Beer Review: Southern Tier 2X Steam

Serving Type: Bottle

ABV: Eight percent

Appearance: This beer has an amber color, but it's light in color. It featured plenty of pretty gold hues as well. There was a thin, but bright white head. The body is foggy, but only slightly so. It has both an appearance of heaviness as well as lightness. Somewhere perfectly in between. The lacing of this brew sort of sticks to the glass, but is weak enough that it just falls back into the beer when I set the glass down after each sip.

Smell: Initially, the aroma of this was both very herbal and floral. It was also slightly hoppy on the nose. Maybe a little more than someone like me would like. There was even a little malt presence as well. Some caramel peeks through as the beer warms up a tad.

Taste: Given the lack of malt in the smell, I was smacked in the mouth with loads of malt once I started to actually drink this beer. I also noticed a great bit of tasty and sweet caramel as it drifted farther towards the back. A slightly roasted profile also acts very complimentary to the sweet caramel. The finish was very floral and crisp. The hops didn't come off as harsh as I originally predicted. This was very balanced.

Overall Rating: 

This was a great find in one of my local six pack shops. I really love to try steam beer any which way I can find it. Anchor Steam is one of the measuring sticks of the style. It's a bit more herbal and bitter. This one by Southern Tier was a little sweeter on the tongue. It was such an interesting contrast one I compared these two.

Which is Worthy?

There was a post in The Session beer blog series just a few months ago that had a subject matter of "One Beer to Rule Them All." Being a lazy piece of trash, I forgot about the monthly session posts for quite a few months over the last year. I'm the worst.

Beauty.

It took me forever to finally compile a review for yesterday of my beer that rules all other beers. I've never experienced anything like it before. No other beer has a color like it does. It also has a wonderful combo on the finish that's a little hoppy and biscuity. It's awesome. Perhaps one of the reasons I didn't partake in that edition of The Sessions because I didn't want to spoil the review I had been planning for months prior.

I know there are some craft beer fans out there that love IPA's and might even drool a bit more for a Double IPA. You could be like me and enjoy something a little more subtle or balanced in terms of malt and bitterness. Is it a chewy stout or porter that you crave when it comes to an awesome pint?

I'm curious to know. I know there are about three or four people that stop by these parts and leave a comment or two once a week at least. Maybe we can get a bit of debate going on this issue. I'd enjoy comparing my favorite to that of others.

Beer Review: Anchor Steam Beer

Serving Type: Bottle

ABV: 4.9 percent

Appearance: Anchor Steam Beer is a shiny and attractive copper. It has both pink and orange hues floating around in the body of the brew as well. I've never seen a color like this before. There are your typical amber and copper beers, but this (at least in my mind) is the measuring stick. I just want to keep staring at it. I also noticed a slight cloudiness within the body. It wasn't totally obscuring, but it seemed to be less hazy towards the bottom of the glass and got a bit more intense as I looked higher. The head is an awesome-looking cream white and was very lively. It ended up leaving a ton of thick and ample lacing. There was also a plethora of carbonation bubbles quickly approaching towards the head of the beer.

Smell: I took in a large helping of caramel aroma at first. It was strong, but intriguingly it didn't come off as sweet. There was also a hint of dark bread as well as some dark, but not-so-dark malt. There was also something fruity behind all of that. To me, it seemed close to something such as a pear. That was a nice compliment of sweetness.

Taste: This is where it all came together for me and this brew. This beer is interestingly sweet and malty up front, but tangy and bitter on the back. Everything compliments something else amazingly. The caramel and the dark bready grain bathed my tongue at the beginning of my first sip. At the midway point (which I rarely pick up in some beers) the sweetness of the pear peaked through albeit just a bit. The fruitiness in this was just enough to make this beer look kind of heavy, but play lightly. The finish and aftertaste ended up being the two most fascinating pieces in this beer's taste. There's a bitterness and a slight zest. The bitterness isn't your typical hop bitterness though. There's a slight biscuit taste from the malt that jumps in right before it goes down. Both bitter tastes stick around in the aftertaste.

Overall Rating: 

This beer is pretty much my standard. I don't think beer gets better than a glass of this does. That's just my thoughts. I sometimes lean towards Southern Tier's Pumking, but I always end up coming back to this one. I've waited to review this beer so long because I wanted it to transfer from my fingers through to the keyboard perfectly. The same goes for the photographing process. I love the color of this beer. I've never seen a color that compares to this one. The taste is also unlike any other beer out there. Just an extremely unique beer.