What do you all think of Anchor Liberty Ale?
I had some last night and want to hear what the hive mind has to offer.
When fresh, it’s a good standard IPA. I’m starting to miss “standard” American IPAs like this one, everyone is doing whacky new hops that don’t appeal to me as much.
The issue is, my neck of the woods, it’s never fresh, and is priced at a premium.
I haven’t seen it around here for years. As the very first American IPA, it was a real shocker when it first appeared, nobody had tried anything like it. It almost single-handedly saved Cascade hops from abandonment. Quite a legacy. But it seems not to warrent shelf space as an unfashionable, 40-odd-year-old relic. I would really like to try it again. As extreme as it once seemed, it might actually be almost restrained enough for my tastes (relative to everything else out there) today.
Liberty is the Luke, Han, and Chewy of IPAs. Everything else is Jar Jar
Without Liberty, there may not have been an American IPA.
Really? I don’t mean that in a snarky tone, I just have always thought that Bert Grant had the first Post-Prohibition AIPA. I know he had the first brew pub, and was an evangelist for hoppy beers. However he never was as big as Anchor.
I am not a fan. Maybe I’m not getting it fresh, but to me it’s harsh.
Anchor Liberty came out in '75, well before Grant’s pub opened, but of course it was never called an IPA (or anything else, “style” really wasn’t a thing yet) so Bert may well have repopularized the term. But it doesn’t matter. If Liberty is Luke, Han and Chewy, then Bert was running the Mos Eisly (sp?) Cantina. Without him, the Galaxy doesn’t get saved. Now that you’ve brought him up, I really could go for a Grant’s Celtic Ale. Need a time machine, dammit.
Interesting. What style was the Celtic Ale? I know one of his brewers… maybe he’d have some info on the recipe.
“Style” again, hmm. As I remember it, it was amber, malty, chewy and lightly fruity… it was probably supposed to be a mild, but it was too hoppy (of course it was too hoppy, Bert Grant made it.) I used to enjoy it in the early '90s, and having spent the late ‘80s in England, it was the sort of British-ish thing that really satisfied my yearnings. It’s probably mutated in my memory, but if I had a recipe, yeah, I might just temporarily ditch my lager yeast and have a go for old times’ sake.
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True, but as I’ve pointed out before, “mild” has meant different things in different times and places. For a late 20th century English Mild, if that’s what Celtic Ale was, it was very Bert Grantishly over hopped. He started out as a hop R&D guy, not a brewer, after all.
My favorite beer to fail to reproduce. Gonna keep trying, though! They’ve gone through some changes and jettisoned some pretty good beers over the years (the Bock was really good), but that Liberty Ale…
Isn’t that the funny thing, trying to reproduce a beer. Liberty should be so simple: the grist is (as far as anyone knows) just 2 row brewers malt, the hops are just Cascade, and the yeast is available too – WY1272. And yet some something is different in your brewery from theirs… Nonetheless, if you take these three ingredients and brew something, it’s likely to be worthwhile in its own right. Simplicity is good. And complicated at the same time.
Used to be able to get it here in Alabama in the mid to late 90’s, believe it or not. I remember it to be clean and grapefruity.
Quite true. My point is the amount of variance in milds makes it the most “It’s X only because it’s named X” styles around. It’s amazing to me just how many “substyles”, if you will, are in mild.
I don’t know if it’s the same kind of harshness you’re referring to, but as much as I love Cascade hops, if it’s the only hop used, such as in this or Sierra Nevada Pale, its just “too much”. The piney/turpentine and grapefruit pith bitterness is just too overpowering. When I brew with cascade I blend it with a fruity hop and it works amazingly. But 100% Cascade is just too over the top for me.
That’s just my personal preference though.
I am having trouble “enjoying” this beer. I bought a sixer of cans thinking it would be easy drinking and I find it harsh and astringent with a too full body. I am going to have to give it a try again, i have 3 cans left, and look at it is less of a pale ale and more as the first IPA. I will also check the best buy date.
I feel like maybe this beer is showing its age. It was world changing so many years ago, but not something I want to have these days.
Or maybe I’m showing my age…
Maybe the first modern Craft IPA. Ballantine IPA was around 40 years before that.