Capturing this symbolic transition from summer to fall, a watercolor of bigleaf maple’s magnificent leaf is featured on our label and signed by Jim Stitt.īigLeaf Maple Autumn Red will be available from August 5th through October in 6-packs, 22-oz bottles and on draught in select bars and restaurants, as well as, at the Anchor Brewing taproom in San Francisco.Īnchor Brewing Company’s roots date back to the California gold rush making it one of America’s oldest breweries. In autumn, the bigleaf maple’s huge leaves, up to a foot across, can display a full range of color as they slowly turn from green to gold to red. A distinct, handmade beer deserves a distinct, handmade label and BigLeaf Maple is no exception. Since the 1970’s, Anchor Brewing has worked with renowned local Artist Jim Stitt to create our beer labels. The result is a distinctive fall seasonal with extraordinary depth and intriguing aroma. To complement these flavors, Anchor Brewing uses three additions of Nelson Sauvin hops in the brewkettle and a unique blend of Nelson Sauvin, Citra, and Cascade for dry hopping. Its malty complexity and coppery color come from a combination of two caramel malts, pale malt, and a hint of maple syrup. It requires us to be on top of our game when crafting new beers and BigLeaf Maple is a beer we’re all proud to share.”īigLeaf Maple Autumn Red (6% ABV) is a quaffable, well-balanced red ale with character. “We are very happy with the finished product, especially since we don’t do test batches here at Anchor. “When presented with the challenge of developing a new seasonal beer, all of our brewers collaborated to think fall and came up with this red ale,” said Mark Carpenter, brewmaster at Anchor Brewing. A hint of maple-including bigleaf maple-syrup in every brew perfectly complements the malty complexity, balanced hoppiness, and rich fall hue of BigLeaf Maple Autumn Red, a red ale like no other. Bigleaf maple sugaring in California dates to the 1800s yet this tree’s unusually flavorful syrup remains the product of a small group of hobbyists. Today, artisans handcraft its wood and burl into custom guitars. Native Californians once made rope and baskets from its bark. The tree, known as Bigleaf maple, thrives along the banks of California’s mountain streams. The National Champion Big-Leaf Maple near Jewell, Oregon was blown down in a windstorm in 2011.(San Francisco, CA) – Today, Anchor Brewing announces a new, seasonal addition to its lineup of distinctive, handcrafted beers: BigLeaf Maple Autumn Red.īigLeaf Maple Autumn Red was inspired by a native California tree, its incredible leaves, its delicious syrup, and the colors of fall. In fact, it is so prized for guitars that there have been criminal cases of tree-cutting for this very purpose. Today it is the only maple species in the Pacific Northwest in commercial use and is highly valued as a wood veneer, as well as for piano frames, salad bowls and guitar bodies. The dead wood was also used for smoking salmon. Native peoples used the big-leaf maple wood to make oars for their boats which earned the tree its nickname, the paddle tree. Once its golden leaves fall in late autumn, they decompose quickly creating deep, nutrient-rich soils where many mollusks, including snails and jumping slugs may reside. When I picked the seeds, dozens of prickly thorns stuck into my hand. It’s spreading canopy provides limbs with calcium-rich bark that play host to mosses, lichen and licorice fern when it grows in humid areas, giving it a blanket of green year-round.ĭeer and elk will browse young trees while birds and small mammals eat the seeds, though it must be tough. It gets over 100 feet tall (though typically is 50 – 60 feet) with a diameter of 8-10 feet. Indeed everything about this tree is big. Its large, fuzzy, winged seeds are similar to other maple seeds, but bigger. One of the last trees to leaf out in spring, its fragrant 1/4-inch yellowish flowers attract bees and other pollinators and then litter the streets and parks as the leaves bud and seeds begin to form. Hike along a shaded trail and come to an opening near a stream, then look up to see the sun shining through an umbrella of bright light green maple leaves. Its huge 8 to 12-inch wide, 5-lobed leaves (the largest of any maple) are its major identifying characteristic in summer, along with its very welcome shade on a hot sunny day! It grows all over the city as people seem to appreciate its size and shape as a shade tree, but my favorite place to see it is in forest openings tucked among the Douglas firs and hemlocks along rivers and trails. For anyone living in the western part of Oregon, the big-leaf maple ( Acer macrophyllum) is one of those trees you just can’t miss.
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