[HN Gopher] SF's Anchor Brewing Company shutting down after 127 ...
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SF's Anchor Brewing Company shutting down after 127 years
Author : c5karl
Score : 215 points
Date : 2023-07-12 13:34 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (abc7news.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (abc7news.com)
| CephalopodMD wrote:
| I went on a tour of their facility about a year ago. Really
| beautiful place with lots of history. I'll be sad to see it go.
|
| As with most brewery tours, we got to try some of their beers
| afterwards. One of the ones I tasted was the best sour I've ever
| had in my life. I asked where I could buy it and they said they
| were never going to sell the stuff.
| WiseWeasel wrote:
| A shame they weren't able to adapt to modern beer tastes. As long
| as I can remember, I've thought of them as the mediocre beer I'll
| begrudgingly drink only if all other options are exhausted.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| Part of the problem is that the steam beer process they used is
| a cheap and nasty process by design and they were one of the
| last holdouts of that style. I did a tour of their brewery
| where they do the open air fermenting (hence the name, steam
| came off it). It's a way to save refrigeration costs in brewing
| and makes for a poor beer.
|
| If they adapted to modern tastes they wouldn't really be steam
| beer anymore. They'd be another beer brewed the same way as the
| others. At which point you're calling non steam beer steam
| beer.
| local_crmdgeon wrote:
| >Last holdouts
|
| They were only a "holdout" insofar as they sued anyone else
| who used that process. They were kind of a shitty corporate
| citizen and I'm not sad to see them go.
| the_common_man wrote:
| I thought anchor steam is pretty good. What beer do you like?
| WiseWeasel wrote:
| I guess Sierra Nevada was a big influence early on, and since
| then I've come to appreciate a large variety, from more hoppy
| offerings from the likes of Russian River, Lagunitas, Stone
| and recently Almanac, to lagers from Pacifico and Dos Equis,
| several prominent Belgian brands, and some local sours. I
| enjoy a wide variety, but always thought of Anchor Steam as
| bland, malty, and mediocre, on the same low level as Fat
| Tire, to name a comparable brand.
|
| That said, I've only had it bottled, never on tap.
| ginko wrote:
| >always thought of Anchor Steam as bland, malty, and
| mediocre, on the same low level as Fat Tire, to name a
| comparable brand.
|
| So was it bland or malty? Those seem mutually exclusive to
| me.
|
| I'm generally a fan of steam beers/california commons
| because of the very dark malt forward flavor. It was one of
| my favorite beer styles to brew and drink.
|
| Do you like Munich dunkels?
| WiseWeasel wrote:
| Bland in a flavor complexity sense, and malty as in too
| sweet. I guess a better way to say it is too sweet for
| its sourness/bitterness.
| grouchomarx wrote:
| >the mediocre beer I'll begrudgingly drink
|
| >I guess Sierra Nevada
| chubot wrote:
| Anchor steam on tap is very good IMO
|
| In the bottle it seems to lose everything for some reason
|
| I never buy it in the bottle, but I get it on tap
|
| But I'll admit there are a zillion options that are similar or
| better now. The market changed a lot
| chubot wrote:
| The obvious follow up is I think they must not have kept up
| with the times
|
| I'd guess bottles are the majority of the business and I
| think that product is inferior
|
| I don't know what the other breweries do, maybe it's just
| freshness and inventory, or a better or more consistent
| bottling
|
| --
|
| I should also add that I lived in SF, so it's definitely
| possible that most customers out of city think of them as a
| bad bottled beer brand, whereas I had a different impression
| kshahkshah wrote:
| Other breweries do cans. Easier. Cheaper. Tastes better.
| Keeps the art fresh.
| Arainach wrote:
| >Other breweries do cans. Easier. Cheaper. Tastes better.
| Keeps the art fresh.
|
| Canning has significant upfront costs that mean that for
| small operations it's not easier or cheaper. At the scale
| of Anchor, it's viable, but does require a significant
| investment in retooling.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| The pandemic has triggered / accelarated a lot of trends
|
| One trend I wonder about is cutting back on drinking. From a
| health perspective, I see more and more health officials loudly
| saying no healthy amount of alcohol[1]. It's simply poison.
|
| Not that I'm aggressively for any kind of prohibition, and don't
| very rarely drink, but I wonder if we'll see increased awareness
| and more people just deciding not to drink as much anymore.
|
| With this awareness, and the "modest amount of alcohol are
| actually healthy" claims debunked[2], maybe the hipster / wealthy
| / yuppy crowd will turn more and more away from the many many
| microbreweries / wineries that have cropped up in the last few
| decades.
|
| 1 - https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-
| of-...
|
| Huberman has a great episode too -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkS1pkKpILY
|
| 2 -
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/03/31/moderate-...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsIdaQhDjwo
| nunez wrote:
| The pandemic definitely triggered an uptick in "healthier"
| drinking options, specifically non-alcoholic beers (that are
| actually good now, hard kombucha and seltzers (that are usually
| just as alcoholic as beer but have fewer carbs so they are
| "healthy").
|
| Athletic Brewing Company out of Stamford, CT has grown like
| gangbusters because of it (and because their beer is
| legitimately good). Even the big commercial breweries have
| embraced the trend (Bud Light 0.0 was the only beer you could
| buy at the World Cup last year, and the only NA you'll find at
| a lot of bigger restaurants are Heineken 0.0 or Dos Equis 0.0.
| They are good!).
