This is a story I love. It began in the long ago when I was just getting my beer joint up and running in the mid 1980s…1987 to be exact. The Anchor Brewing Company was producing its legendary barleywine “Old Foghorn” and packaging it in six-ounce bottles due to its extremely high alcohol content—12% by volume. This size package has long been traditional among barleywine brewers due to the strength of the brew, which is about three times stronger than Budweiser or Coors.

When beer is brewed the grain (in this case malted barley) is cooked in a giant kettle (called the mash tun) like your morning Malt-O-Meal. Everything that’s going into the beer except the yeast comes out of this mash…all the sugars, proteins, amino acids, complex carbohydrates…everything. And these sugars, by the way, are going to feed the yeast and be converted into alcohol during the fermentation, so the amount and concentration of sugars determines the amount and concentration of alcohol in the final brew.

Now typically after the initial mashing, the liquid (called wort) is removed from the mash tun and sent on to the fermentation vessel where the yeast is added. In order to achieve the proper balance and also to extract all the above-mentioned goodies from the mash, water is added to the spent grain and everything is rinsed off the barley into the fermenter. You usually end up with about three or four times as much water as was in the original mash.

Here’s the kicker with Old Foghorn—no water is added after the initial mash, which results in that whopping 12% alcohol by volume.

Many of my regulars were so familiar with Old Foghorn that they saved bottlings from year to year in order to have vertical tastings.

My dream, of course, was to somehow offer it on tap.

I called the brewery in early 1987 and asked about getting it in kegs. I don’t know who I spoke with, but my request was met with a hearty laugh.

“Old Foghorn on tap!” he chortled. “I don’t think so!”

The angel on my shoulder went into action. Eight or nine months passed. I got a call from the brewery.

“So, you were curious about Old Foghorn on tap? We have a little bit of a problem right now. Our bottling line has to be shut down and re-configured every time we bottle it because we have to switch over from 12 ounce bottles to the much smaller 6 ounce bottles of Foghorn. Anchor Steam is in such demand at the moment we just can’t shut down the line to bottle Old Foghorn. We’ll have to throw away a whole batch unless we can keg it. Can you take some?”

Of course I would take some! Everyone at Father’s Office waited in breathless anticipation for the first keg to arrive. It was special delivered at about 4:00 in the afternoon. I, of course, had the first glass. We let everybody have at it for a while and at about 8:00 I realized I’d had about four mugs or so and was feeling it.

I walked home and went to bed, even though 9:00 was very early for me. But I woke up about 1:30 AM feeling refreshed and thought, “Maybe I’ll have just one more glass.”

So I walked back to Father’s Office. It was dark. I unlocked the door and went in. There was the Old Foghorn handle…I had one more delicious glass and went back home to bed. Anytime you see Old Foghorn on tap…get one!