Steam beer

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Steam beer may be defined as a highly effervescent beer made by brewing lager yeasts at ale fermentation temperatures. It has two distinct but related meanings:

   * Historic steam beer, by all accounts bad-tasting, produced in California from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s;
   * Modern California Common beer, the official name for the beer family which includes Anchor Steam beer.

Historic steam beer, associated with San Francisco and the U. S. West Coast, was brewed with lager yeast without the use of refrigeration. It was an improvised process, originating out of necessity, perhaps as early as the Gold Rush. It was considered a cheap and low-quality beer, as shown by references to it in literature of the 1890s and 1900s.