Anchor Brewing Company was a brewery on Potrero Hill in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1896, the brewery underwent several changes in location and ownership throughout its history. After years of declining sales due to competition with larger breweries, Anchor was purchased by Frederick Louis “Fritz” Maytag III in 1965, preventing its closure.[2] The brewery operated at its Potrero Hill location from 1979 and was one of the last remaining producers of steam beer, a variety of beer trademarked by the company.[2]
In 2010, the company was purchased by The Griffin Group, an investment and consulting company focused on alcohol brands, and became part of Anchor Brewers & Distillers, LLC.[3][4]
In 2017, the company was acquired by Sapporo Breweries for US$85 million.[5][6] Sapporo's ownership oversaw significant declines in revenue for the brewery, and in 2023, Anchor Brewing ceased operations, with plans to liquidate the business.[7] In July 2023, Anchor Brewing closed, and its workers attempted to buy out the firm as a worker-owned cooperative.[8] Instead, on May 31, 2024, Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya announced that he was buying the company and its associated assets. He said that he planned to restart the company and keep its operations in San Francisco.[9]
History
Early brewing
Otto Schinkel and Ernst F. Baruth
The brewery that would become Anchor was built during the California Gold Rush when Gottlieb Brekle arrived from Germany and began brewing steam beer in San Francisco. In 1896, Ernst F. Baruth and his son-in-law, Otto Schinkel, Jr., bought the old brewery, creating Anchor Brewing.[10] This original location was completely destroyed in the fires that engulfed San Francisco following the 1906 earthquake. It was rebuilt at a different location in 1907. After the deaths of Baruth and Schinkel, the brewery was run by Joseph Kraus and August Meyer until Prohibition forced the brewery to shut down. There is no record of what Anchor did during Prohibition, but it resumed operations at a new location once Prohibition in California came to an end in 1933.[11] However, the new location burned down in 1944, with Kraus reopening Anchor at another location the same year.
The brewery continued operations through the 1950s, but suffered heavily from the country's increasingly strong preference for beers produced by mega-breweries.[12] While there had been more than 4,000 breweries at the turn of the twentieth century, shifts in the industry due to Prohibition and the consolidation of brewing companies meant that only 70 remained by the 1960s.[13] As a result of declining sales, Anchor shut down in 1959, but was bought and reopened the following year at a new location by Lawrence Steese.[14]
Purchase by Maytag
By 1965, the brewery was once again suffering from poor sales. The quality of Anchor's beer had deteriorated under Steese due to a lack of expertise, proper equipment, and poor sanitation standards, which prevented the consistent production of a commercially viable product. The brewery gained a reputation for producing sour beer, and convincing existing distributors to continue to sell the beer became a challenge.[15]
In 1965, Frederick Louis "Fritz" Maytag III bought the brewery, saving it from closure.[16] Maytag purchased 51% of the brewery for a few thousand dollars, and purchased the brewery outright in 1969.[17] By 1971, the brewery began to bottle steam beer (along with other varieties of beer, most notably a Christmas ale) under the direction of Fritz. Fritz purchased an old coffee roastery on Potrero Hill to serve as Anchor's new location in 1979. This building serves as the current location of the brewery.[18][19]
Turning the failing brewery around required more money than Maytag had from his inherited fortune from the Maytag Company. Between the initial purchase of Anchor and producing the first batches of bottled beer in 1971, Maytag had to learn the brewing process from scratch, invest in new equipment, and improve sanitation in the brewing process.[15] The result was a new beer that was a definitive representative of California common beer, but a derivative to the historic steam beer manufactured by Anchor through the previous century.[20]
Before offering in bottles, sales were only as draft beer to thirty local establishments that had long carried the brand. Total production was only 800 barrels in 1969, 1,200 in 1970, and 2,100 in 1971.[21] The bottles were initially sold in four-packs, to keep the price close to mainstream six-packs.[22]
Growth and development
Due to its sale at many local establishments, Anchor's steam beer was well-known in the San Francisco area, having a reputation of local importance that grew under Maytag's ownership. In 1977, Arnold Schwarzenegger portrayed an Anchor Brewing employee in an episode of Streets of San Francisco, with Fritz Maytag making a cameo as another employee. During the 1980s, Anchor's Steam Beer began to gain national attention and demand increased. Anchor ultimately served as an early example of a microbrewery, being among the first American breweries to produce porters, barley wine, and India pale ales with regularity. Its success both regionally and nationally inspired others to enter the brewing business,[13] notably New Albion.[23]
Open-top fermentation tanks are usedThe brewery offers tours. Above the beer taps is a row of Christmas Ale bottles, one from each year beginning in 1975.