|
| This has created a lot of problems for taproom-only breweries,
| as they've had to pivot towards making seltzers (very easy to
| do for commercial breweries, but some brewers consider it
| morally wrong), making beers that don't taste like beer (peanut
| butter chocolate milkshake pastry stouts, anyone?), and/or
| opening a kitchen/restaurant (completely different business,
| super thin margins with high operational overhead) to draw
| patrons in.
|
| As a result, lots of breweries have been merging or shutting
| down since COVID, and the new ones that have been opening are
| taproom/restaurants because it's simply not profitable to be a
| brewery with good beer anymore.
|
| (Interesting fact: There were roughly 2,000 craft breweries
| nationwide back in the heydays of craft beer in 2010 or so.
| There are now over 8,000 breweries nationwide! However, the
| number of craft beer drinkers in the US has been flat since
| then and actually started falling before COVID started.)
|
| As for me, I initially entered COVID drinking two pints of beer
| daily; usually heavy IPAs or stouts. Because this agitated my
| acid reflux to levels I've never experienced, I decided to cut
| back to a pint or two every other day, with NAs (or nothing)
| filling the gap.
|
| I've also slowed the rate at which I drink beer so that I drink
| less (and get less tipsy; truth be told, I love beer but HATE
| getting drunk).
|
| When I drink, I have a good-sized sip every ten minutes and
| drink water between sips. As a result, because it takes me
| 30-60 minutes for me to down a pint this way, I enjoy the beer
| more while drinking way less per session.
|
| Regardless, Anchor closing is huge and very sad. It looks like
| Sapporo EEE'd them, which is kind of surprising since they
| weren't really a threat to their core business.
| GenerWork wrote:
| Bud Light 0.0 was the only beer you could buy at the World
| Cup because Qatar has super strict alcohol laws.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Because Qatar has super strict alcohol laws _and_ Bud has
| an exclusive sponsorship deal with the World Cup. So Bud
| Light 0.0 is the only intersection of those two
| requirements.
| sfpotter wrote:
| Didn't the pandemic accelerate drinking, if anything?
| crazygringo wrote:
| I think stopping drinking was a response to exactly that --
| it got out of control, then people quit.
|
| At least in NYC that's when we saw the first non-alcoholic
| "liquor" stores emerge. Because people still want a
| sophisticated treat to sip to mark the end of the day.
| nilespotter wrote:
| Got any example of this new wave of sophisticated non-
| alcoholic liqour?
| crazygringo wrote:
| You can probably see if any of the stores mentioned here
| have websites with product listings:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/nyregion/dry-stores-
| non-a...
| gffrd wrote:
| Try your local health & wellness shop. (you know: the
| place you get non-FDA supplements, expensive toothpaste,
| and anything Himalayan salt)
|
| Mine has had a non-alcoholic wine + spirits section
| growing steadily over the past 12 months from a couple
| random bottles, to a full floor-to-ceiling section of 40+
| options.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Around here, the rising alt is kratom.
|
| Non-alchoholic=yes. Liquorous=no. Sophisticated? I have
| no idea.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| Kratom is believed to activate on opiod receptors.
| gffrd wrote:
| It's advertised in window displays at mini marts and
| cigarette/vape shops, so a big no to that last one.
| joshstrange wrote:
| > it got out of control, then people quit
|
| Can confirm, that's how it went for me and at least a few
| friends who I've talked to about it. I went from rarely
| drinking to heavily drinking to now drinking even more
| rarely. I let it get way too out of control (mostly in
| frequency, nothing life-destroying or dangerous to
| anything/anyone but my body potentially) and even after
| admitting it was an issue it took a while before I kicked
| it. Glad I did. It made me look at drinking in a whole new
| light, especially about just how pervasive it is in
| society. The joke I've heard a number of times before along
| the lines of "It'd never get approved if it was introduced
| today" feels pretty apt. Even something like marijuana
| seems many times safer than alcohol.
| bob1029 wrote:
| I believe it mostly just accelerated the _thinking_ around
| drinking and why we do it.
|
| Convincing yourself you don't have an alcohol problem when
| you are out with friends every night is one thing. Trying to
| accomplish the same persuasion when you are locked in your
| apartment with just your cat for months on end is much more
| challenging.
|
| It would seem to me a person typically has 2 paths they can
| explore at that point: Go deeper into the rabbit hole, or
| GTFO.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| I think it did both - seems like a barbell distribution.
| Medium drinkers became heavy drinkers, others drank less -
| but there was a change in the distribution. Lots more non-
| alcoholic options popped up as well, both for purchase at
| home but also a lot more restaurants list NA options for
| fancy drinks while out to eat.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _a lot more restaurants list NA options for fancy drinks
| while out to eat._
|
| I've noticed this as well, as a few of my friends don't
| drink, or drink very little. Even just ~5 years ago, I
| think it was pretty rare to see a dedicated non-alcoholic
| section on a cocktail menu, with several interesting,
| flavorful options. But now it's... well, not quite
| _standard_ , but pretty common, at least where I live.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| True, maybe at home, etc. Though I'm thinking more the kind
| of "going out" drinking at the new hip microbrewery.
|
| Also we have SO MANY breweries/wineries/distilleries options
| etc... so I think there was already a bubble.
| californical wrote:
| I wonder if it depends on demographic (almost certainly
| does).
|
| Maybe the "hip" crowd is losing interest in microbreweries
| and drinking culture, while the "struggling" crowd has
| increased drinking. And the types of alcohol which appeal to
| each is different.
