I have written a lot about the Anchor Brewing Company because it and its owner Fritz Maytag have long been icons in the craft beer movement. For instance, it was to Fritz Maytag that Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi turned for advice and start-up equipment in the late 1970s to get the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company off the ground. He looked back at the traditional brewing styles that were being neglected by the American industry during that era an began producing a barleywine, a porter, and the first wheat beer brewed in the US since Prohibition began on January 16, 1920.

Maytag also helped revive the custom of brewing heartier ales during the winter known as Christmas Ales. In 1987, he went to the fullest extent possible in that style by making a spiced winter ale known in Britain as Wassail, and by design its recipe was to change each year.

Here’s where I come in. Those who have read some of my tales about “back in the day” might have gotten the slightest whiff of a self-ascribed air of infallibility regarding my instincts and vision about the craft beer movement.

Believe me—this episode certainly exposes me at least once as a total dunderhead who completely failed to appreciate what would turn out to be one of the most beloved beers that ever graced my little pub.

In the autumn of 1987 I got a call from Anchor Brewing representative Bob Brewer. I was planning my first tour of the brewery and he let me know he had “something special” to taste when I got there.

The tour ended and I was headed for the airport when Bob pulled me aside and stuck a plain brown unmarked case of beer in my arms. “It’s our Christmas ale this season,” he explained. “It’s spiced…although I can’t reveal the recipe its got stuff like nutmeg and clove and orange flower water. It’ll be like nothing you’ve ever tasted,” he said proudly.

Boy, was he right about that part.

I arrived at SFO carrying the case of beer in my arms, so excited to taste this new miracle I could barely breathe. I talked a bartender there into opening a bottle and I drank. Bob’s words echoed back…”like nothing you’ve ever tasted.”

It was the strangest sensation I remembered ever having. What was promised as nectar of the gods was the scariest stuff I’d ever encountered. It didn’t taste like beer at all. It was so strange that I knew when I tried to sell it at Father’s Office I would be laughed right out the door.

It couldn’t be!! What were they thinking?! It tasted ridiculous! Not just me, but the entire Anchor Brewery would be a laughingstock.

I had to get word to Bob Brewer right away! I had to find a pay phone fast! My flight was boarding as I searched! Finally I found a phone! But I had no change! I found some fast! I dialed quickly! Bob answered!

“Bob!” I yelled, “I don’t think I can sell this!”

He calmly and patiently let me rant, then said “Just relax, People who know this style very well have tried it. It’ll do fine. Get on your plane and we’ll talk when you get home.”

Bob’s words always have had a very calming effect on me. I flew home and waited with dread for the day when the first kegs would arrive.

The big day came and I tapped one, looking at the eager young faces at my bar waiting for what they thought would be Nirvana, and what I knew would be the biggest fiasco of my career.

One by one they tasted. Their eyes and faces told the story—their socks were knocked off. The excited buzz started. “Another, please,” it began, and by the end of the day we’d sold the entire keg.

That winter we sold 35 kegs of Anchor’s 1987 Christmas ale, making it to this day the fastest selling beer ever poured at Father’s Office, which became the largest seller of Anchor Christmas Ale in the entire world. Bear in mind that thirty other drafts were offered beside it, and Father’s Office only seated 49.

How good it felt to be right once again.