ten mile run.  Up hill.  Through a swamp.  On the good days.  Which makes summer seasonal beers even more delicious - nothing tastes better after mowing the lawn, hanging out in the heat by the pool, or while wondering when the hell Pepco is going to fix the power so you can turn the AC back on than a refreshing, zingy summer ale or lager.  The next few posts will be about those beers - I grabbed a bunch of different seasonal beers (or beers I thought would go well with the season) at the local Total Wine to see which ones meet my pedestrian standards for what I want out of a summer beer.

The first beer I tried in this rotation was an Anchor Summer beer, a wheat ale from the esteemed Anchor Brewing in San Francisco.  I am a fan of Anchor's beers - their Steam, is, of course, terrific, and I really enjoy their Porter.  Amazingly, I had never had their Summer, even though they started brewing it in 1984 (according to their web site, it was the first wheat beer brewed in America post-Prohibition).  So I'm slack - this should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me.  I was looking forward to this one.

Anchor Summer Beer

Unfortunately, I came away disappointed - although the color was a gorgeous, clean amber-gold, the head was very thin.  This in spite of the fact the bottle promised a head similar to "whipped egg whites."  I've screwed up a meringue before - the head on this was very similar.  And the taste was just - nothing special.  Slight hop bitterness, and had a clean mouth feel (it clocks in at 4.5%).  But it just wasn't something I would go out of my way to have again.  And since Anchor beers here on the East coast tend to run on the high side price-wise, I'll look to other ports to quench my stormy thirst (that was the best anchor metaphor I could come up with - you see why I don't do this for a living).

Rating:  2 sunburns out of 5