|
| Totally hypothetical here, as I have no data behind this at
| all.
| rubiquity wrote:
| Yes it did. Many are still on pandemic era drinking habits of
| drinking most week nights.
| asielen wrote:
| Anecdotally in SF it seems like the only places that haven't
| been shutting down are bars. I lost many of my favorite
| restaurants and coffee shops, basically all the bars except one
| is still open.
|
| But almost no one orders Anchor.
| alexanderscott wrote:
| You mean in 2023? So many of my favorite SF dives closed
| during or as a result of covid: lucky 13, hemlock, whiskey
| thieves, bachus kirk just to name a few
| necubi wrote:
| The trend isn't away from drinking, it's away from beer.
| Seltzers and other malt-based drinks have had huge growth in
| the past few years, mostly at the expense of beer sales, and
| liquor sales are up as well.
|
| Slate's been doing a great series over the past week about
| these trends if you're interested: https://slate.com/tag/beer-
| package.
| munificent wrote:
| I wonder how much of this is the beer industry eating its own
| seedcorn by focusing more and more on super bitter IPAs that
| beer snobs love at the expense of more middle of the road
| palatable beers. The long term consequence of that plus beer
| snobbery looking down on light beers is that younger drinkers
| with sweeter palates just don't drink beer at all because the
| beer that is socially acceptable is too bitter for them and
| the beers they'd like get mocked.
|
| So instead, they just drink White Claw.
| svachalek wrote:
| That's how they lost me for sure. I can go to a local bar
| or microbrewery and see a huge beer on tap selection, but
| they're all bitter artsy stuff. It's nothing like 20 years
| ago when there was actually a pretty broad range of flavors
| on the menu. Reminds me of the old Ford quote "you can have
| any color you like as long as it's black".
| hyperbovine wrote:
| I really despise this about the American beer industry.
| Your typical tap list these days is 8 IPAs, 1-2 dIPAs, 4
| sours, something that contains coffee, some other weird
| shit (cucumber gose e.g.), and like one normal everyday
| lager or pilsener that isn't making some sort of
| personality statement and pairs well with food. Worse, this
| appears to be catching on among trendier bars in Europe,
| even in places like Munich and Vienna that have had
| spectacular beer for centuries and should know better.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| They're there because they sell, and they sell because
| people like them. IMO one pilsner or lager is enough;
| what's the point of having a whole bar full of different
| beers that all pretty much taste the same? They certainly
| don't justify the premium pricing that these bars often
| charge.
|
| Germans think their own beer is the best in the world. To
| the rest of us, it is reliable but boring. It's not just
| an American thing, Scandinavia and the UK also have a
| much greater variety of styles and tastes. I think all
| that's happening in Munich and Vienna is people are
| getting more exposure to this variety and are realising
| they like it.
| kelnos wrote:
| Heh, I _wish_ there were four sours at most bars; that 's
| what I usually find most interesting and tasty (I also
| enjoy porters/stouts, but rarely see much of those these
| days). Most bars I see don't even have sours, and if they
| do, it's usually only one or two, at most.
|
| I was never the biggest beer drinker, but the lack of
| choice (and flood of crappy IPAs over the past couple
| decades) has only pushed me farther toward cocktails and
| wine.
| munificent wrote:
| _> Your typical tap list these days is 8 IPAs, 1-2 dIPAs,
| 4 sours, something that contains coffee, some other weird
| shit..._
|
| Yup. I live close to a bunch of breweries in Seattle. The
| taplists of the two nearest are:
|
| Stoup: // IPAs: Mosaic Pale Ale
| Citra IPA Chur to Twelve IPA Rainbow
| Bubbles IPA Nothing Crazy IPA Simcoe
| Studies IPA Stoup Dog IPA Sir Dank A Lot
| IPA Space Garden IPA Paraderade IPA
| Easy A IPA // Everything else:
| German Style Pilsner NW Red Imperial
| Porter Cervecita Mexican Lager Bavarian
| Hefeweizen What a Tart Raspberry Sour
|
| Bale Breaker: // IPAs: Field 41
| Pale Ale Topcutter IPA Bottomcutter IIPA
| Daybreak Pale Ale Hazy L IPA Frenz IPA:
| Sierra Nevada Long White Clouds IPA
| Evenfall Hazy IPA Bubba's Brew IPA Bale
| Breaker Why the Ek-Not IPA Bale Breaker Tropical
| Penguin // Everything else: Bale
| Breaker Pilsner PNW Pilsner Dormancy Stout -
| Coffee Raging Ditch Dry-Hopped Blonde Blonde Ale
| Bale Breaker Pasketti Sauce Pilsner - Italian
| YOXI Lime Agave Ranch Water Hard Seltzer
|
| And note that even the "everything else" category can't
| escape the "hop the fuck out of everything" trend.
| Stoup's pilsner is described as "spicy hop aroma and
| refreshingly dry, hop-forward finish". The Red "provides
| a distinctly Northwest hop character".
|
| I get it, Cascadia grows a lot of hops. But some of us
| just want to taste beer and not win some macho contest to
| see who can choke down the most IBUs per fluid ounce.
| lockhouse wrote:
| We need more Porters and Stouts! You're lucky if you can
| even order a can of Guinness most places.
| MikeTheRocker wrote:
| San Francisco is in desperate need of this. The only dark
| beer I typically see at restaurants here is Old Rasputin.
| fishtoaster wrote:
| I think the trend is starting to turn.
|
| I visit the Great American Beer Festival nearly every
| year, and there was definitely a period where everyone
| was all-in on relatively extreme beers: ipas, sours,
| bourbon-barrel aged stouts. Last year, I saw a refreshing
| trend towards pilsners, lighter lagers, and ambers. I
| feel like GABF is a bit of a bellweather for these things
| - west coast craft beer bars will probably take a few
| years to catch up, but I think we're headed in the right
| direction.
