Day 53, Feb 22 / Anchor Bock Beer

Day 53 / February 22

Anchor Bock Beer

Anchor Brewing Company  /  San Francisco, CA

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What’s up with the goat?

Spring is just around the corner.  And we all know what that means – April showers, buckets of pollen, more stinkbugs, and bock beer!  Must be time for a Bock Beer Run!

So what exactly is bock beer?  I found this description on the internet, looks pretty good, so let’s go with it…

Bock is a style of lager beer which originated in Germany. It was traditionally brewed in the fall, at the end of the growing season, when barley and hops were at their peak. It was "lagered" all winter and enjoyed in the spring at the beginning of the new brewing season. Bocks can be pale (helles) or dark (dunkels) and there are double (doppel) bocks which are extra strong.

Bocks are usually strong beers made with lots of malt yielding a very full-bodied, alcoholic beer. A persistent myth has been that bock beers are made from the dregs at the bottom of a barrel when they are cleaned in the spring. This probably seemed logical because of the heavier body and higher strength of bocks. From a brewing standpoint, this is clearly impossible for two reasons: 1) The "dregs" left after fermentation are unfermentable, which is exactly why they are left over. They cannot be fermented again to make more beer. 2) Any attempt to re-use the "dregs" would probably result in serious bacterial contamination and a product which does not resemble beer as we know it.

I’ve got a few more bocks chilling in the fridge, but tonight we’ll start out with an Anchor Steam Bock from San Francisco.  This beer was very dark as I poured it into the glass, but the thick foamy head filled about half the glass.  The head quickly dissipated.  The Anchor bock was a good drink – a little hoppy, a little malty.

So what is up with the goat?

It seems that just about every bock beer has a goat on the label.  Why is that?  Well, the simplest reason is that in German, bock also means “billygoat.”  Another theory has something to do with an “amusing” story of a drinking contest between a Bavarian duke and a knight from Brunswick.  Believe me, it’s not that amusing…