Minneapolis Town Hall Brewery Anniversary Ale

I've discussed this previously, but it bears repeating that the brewery with the most number of reviews on this blog is Minneapolis Town Hall Brewery, 1430 Washington Avenue South, in the Seven Corners neighborhood. I actually counted the number of beers I've reviewed of theirs on BeerAdvocate.com when a thread asked users how many beers they'd reviewed from a single brewery, and was a bit surprised to see that I'd done just over 200 from them. (Pretty sure that I won that one.)Over on RateBeer.com, they actually keep track of that for you (if you're in the top) and rank the users with the most ratings. I'm at #1 with 148 on that site. (Currently, my reviews go here first, then on BA, and then maybe some time after I put them on ratebeer.)

But, enough of the blah, blah, blah. The point I'm getting at is: In nearly 3 years of this blog, I haven't added their perennial offering, Anniversary Ale. Last year, I included the 15th Anniversary IPA, but that's a different beast entirely. Nothing like that was offered this year, but once again, the IPA styled after Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale (often referred to by the brewery as a "Celebration-style ale") was among the treats for Anniversary Week. Even though I'd reviewed it before, I took home a growler and wrote fresh notes. Here they are....


Minneapolis Town Hall Brewery Anniversary Ale.

Looking: Clear, dark crimson coloring, slim, whitish head.

Smelling: Sweet and malty, and also bittersweet, lots of hops.

Tasting: Caramel malt hits first, followed by wave after wave of citric hops. For years this was described as a "celebration-style" ale (and maybe it still is), which means that it is modeled after Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. It does a good job of imitation, and in fact, I can't tell the difference between them. Rich and malty tangoes with citric hoppy.

Tasty, tasty stuff. Very satisfying.

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Here's the odd thing: people keep adding it into Beer Advocate.com as a different beer each year (they don't do this on ratebeer, though). But it's always the same recipe, same SN Celebration clone. I wrote notes on it and published them on BeerAdvocate in 2003, '04, '05, and '07, until at last I threw in the towel. I can't keep repeating the same descriptors over and over again.