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| I'm an IPA fan and if I wasn't drinking dirt cheap beer to
| get wasted in college I'd opt for an IPA.
|
| But sometime in the early to mid 2010s, IPAs became so
| strong as to become basically undrinkable.
|
| But this trend of IPAs didn't just turn me off the IPAs.
| They turned me off beer completely.
| renewiltord wrote:
| You can also get the Makku Makgeolli from supermarkets now
| and it's quite sweet. And I also saw some other sweeter
| beers. I'm not a big megahops fan, so being able to have
| alternatives to IPAs is nice.
| codyb wrote:
| I've certainly been moving back towards lighter beers... those
| IPAs are too strong. You think 5% to 6% isn't a big deal cause
| it seems so small, but it's a 20% increase in alcohol content.
| 5% - 7% is a 40% increase! If you're drinking pints, it's like
| adding half a shot to every beer you drink. It adds up quick.
| cpursley wrote:
| Yeah, same here. I really only drink beer in the summer.
| Enjoy a good IPA but alcohol level is too high as well as
| calories.
| krumpet wrote:
| Agreed. The older I get, the less I'm interested in drinking
| alcohol. When I do choose to have a drink, I'm definitely
| reaching for a Guinness (4.2% ABV).
| ChainOfFools wrote:
| I'm a little concerned about the phenomenon I've noticed on
| the shelves lately which is that every brand seems to be
| first, putting the ABV content in larger and larger font and
| a more prominent position on the label with each new
| offering, and that they are now starting to clock in at
| doppel and trippel and barley wine levels of alcohol on a
| regular basis. The number of casual drinking beers that have
| hit 10% or even 11% ABV which used to be an extremely exotic
| and limited availability product is insane.
|
| the likes of Delirium tremens are now looking tame by
| comparison to some of these general market beers i.e. voodoo
| ranger and raging bitch.
| gffrd wrote:
| I once had a homeless fella ask me to buy him a beer by
| name: Voodoo Ranger. Which is like 9% alcohol, sold in 16oz
| cans.
|
| As casual drinkers drink less, maybe we're not the target
| market ...
| mynameishere wrote:
| He must have had you pegged for a sucker. When bums spend
| their own money they are strictly economical. That means
| handles of vodka, fortified wine, or (maybe) something
| like Steel Reserve.
| ChainOfFools wrote:
| Or he's just a market savvy who understands his
| demographic. Ask your typical hipster beardo to gift you
| a handle of vodka and you're probably going to see the
| backside of an iPhone as he suddenly turns away to answer
| a very important call.
|
| But ask for a borderline craft brew with ironic graphic
| design themes on the can and you might get shown some
| semblance of mutual respect as a fellow man of taste and
| culture who has thoughtfully given him a guilt-free
| excuse to go in the store and help himself to some of the
| same.
| gffrd wrote:
| He did pretty well. He was our neigbborhood bum, and
| positioned himself outside the high-end grocer.
|
| He expressed enjoying his lifestyle, and seemed to relish
| his "role" ... almost leaning in to cultural stereotypes
| and subverting them.
| sterwill wrote:
| I like having the ABV in big print so I can avoid the super
| high ones. It's a bonus for me!
| VohuMana wrote:
| I could definitely see this, I also wonder if this is why many
| breweries are scrambling to make non-alcoholic beers. The non-
| alcoholic beers have become so good IMO, I usually find myself
| reaching for one of those on a hot day rather than the real
| deal.
| golemotron wrote:
| Yeah, I can't really tell the difference. I liked beer more
| for the taste than the buzz anyway.
| pjot wrote:
| I hope this trend continues, they really are getting good.
| From a business perspective too it makes sense. Now people
| can drink all day long
| nemo44x wrote:
| Sort of went the way of Pete's Wicked Ale. Interestingly, Anchor
| was really bad beer before Maytag bought the company, updated the
| equipment, and started using quality ingredients. You have to
| give him credit for taking it from 0 to being influential in
| developing the American craft beer market and making Anchor
| something you could reliably find nationwide.
|
| I guess time sort of passed it by. So many more interesting brews
| are around today. But saying that, I always sort of enjoyed an
| Anchor. Sad to see it go.
| greesil wrote:
| I got to do a tour of the place, it was really fun. It's located
| near Potrero Hill. I can't say anything about their cost
| structure but having a location that's in SF probably has some
| disadvantages. But, there are a lot of other craft brewers in the
| bay area that are quite good. Drake's, Faction come to mind. You
| don't have to go much further afield to find Bear Republic,
| Russian River Brew Co. I would not consider Lagunitas craft,
| maybe someone else with more beer lore could weigh in.
| ryaneager wrote:
| There's 50+ smaller breweries sprinkled across the North Bay
| within 1.5hrs of SF. Civilization, Fog Belt, Cooperage, Iron
| Ox, Henhouse, Barrel Brothers, Moonlight, Shadyoak... just to
| name a few.
| stickfigure wrote:
| The comically small town of Winters has two - Berryessa
| Brewing and Hoobies. Both great. Closer to Dixon/Davis,
| Ruhstaller is a blast - especially on weekends.
| greesil wrote:
| Time to go out for a beer tour!!