In 1989, the company produced a limited beer named Ninkasi, based on a 4000-year-old Sumerian recipe found in a ode to the Sumerian goddess of beer known as the “Hymn to Ninkasi.”[24] The recipe started with a twice-baked bread known as bappir as well as malt and was sweetened with honey and dates. It did not include hops or other bittering ingredients, making it considerably sweeter than modern beers.[25] The recipe is described by Charlie Papazian.[26] Also in 1989, the brewing process for a batch of beer was interrupted during the Loma Prieta earthquake. The resulting (altered) brew was released as normal Anchor Steam, but with an inverted label; this beer has come to be referred to as Earthquake Beer.[27]
In 1993, the company opened Anchor Distillery, a microdistillery in the same location as the brewery, and began making a single maltrye whiskey, named Old Potrero, after the hill on which the brewery stands. In 1997, the microdistillery began producing a gin, called Junípero—Spanish for juniper, and a reference to Fr. Junípero Serra, an important figure in San Francisco's and California's history. The distillery also produces a Jenever style gin called Genevieve, using wheat, barley, rye, and the same herbal ingredients as their Junípero gin.
In 2010, Maytag sold the company to former Skyy vodka executives Keith Greggor and Tony Foglio, from Novato, California, who planned to expand Anchor's business while keeping its commitment to artisan brewing.[13] In 2013, the brewery launched Anchor California Lager, a re-creation of a historic Boca Brewing lager from the 1870s.[28] The brewery also announced a major expansion plan at Pier 48 in the Mission Rock neighborhood near Oracle Park,[29] which would expand Anchor's maximum annual production capacity from 180,000 barrels to 680,000 barrels.[29]
In 2014, Anchor officially announced Anchor IPA,[30] the first India Pale Ale in the brewery's history.[1] Anchor ended production of its winter seasonal Bock in 2014[31] and replaced it a year later with Anchor Winter Wheat.[32]
Purchase by Sapporo and unionization
In 2017, Anchor was purchased by Sapporo for $85 million.[33][34] Working conditions and pay at Anchor had been in a state of decline since Maytag had sold the company, and this trend continued under Sapporo's ownership despite the company's larger holdings. This led to further dissatisfaction among the brewery's workers. In 2018, several workers at Anchor, among them Brace Belden, formed an organizing committee and coordinated with the DSA chapter in San Francisco to develop a plan for unionization with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. The unionization efforts were overwhelmingly supported by local bars which served Anchor Steam Beer in the city.[35]
In 2019, Anchor Brewing workers voted by an almost 2-to-1 margin to join the International Longshore and Warehouse Union making Anchor Brewing – including Anchor Public Taps, the brewery's on-site brew pub – the first unionized craft brewery in the United States.[36] The three-year union contract was officially ratified in 2020, providing workers with increased wages, health insurance, and other benefits.[37]
In 2021, Anchor Brewing announced a major makeover of their logo and beer labels. On the eve of their 125th birthday, the brewery replaced their vintage-looking labels with a large Anchor logo in a two-tone color schemes per beer.[38] Most labels were not changed in decades or at all. The design change was met with criticism by consumers.[39]
Announced closure
In 2023, union efforts to renew the existing contract were stalled, with Sapporo delaying negotiations.[40] Soon after, Anchor announced it would no longer distribute nationally and would cease production of its signature Christmas Ale.[41]
On July 12, 2023, Sapporo announced it was ceasing operations at Anchor and liquidating the business. Sapporo blamed the closure on decreased sales at restaurants and bars caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, competition from other local brewers, and a shift in consumer preferences to alcoholic beverages other than beer.[42][43][44] Employees were given a 60-day WARN notice on July 12.[45][46] The announcement led to significant outrage from brewery workers, San Francisco bartenders, and locals, with passing drivers chanting "keep brewing" outside the building.[47]
