I love beer. After now having visited over 430 different breweries, it’s fair to say I have sampled a lot of beer (follow me on Untappd). From post-race pints and run club meeting locations, to beer miles and relays, running and the kegged nectar seem to go hand-in-hand in Oregon. Our Kegs and Legs feature is where beer drinking runners like me can go to find some new favorite beverages.
Check out previous posts here!
Outside of running, my sport of choice is baseball. With the World Series just wrapping up a few days ago, it seemed fitting to review a new offering from San Francisco-based brewery, Anchor Brewing. They sent us a couple of their flagship beers as well as their some others in their arsenal, but we will be reviewing their Los Gigantes Mexican Lager, a partnership between the brewery and the local baseball team – the San Francisco Giants. Here’s a snippet about Anchor from our previous feature:
Enter Anchor Brewing, a brewery out of California, and one that put San Francisco on the map. You may have seen their stuff in tap houses and bottle shops, and I really like how “old school” the bottles look – simple, yet with a rustic flair and throwback to the times when Anchor was just getting started. In fact, here’s a little bit of the history of Anchor:
The rich history of Anchor Brewing can be traced all the way back to the California gold rush, when German brewer Gottlieb Brekle arrived in San Francisco with his family.
Gottlieb Brekle bought an old beer-and-billiards saloon on Pacific Street near Russian Hill for $3,500, transforming it into the American brewery that, twenty-five years later, would be renamed Anchor. German brewer Ernst F. Baruth and his son-in-law, Otto Schinkel, Jr., bought the old brewery on Pacific (the first of six Anchor locations around the City over the years) and named it Anchor. No one knows why Baruth and Schinkel chose the name Anchor, except, perhaps, for its indirect but powerful allusion to the booming Port of San Francisco.
I am quite partial to a cold beer after a long run, but there’s nothing quite like taking in a ballgame with a beer in hand – especially a good one (get outta here Budweiser and Miller Lite). The Giants are the team of probably about half the state (I noticed a lot of orange and black SF flags once you get past Eugene heading south). AT&T Park is absolutely beautiful and just a great place to catch a ballgame. Put it on your list if you are heading down for a NorCal race and are looking for some nice local flavor as well. You can grab this Mexican Lager at the stadium, as well as use their beer finder to locate some around town as well to bring into your home. I’m not a huge lager drinker for the most part, but this version was very mild and crushable (i.e. perfect for a sunny ballgame or post-run). It’s super smooth and probably one of my favorite lagers I have had this year.
Beer:
- Los Gigantes Mexican Lager
- ABV: 4.5%
Brewery:
- Anchor Brewing (Facebook)
- 1705 Mariposa Street San Francisco
- Anchor Public Taps (495 De Haro St San Francisco)
- Anchor Beer Garden (Terry A Francois Blvd, San Francisco)