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| The only rigorous definition of "craft" is the one the brewer's
| association maintains, and they tweak it frequently to keep Sam
| Adams in. Lagunitas was a craft brewer by that definition until
| they sold to Heineken. There was a period of a few years where
| a number of old-guard regional craft brewers sold to
| international conglomerates.
|
| For my money while the brewery may not be craft anymore, the
| beer still is. Or, if someone calls Lagunitas IPA a craft beer
| I'm not going to correct them - I might if it was blue moon or
| leininkugels, say.
| annexrichmond wrote:
| From SFChronicle:
|
| > In 2019, dissatisfied workers successfully formed a union for
| the first time in Anchor's history
| helios_invictus wrote:
| Anchor and Fritz Maytag were a real inspirations to a lot of
| early craft to microbrewery people. I've known a number of people
| who can say that the revitiliztion of Anchor was one of the
| reasons they started breweries..and their influence has
| influenced others.
| krustyburger wrote:
| It's important to note that Anchor as a division is being shut
| down as a cost-saving measure by its owner Sapporo, a
| transnational, publicly-traded corporation.
|
| Sapporo says they have tried to find a buyer for Anchor, but to
| no avail. Meanwhile Sapporo recently purchased Stone Brewing in
| San Diego and are beginning Sapporo production there while still
| making Stone beers. If Sapporo hadn't also bought Stone,
| presumably their plan was to brew Sapporo at Anchor in a similar
| way. In that scenario, they probably would have continued
| producing Anchor beers in some quantity too.
| 111111IIIIIII wrote:
| > _presumably their plan was to brew Sapporo at Anchor in a
| similar way_
|
| Think again. Anchor was unionized. Stone is not.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| Fun fact is that anchor had a custom brewing setup unlike any
| other. Custom made pots, open air swimming pools to brew
| (that's what makes it steam beer) and a different process to
| every other brewery. It was fun to tour their brewery since
| it's so wildly different.
|
| If Sapporo bought this brewery assuming they could make Sapporo
| premium there that's fucking hilarious. All it would have taken
| was a tour to understand that's not possible. Anchor Steam
| brewery is as different to any other brewery as a concrete
| plant is to any other brewery.
|
| I didn't like their beers myself but did appreciate their
| unique process.
| bartread wrote:
| I think that _is_ an important point but, with that said, I 'd
| suggest that perhaps the reason Anchor were struggling is they
| didn't really innovate. Rather they rested on the laurels of
| that 127 year heritage.
|
| Certainly a very personal opinion but the first time I tried
| Anchor beers sometime in the noughties I was underwhelmed.
| Don't get me wrong: they're certainly better than Bud, Coors,
| etc., but as a Brit coming from somewhere with a by then
| thriving real ale scene, Anchor's beers just weren't that
| great. More than that, they weren't up to the standards of many
| other US-brewed craft beers I'd tried, many of which are _at
| least as good_ as anything the UK or mainland Europe has to
| offer[0].
|
| The microbrewing scene in the US has really taken off over the
| past 20 years so, to me, it felt like Anchor just got left
| behind by it. And maybe Stone Brewing have a bit more to
| offer[1] and it was easier for Sapporo to buy them and roll
| with it than to try and revitalise a brand seen as ailing? I'm
| not saying I like it but I can certainly imagine that
| perspective within the company.
|
| _[0] By the mid-2010s there did seem to be a tendency to
| overegg IPAs by making many of them ludicrously strong, and
| just trying to cram in too much flavour, not to mention the
| consistency of many was borderline gloopy (more like drinking
| blood than beer) - mercifully I think this trend may be
| reversing._
|
| _[1] Pure speculation: I don 't remember ever trying any of
| Stone's beers so have no comment to make on their quality or
| otherwise._
| jms703 wrote:
| Why does a beer have to innovate?
| xp84 wrote:
| It doesn't have to necessarily, however, it _does_ have to
| in inverse proportion to how much their product appeals to
| the market presently. If your popularity and sales, for
| instance, take a 50% hit, you'd better introduce some new
| product lines. That doesn't have to mean abandoning your
| original recipe product.
| serf wrote:
| the same reason as any market needs to innovate : consumer
| trends and goals shift with the times.
|
| Let's take the most run-of-the-mill common bolt in the
| world as a product example : the 200 year old company that
| has changed to sell that run-of-the-mill bolt online w/
| fast delivery and with a companion app has innovated
| without a product change.
|
| innovation doesn't imply a product change, it implies that
| a company is necessarily flexible to meet the shifting
| demands of consumers. This can be done in other ways than
| shoving newer and shinier products out the door.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Not the beer, but the company. Even places like Guiness
| come out with new stuff like Baltimore Blonde to increase
| their line up and appeal to a bigger market for better
| scale.
| splonk wrote:
| Anchor actually did have a bunch of more modern beers after
| the Sapporo acquisition, but they were only available at the
| taproom. They only had retail distribution for the old
| reliable flagships (and then had a rebranding that was not
| well received).
| kelnos wrote:
| Yeah, that was the weird thing. I visited their tap room a
| few times here and there (I live fairly close), and some of
| their selections were truly different and interesting and
| good. But you couldn't get them anywhere else. Meanwhile, I
| hardly ever go for an Anchor beer when in a bar, as there
| are always more interesting choices. I wouldn't call myself
| a beer connoisseur, even. Seemed like shooting themselves
| in the foot.