A spokesman for Sapporo quoted by the New York Times said that the firm sought a buyer for Anchor before announcing that the brewery would close, and that it was still possible one might emerge.[43] To liquidate Anchor, Sapporo has elected to enter into an alternative to the traditional bankruptcy process known as "Assignments for the Benefit of Creditors".[48] Through the process, an "assignee" other than Sapporo will assume stewardship of Anchor and consider bids for the company's assets. Through this process, a new owner might emerge.[49]
In July 2023, Anchor Brewing closed, and its workers attempted to buy out the firm as a worker-owned cooperative.[8] Instead, Chobani bought out the company in 2024, with the intention of restarting its operations.[50]
Purchase and re-opening by Chobani founder
On May 31, 2024, it was announced that the brewery would be purchased by the founder of Chobani and re-opened.[51]
Former products
Anchor had a year-round range of seven beers, as well as several seasonal beers.[52] In 2012, Anchor introduced the Zymaster series, which placed an emphasis on brewing tradition.[53] These beers were generally of an extremely limited nature.
Pale ale is a golden to amber coloured beer style brewed with pale malt. The term first appeared in England around 1703 for beers made from malts dried with high-carbon coke, which resulted in a lighter colour than other beers popular at that time. Different brewing practices and hop quantities have resulted in a range of tastes and strengths within the pale ale family. Pale ale is a kind of Ale.
Craft beer is beer manufactured by craft breweries, which typically produce smaller amounts of beer than larger "macro" breweries and are often independently owned. Such breweries are generally perceived and marketed as emphasising enthusiasm, new flavours, and varied brewing techniques.
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. was established in 1979 by homebrewers Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi in Chico, California, United States. The brewery produced 786,000 US bbl (922,000 hl) in 2010, and as of 2016, Sierra Nevada Brewing is the seventh-largest brewing company in the United States and is the third largest privately owned brewery in the United States.
India pale ale (IPA) is a hoppy beer style within the broader category of pale ale.
Sleeman Breweries is a Japanese-owned Canadian brewery founded by John Warren Sleeman in 1988 in Guelph, Ontario. The company is the third-largest brewing company in Canada. Along with its own Sleeman brands, the company produces under licence the Stroh's family of brands, Maclays Ale and Sapporo Premium beers for sale in Canada. The company's parent Sapporo owns 4.2 per cent of Ontario's primary beer retailer The Beer Store.
Steam beer, also known as California common beer, is made by fermenting lager yeast at a higher than normal temperature.
Sapporo Breweries Ltd. is a Japanese beer brewing company founded in 1876. Sapporo is the oldest brand of beer in Japan. It was first brewed in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan, in 1876 by brewer Seibei Nakagawa. The world headquarters of Sapporo Breweries is in Ebisu, Shibuya, Tokyo. The company purchased the Canadian company Sleeman Breweries in 2006.
Frederick Louis "Fritz" Maytag III is the former owner of Anchor Brewing Company in San Francisco and former chairman of the board of the Maytag Dairy Farms. He is also the owner of York Creek Vineyards in St. Helena, California. His revival of Anchor Steam beer inspired many other brewers to follow, and he is often considered the father of modern microbreweries. Maytag has also been an active trustee of Grinnell College, whose campus is close to the headquarters of Maytag Dairy Farms, recruiting among others Apple Computer's Steve Jobs to the Board of Trustees.
Full Sail Brewing Company is a craft brewery in Hood River, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1987, Full Sail was the first commercially successful craft brewery to bottle beer in the Pacific Northwest for retail sale, and one of Oregon's early microbreweries. The first beer packaged was Full Sail Golden Ale, followed in 1988 by Full Sail Imperial Porter, Full Sail Amber Ale, and Wassail Winter Ale.
