Have we truly overlooked this amazing beer to date? My gawd, man! It’s a damn fine brew. One of the finest widely available, I’ll venture. A few words on history and classification, a few on the brew, and then I’m going to weep softly for a while. Just ‘cuz.

OK so no one knows exactly what “steam” means when attached to beer. Not even the guys at Anchor Brewing. It’s lost in bearded, tobacco-juice-stained, old-tyme-prospecty history. But at some point steam beer meant beer brewed out West. Now, well, it’s patented and applies legally only to this beer. But as a style, you can generalize it to say steam beer is brewed with lager ingredients but at ale temperatures (i.e. not refrigerated during its fermentation and not clarified).

What does that get you? It gets you a rich, malty glass of delicious. At just under 5% ABV, this can be a delicious sidekick to a fine meal or it can be a session beer slurped whilst strumming the old ukulele. The hop presence is subtle and balancing—roasty, bready malt defines this amber brew. The carbonation is not overly active, letting the subtle barley malt notes play across your contented tongue.

So good work, old-tymey prospector brewers. Your legacy lives on. Until I drink it. But then I go get more.