| ecocentrik wrote:
| This news has nothing to do with lack of innovation. The
| entire beer market is currently contracting.
|
| Also, not everything needs to innovate. Every field needs a
| canon of notable creations that have stood the test of
| centuries or millennia and beer brewing is no exception.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| I'd like to see what '23 the numbers look like before
| declaring it a contracting market. Sales by volume for the
| entire category are indeed down, but somewhere between
| 2-3%, and that is still likely attributable to the crash
| starting in 2020, when it was actually illegal to serve or
| even order beer in many places. (To this day, there are
| still aggressive measures taken against breweries,
| brewpubs, and taprooms, like this extrajudicial order that
| is crushing the business in New Jersey: https://www.nj.gov/
| oag/abc/downloads/LimitedBrewerySpecialCo....)
|
| Still, imports are up, and regionals and crafts are up as a
| percentage of total beer. The small operations that weren't
| entirely destroyed are still in the process of coming back
| online. I'm not convince the empirical decline is the
| market at work and not external forces.
| rdj wrote:
| If you are interested in the numbers, give Bart Watson a
| follow: https://twitter.com/BrewersStats
|
| He's an economist that covers this for the Brewers
| Association. Based on the data, it's not looking good.
| Some of it is released in public reports and presos,
| others are member-only resources.
|
| Here's a report from the TTB that shows the contraction:
|
| https://www.ttb.gov/images/statistics/ttb-
| beer-2023-statisti...
|
| Also, there are several industry talks that dive into the
| why...one factor seems to be that Gen Z just isn't
| drinking.
| xp84 wrote:
| Oh my gosh. Section 1 of that about tours. What a
| ridiculous ordinance. I assume all this is in there to
| protect some other class of business that lobbied for it,
| right? Like bars trying to prevent breweries from
| competing?
| ibejoeb wrote:
| Yeah. They nailed it, too:
|
| "licensee may offer for sale or make gratuitous offer of
| de minimis types of food such as water" (2)
|
| ...but...
|
| "licensee shall not brew and sell coffee" (7)
|
| That is full de minimis lol.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I don't know. It seems a mix of traditional and innovation
| does well. Yuengling seems to be a good example of a small
| brand becoming regional and now almost national. They have
| their traditional brews and have added a few new ones.
| trafficante wrote:
| Grew up in PA and love seeing Yingers blow up, but I bet
| their success is largely due to the same reason we loved
| them back in the early 2000s: they brew a tasty no-frills
| lager at a good price.
|
| Seems a lot of the brewing industry chased fads for 20
| years.
| sfpotter wrote:
| I'm a little surprised Anchor didn't do better. I personally
| got worn out by all the craziness and experimentation in the
| craft brewing scene. Really unique IPAs or sour beers were
| fun for a while, but after a while, I realized I just wanted
| something reasonably good and predictably normal, i.e. a
| Normal Good Beer. It seemed like Anchor was delivering on
| this, but maybe there were enough other options that they
| just didn't distinguish themselves well enough. Too bad,
| considering they're a local beer with a lot of history and
| had a successful unionization effort.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| This seems to be a conclusion in the beverage world as
| well, the craft beer wave has broken and people are just
| trying to drink something that tastes like what it says on
| the label.
|
| I home brew beer and the instinct is to make something
| crazy, but I get sick of my own experiments and double sick
| of paying 18$ for a 4 pack of someone else's experiments. I
| could never stand being told that hop burn was a sign of
| craft beer, it's a sign of a shit process and you should
| never have those flavors in your beer.
|
| I've actually been shocked to discover hard kombucha with
| some fruit juice is great. I still drink my beer, but this
| stuff is light, refreshing, and it's 7% so it gets the job
| done.
|
| Anchor's taste changed to me sometime after the
| acquisition, I liked it in years past and there was
| something off to me now.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Homebrewer here too. I agree. I like some experimentation
| but also like some "normal" stuff. I also don't like the
| really expensive odd stuff in the store. I've also begun
| to dislike the really plain stuff in the store.
|
| Even if my beer is a little different every batch, I
| think I prefer it. It's fun to grow your own hops and
| even grow/malt your own grain.
| tptacek wrote:
| Some of the highest-status beers during Peak Beer were
| well-executed straightforward beers; Pliny comes to mind.
| As does Zombie Dust.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| I think the whole world is off axis if Pliny is a
| straight forward beer. Maybe we were all better off when
| Russian River was sending it out for us to buy in lots of
| 2 bottles to a local store that you had to call every day
| and check to see if they got any.
| spaceguillotine wrote:
| Pliny adapted to shifting tastes too, they reduced the
| grassiness and switched to bittering hop extracts to get
| a more mass appeal flavor and reduce waste with flower
| hops that would also soak up more wort. If you aren't
| constantly adjusting in beer you'll go the way of Anchor.
| Aaronstotle wrote:
| I just bought a random craft beer 4 pack that cost me $17
| the other day, reminds me why I don't buy craft beer.
|
| Is it hard to home brew something like a Pilsner? I
| imagine the hard part is consistency
| fishtoaster wrote:
| At small scales, a rule of thumb is that it's harder to
| brew beers with lighter/subtler flavors. You can hide a
| lot of minor brewing mistakes behind an IPA or a heavy
| stout. Not so much with something like a pilsner.
