SAN FRANCISCO — Today, Anchor Brewing announces the release of the fourth brew in our Zymaster┬« Series, Fort Ross Farmhouse Ale.

Over 200 years ago, ninety miles up the coast from San Francisco, the Russian American Company built a stockade that became known as Fort Ross. It was home base for Russia’s fur trade and, in the 1820s and ’30s, supplied the Russian colony of New Archangel (now Sitka) with grain from “bread plants” like wheat and barley. The farms were small and the harvesting primitive. Reaping was done with sickles and threshing by driving horses over the sheaves.

Among the native plants at Fort Ross is a perennial evergreen shrub, prized by the local Indians for its healing powers, whose purple flowers bloom from May to early July. The Spanish missionaries called it Yerba Santa or Holy Herb. Our Zymaster┬« Series No. 4: Fort Ross Farmhouse Ale is inspired by the wheat, barley, and Yerba Santa at Fort Ross and the hardy souls who harvested them. Fermented with a local saison-style yeast, this unique brew celebrates the history and flora of Northern California like no other.

Our Fort Ross Farmhouse Ale (7.2% ABV) is a Belgian-style farmhouse ale with a California twist. The unique bitterness and earthy spiciness of Yerba Santa, a native California herb, perfectly complement the fruitiness and clove-like flavors created by a local saison-style yeast. And in addition to hops, barley malt, and wheat malt, we used toasted Belgian wheat malt, which gives our Fort Ross Farmhouse Ale its distinctive maltiness and burnished bronze color.

Zymaster Series No. 4: Fort Ross Farmhouse Ale will be available in draught and 22-ounce bottles and will be poured in select bars and restaurants throughout the United States, as well as the Anchor Taproom, starting June 2013.

At launch, Zymaster Series No. 4: Fort Ross Farmhouse Ale will be available in California, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Kansas, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.

About Anchor Brewing Company

Anchor Brewing Company’s roots date back to the California gold rush making it one of America’s oldest breweries. Its Anchor Steam┬« Beer is San Francisco’s original since 1896. In 1965, Fritz Maytag acquired and revived the struggling brewery at a time when mass production of beer dominated and seemed unstoppable. Maytag started a revolution in beer that originated today’s craft beer movement. An undisputed icon, Anchor is America’s first craft brewery where beers are handmade in our traditional copper brewhouse from an all-malt mash. At Anchor, we practice the time-honored art of classical brewing, employing state-of-the-art methods to ensure that our beers are always pure and fresh. We know of no brewery in the world that matches our efforts to combine traditional, natural brewing with such carefully applied, modern methods of sanitation, finishing, packaging and transporting.

About Anchor Brewing Zymaster Series

Zymaster┬« is a new word coined by Anchor Brewing to describe a brewmaster with hands-on experience throughout the a-to-z process of creating a new beer, from the research and selection of the raw materials and development of a recipe to brewing, fermentation, cellaring, and finishing. Fort Ross Farmhouse Ale is the fourth beer in our Zymaster┬« Series, a unique series of beers from Anchor Brewing, rooted in its exceptional respect for the ancient art and noble traditions of brewing, featuring extraordinary ingredients, innovative techniques, and unusual flavors.