In the United States, beer is manufactured in breweries which range in size from industry giants to brew pubs and microbreweries. The United States produced 196 million barrels (23.0 GL) of beer in 2012, and consumes roughly 28 US gallons (110 L) of beer per capita annually. In 2011, the United States was ranked fifteenth in the world in per capita consumption, while total consumption was second only to China.
Beer is the most popular alcoholic drink in New Zealand, accounting for 63% of available alcohol for sale. At around 64.7 litres per person per annum, New Zealand is ranked 27th in global beer consumption per capita. The vast majority of beer produced in New Zealand is a type of lager, either pale or amber in colour, and typically 4–5% alcohol by volume.
Stone Brewing is a brewery headquartered in Escondido, California, United States. Founded in 1996 in San Marcos, it is the largest brewery in Southern California. Based on 2020 sales volume, it is the ninth largest craft brewery in the United States.
The Matilda Bay Brewing Company is a brewery founded in Western Australia, the first new brewery opened in Australia since World War II, and Australia's first craft brewery. Originating from small batches brewed for the Sail and Anchor Hotel in 1984, their main brewery opened in 1989 in a prominent building at Stirling Highway previously occupied by Ford Motor Company. The company was purchased by Carlton & United Breweries in the early 1990s.
American pale ale (APA) is a style of pale ale developed in the United States around 1980.
Shmaltz Brewing Company is an American craft brewing company headquartered in Troy, New York. Originally primarily known for its He'Brew flagship brand, the company produces a large line of Shmaltz Brewing beers and numerous other brands including 518/838 craft beers and the Alphabet City Brewing brand. It also produced Coney Island Craft Lagers until that brand's acquisition by Boston Beer Company in 2013.
The New Albion Brewing Company is known as the first American craft beer brewery. Founded in 1976 by Jack McAuliffe, Suzy Stern, and Jane Zimmerman in Sonoma, California, New Albion is acknowledged as the first United States microbrewery of the modern era, as well as a heavy influence on the subsequent microbrewery and craft beer movements of the late 20th century. New Albion was resurrected in 2012 by Boston Beer Company under the supervision of McAuliffe. The current president is McAuliffe's daughter, Renee M. DeLuca.
21st Amendment Brewery is a brewery located in San Leandro, California. Their original location is a brewpub and restaurant in the South Park neighborhood of San Francisco, California, two blocks from Oracle Park. The brewery's name refers to the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which repealed Prohibition.
San Diego County, California, has been called "the Craft Beer Capital of America". As of 2018, the county was home to 155 licensed craft breweries – the most of any county in the United States. Based on 2016 sales volume, three San Diego County breweries – Stone, Green Flash, and Karl Strauss – rank among the 50 largest craft brewers in the United States. San Diego County brewers pioneered the specialty beer style known as Double India Pale Ale, sometimes called San Diego Pale Ale. Its beer culture is a draw for tourism, particularly during major festivals such as San Diego Beer Week and the San Diego International Beer Competition. San Diego County breweries including Stone Brewing Co., AleSmith Brewing Company and Ballast Point Brewing Company are consistently rated among the top breweries in the world.
↑ Helfferich, Carla (17 July 1991). "Beer before Bread". Alaska Science Forum. Archived from the original on 11 August 2011. Retrieved 25 February 2011.
↑ Spacek, Rachel (3 August 2017). "San Francisco's Anchor Brewing acquired by Sapporo". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 4 April 2018. Anchor Brewing has been a San Francisco staple since 1896, surviving earthquakes, prohibition and tech booms and busts. But on Thursday, the brewer announced it will be a San Francisco company no longer after a sale to Japan's Sapporo Holdings Ltd. Exact terms of the deal were not disclosed, but a spokesman for Sapporo said the price was approximately $85 million. The deal marks the latest California brewery to be acquired by a larger beer maker. It comes amid rising competition among craft breweries — a sector of the beer industry that Anchor has been credited, by some, for helping inspire.
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