Anchor Party

The prestigious Anchor Brewing Co. Homebrew Club of the Year Award was celebrated on February 24th at the famous brewery.

Each year, regional homebrew clubs submit examples of their activities to Anchor for judging. The criteria are "constantly changing," but this year’s often-winning club is the San Andreas Malts, from San Francisco. The winner was announced at the California State Homebrew competition at Stern Grove, and the party was held at Anchor’s brewery in their honor. The other non-selected submitting clubs get invited to send four club members to the awards dinner party, complete with open taps.

It was cold evening - a rare event to see snow falling on the Bay Area foothills. It was colder outside than in the main fermentation room, which had four open-top vats thick with foam - evidence of good beer in the making. Inside the barroom and wandering around the massive copper kettles were 250 homebrewers packed in at the taps, greeting old friends and meeting new ones. On tap were six of Anchor’s finest: Steam, Wheat, Liberty, Porter, Our Special (Christmas) Ale, and Old Foghorn Barleywine.

The Draught Board was represented by six club members: Harry & Kim Graham, John & Ann Pyles, Ken Koupal, and Charlie Webster.

Anchor put on a very nice party. We had steak dinners at tables tucked in among the ancient brewing artifacts on display. 25 tables filled the halls, more than enough to eat - and the freshest beer!

Then came the awards ceremony. A rousing cheer followed the chorus of musical bottle blowing (different notes made by different bottle fill-heights.) The copper mug trophy was about to be presented.

The copper mug was hammered out of spare parts left over from when the kettles were brought from Germany. A toast was made to the trophy coppersmith (who passed away last year) and to the San Andreas Malts.

The band played, people danced; the party lasted late into the evening. Winning the Anchor Brewing Co. Homebrew Club of the Year Award would be pretty nice, to get your name on that trophy and all that, but "also ran" wasn’t so bad either. Thanks, Anchor!