Wikipedia
Steam beer is a highly effervescent beer made by brewing lager yeasts at warmer fermentation temperatures. It has two distinct but related meanings:
- Historic steam beer produced in California from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century;
- Modern California common beer, a competition category name for the beer family which includes steam beers such as Anchor Steam beer.
Historic steam beer, associated with San Francisco and the U.S. West Coast, was brewed with lager yeast without the use of true refrigeration (by ice or mechanical means). It was an improvised process, originating out of necessity, perhaps as early as the Gold Rush and at least 1860 in Nevada. It was considered a cheap and low-quality beer, as shown by references to it in literature of the 1890s and 1900s.
Modern steam beer, also known as California common beer, was originated by Anchor Brewing Company, which trademarked the term Steam Beer in 1981. Although the modern company has corporate continuity with a small brewery which has made beer since the 1890s, Anchor Steam is a modern craft-brewed lager. The company does not claim any close similarity between its present-day product and turn-of-the-20th-century steam beer.
There have been various explanations for the use of the name "steam beer." According to Anchor Brewing, the name "steam" came from the fact that the brewery had no way to effectively chill the boiling wort using traditional means. So they pumped the hot wort up to large, shallow, open-top bins on the roof of the brewery so that it would be rapidly chilled by the cool air blowing in off the Pacific Ocean. Thus while brewing, the brewery had a distinct cloud of steam around the roof let off by the wort as it cooled, hence the name. Another explanation is that the carbon dioxide pressure produced by the 19th-century steam-beer-making process was very high, and that it may have been necessary as part of the process to let off "steam" before attempting to dispense the beer. It is also possible that the name or brewing process derive from Dampfbier (literally steam beer), a traditional German beer that was also fermented at unusually high temperatures and that may have been known to 19th-century American brewers, many of whom were of German descent; Dampfbier is an ale, however, not a lager.
Usage examples of "steam beer".
Who wanted to drink fizzy water with a little alcohol in it when porter and steam beer and barley wine were out there, too?
He hung up, ambled into his kitchen, opened the refrigerator, expertly shucked a dozen Gulf oysters, poured a few drops of Tabasco and sherry vinegar into the open shells, and downed them accompanied by a bottle of Anchor Steam beer.
She fed her credit card into the small machine on the bar and punched up an Anchor Steam beer for herself.
The beauty of it is that one day soon it will be possible to try it out in the real world and see what the answer is-but right now, even though all the components of the question are meaningful and known, I'll bet a case of Anchor Steam Beer nobody here can come up with an answer and peove it.
The beauty of it is that one day soon it will be possible to try it out in the real world and see what the answer is - but right now, even though all the components of the question are meaningful and known, I'll bet a case of Anchor Steam Beer nobody here can come up with an answer and prove it.
Only an occasional siren or police whistle penetrates the neon buzz of an Anchor Steam Beer sign above the cash register and the soft susurrus sung by all old industrial buildings.
Andre gave passing notice to the nudes that adorned the walls, as Michael ordered steam beer and crab cakes.