Anchor produces some distinctive and excellent beers, and I was lucky to find one that I haven’t had before: Anchor Bock. I don’t recall seeing it available around here, and in fact I picked this up on the way back from our San Diego trip.

Appearance: Dark brown with deep ruby highlights. Creamy beige head.

Smell: Roasted grain, coffee, dark malt and dry roast.

Taste: Dark and dry with dark coffee and roasted malt. Pretty dry. There’s a residual sweetness in the malt. Neutral hops, not very noticeable. Reminds me of a Schwarzbier.

Mouthfeel: A bit thin, just short of medium-bodied. Very dry.

Overall: Much drier than I would have expected for a Bock style; I expect a more malty, sweet flavor to it. This is not a bad beer by a long shot. I’ll bet a cask version of this is the cat’s meow.

On BeerAdvocate, it scores 86 out of 100, with 100% approval from the reviewers. On RateBeer, it scores 3.52 out of 5 and is in their 84th percentile.