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| To add on, in addition to needing more consistency and
| skill to brew something light in flavor, it also more
| difficult to brew a lager (which a Pilsner is) than an
| ale -- the yeast involved are different, and the
| fermentation process is generally longer (more
| opportunity for stuff to go wrong) and more temperature
| sensitive (more opportunity for stuff to go wrong.)
| MarkMarine wrote:
| It's not hard to brew a Pilsner, and brewing your own
| beer is rewarding, but the light German styles are the
| hardest to really improve on. If you just put some
| quality ingredients and decent temp control fermentation
| at a Pilsner, you're going to get a super great beer
| judged against some regular commercial offerings, and a
| good beer in general. To get better that that, look into
| LoDo brewing if you want to go down the rabbit hole.
|
| If you like to strive for perfection, the german styles
| will scratch that itch for you.
|
| Edit: I will add that brewing Pilsner or Helles will
| literally never impress your friends. You'll get a shrug
| and a "oh that's good" out of them when you've put your
| heart and soul into driving out one little off flavor
| from your ferment that no one else can taste but you. IPA
| is basically the polar opposite.
| uoaei wrote:
| The recipe changed after the acquisition by Sapporo. Fans
| of the original Anchor Steam didn't like the new taste and
| stopped buying. So it faded into the background with the
| other ~3-5 domestics being served at a given bar.
|
| Lots of people talking out their ass here, clearly none of
| them spend any time in SF dives talking to other patrons.
| [deleted]
| bialczabub wrote:
| Do you have proof that they changed the recipe/process.
| My wife and I have long suspected this, but I believe
| officially they denied any change.
|
| The rebrand was an absolute disaster of marketing. You
| have a 125 year old brewery with an old-fashioned looking
| logo, and you throw that all out for a more modern design
| that looks like every other beer on the shelf that got
| their designer off of fiver.
|
| Shades of New Coke.
| WatchDog wrote:
| > Too bad, considering they're a local beer with a lot of
| history and had a successful unionization effort.
|
| 127 year old company, unionizes in 2019, shuts down in
| 2023, I wouldn't really call that successful.
| basementdev wrote:
| [dead]
| sfpotter wrote:
| Unions in the US are on the ropes. Union membership is
| down, and companies have loads of resources and help to
| stymie unionization efforts. Frankly, unionizing at all
| _is_ a successful unionization effort at the moment,
| since it shows other people it can be done. Can 't let
| the perfect be the enemy of the good.
| balderdash wrote:
| It's on the ropes in corporate America - but not in the
| public sector.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Labor movements don't like public sector unions. When
| unions are talked about, it's almost entirely assuming
| private sector unions.
| kelnos wrote:
| I know this is just one example, but public school
| teacher unions don't seem to be doing so great, seeing
| how teaching is still the example always brought up as
| the most tragically underpaid profession.
|
| Sure, a union isn't a magic bullet that fixes all
| problems, but I know school teachers in some very
| different districts in the US, and their pay is
| universally awful for the amount of time they put in, and
| some of them even end up having to buy their own school
| supplies, out of pocket, because their classroom is way
| underfunded. I guess we could argue that, without the
| unions, things would be even worse, but I still think
| teachers unions have mostly failed their members.
|
| On the flip side, police officer unions seem to be doing
| pretty great, negotiating reasonably high pay, and
| helping to shield their members from accountability for
| wrongdoing.
| azinman2 wrote:
| But who says that's related?
| geodel wrote:
| Well it could be management didn't meet labor's demand
| and labor got the brewery closed. So in that sense it
| could be success.
| xp84 wrote:
| 20th century labor movement: We want improved working
| conditions and more jobs to exist, let's bargain in
| pursuit of that goal
|
| 21st century labor movement: we'd consider it a success
| to destroy all of the jobs altogether rather than accept
| less than 100% of our demands (which may or may not be
| economically feasible).
|
| It sure incentivizes eliminating human labor as fast as
| possible.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| That's not exactly being generous to the unions. The
| corporations fight unionization at every turn, so the
| unions need to play aggressive to get the kinds of wins
| that keep them being supported. At the same time, the
| corporations have taken the position that unionization is
| such an existential threat that they'll happily close a
| profitable location if it unionizes, in order to make an
| example of them, raising the stakes for unionization even
| higher. Meanwhile, the government will happily back the
| bigwigs at every turn.
|
| The result is that good faith negotiations between
| capital and labor are now impossible. If the government
| would do its job, and seriously punish companies and
| investors (think less "angry email" and more "Old
| Yeller") who engage in illegal union busting, then
| unionization wouldn't be a massive risk for the
| employees, and more modest demands could be seen as
| acceptable.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| > had a successful unionization effort
|
| Just forming a union should not be a measure of success. If
| it ultimately led to shutdown of the division because it
| was unprofitable, I would argue it was a pretty
| unsuccessful effort.
| reillyse wrote:
| I haven't seen anyone suggest unionization has had
| anything to do with it, in fact I'm going to groundlessly
| state that it probably is the only reason they lasted
| this long.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| They only unionized four years ago. The union probably
| wasn't a reason why they lasted.
| sfpotter wrote:
| It should be. See my other comment.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| I don't have the numbers... but I'm going to assume that
| regular beer drinkers drink the popular light beers or
| already have a craft beer they like and spend less money
| trying new products. It took contentious political media to
| get die-hards to stop drinking their favorite light beer.
| That's how ingrained these brands are. It's harder to sell
| a new Amber Ale than a Juicy Mango/Dragonfruit IPA. These 2
| beers serve different personas and the beer industry is
| focusing on growth over providing new products to their
| base.
| voidfunc wrote:
| I think this is right. When I was in my 20s I was really
| into beer. Now I'm older and I split my time between the
| usual light beer culprits when I'm drinking out and
| enjoying a few craft favorites when I'm drinking in and
| gaming/doing hobbies. Also when a four pack of 16oz cans
| is approaching $20 (or exceeding that) I'm less likely to
| be exploratory because who the he'll wants a fridge of
| rejects they don't like.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| I (rarely) homebrew, for fun, but when it comes to beers
| in the fridge I have so many great local options to
| choose from (here on the south shore of MA, near Cape
| Cod), it's ridiculous: Second Wind, Stellwagen,
| Mayflower, Timberyard.... typically canned just a week or
| two before purchase. A few times a year I'll make a trip
| to Treehouse (worth it), otherwise the local package
| stores are well-stocked. I do remember enjoying Anchor
| Steam and IPAs back in the day (as a big upgrade from
| shitty mass-produced lagers), but my palate evolved and
| my preference for the best and freshest brew simply rules
| out generic bottles from the opposite coast.
| zerocrates wrote:
| My understanding is that this is kind of the pattern of
| the beer downturn. The huge operations are doing okay,
| shifting around amongst their sub-brands, introducing
| seltzers, etc. And the hyper-local stuff is still doing
| well it seems. But the "pretty big" craft brewers that
| went nationwide, they're facing the brunt.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| Bud Light was the most popular beer in the USA until very
| recently Modelo Especial just passed it. Both of those
| are very straight forward beers.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Those light beers are also low ABV, which is ideal for
| warm summer days where to just want something refreshing
| without getting plastered. A simple tasting 4% beer works
| great for that. A complex, bitter 12% double IPA? Not so
| much.
|
| I'd much rather drink an amber ale on a nice warm day
| than yet another IPA.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| To take that one step further I think most new drinkers
| find seltzers more refreshing in the heat than low abv
| light beers.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Just a point to the marketing and shifting norms... I
| would call a 4-5% beer normal, not low, ABV.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| 5% used to be considered high or an 'export' lager when I
| was a lad. We called Stella Artois at a massive 5.2%
| "wife beater".
|
| Typical session lagers like Heineken were around 3.5%.
| bartread wrote:
| Yeah, I'd call normal anywhere between 3.5 - 5%, with
| session beers being anything < 3.5%. Anything above 5% is
| strong and where, 15 years ago, beers used to top out at
| around 6.5% in your average supermarket (Carlsberg
| Special Brew aside), nowadays beers at 8 and 9% are
| commonplace, although perhaps not to the extent they were
| 5 - 8 years ago.
|
| A lot of these are just too much, and too weird (as I and
| many others have commented), for day to day drinking.
| Nowadays I mostly drink session beers because I normally
| have to worry about driving, getting up early, or
| functioning in some at least semi-useful way later in the
| day.
| [deleted]
| paulmd wrote:
| > [1] Pure speculation: I don't remember ever trying any of
| Stone's beers so have no comment to make on their quality or
| otherwise.
|
| Most of the Stone beers I've tried have ranged between "meh"
| and "pour out the can". Buenaveza (salt and lime cerveza) is
| the only one I've really enjoyed from them, and I've given
| them a number of tries. Buenaveza is a perfectly fine
| lawnmowing beer or party beer though and I do get it
| occasionally, but there's also several other cervezas here
| that are super good and super cheap too (Cerveza Delray is
| great).
|
| They seem reasonably popular so it's entirely possible it's
| just me, I'm a picky drinker and I know what I like and don't
| like. But that said, it doesn't seem like "brewed by stone"
| is some massive mark of quality for sapporo, at least to me.
| Maybe they're good _relative to the alternatives who could
| produce beer at macro scale_.
|
| (is there a term for the Goose Island-style operations that
| are owned by macrobrews and produce relatively large
| quantities? Some of those operations really straddle the line
| between macro and micro.)
|
| Anyway though, there are definitely companies where I agree
| with the head brewer's taste and ones where I don't.
| efsavage wrote:
| My beer journey started in the 90s and Anchor had good
| distribution when such things were difficult for smaller
| brands, but even back then it was _always_ the last beer in
| the cooler at a party. I 'm surprised they lasted this long.
| bartread wrote:
| > the last beer in the cooler at a party.
|
| I'm a bit surprised by this. I think a lot of my
| disappointment with Anchor stems from the fact that people
| raved about, and feted them, whereas to me they were always
| at about the level of a fairly mediocre British ale
| (sorry). But then, on the other hand, if what you're used
| to is Bud, Coors, etc.[0], then they're absolutely going to
| be a breath of fresh air, so it sort of blows me away to
| hear that it was so unpopular at parties.
|
| I guess it all depends on point of view and I absolutely
| don't want to come off as gatekeepy about what good beer is
| because, as I said in my original comment, the last 20
| years US brewers have really pulled it out of the bag with
| a ton of absolutely great beers that can stand amongst the
| best. I forget exactly when but I guess I had Anchor Steam
| Beer for the first time somewhere between 2005 and 2009,
| just as the craft beer movement was starting to build up
| steam.
|
| Back in 2005 a friend and I took a roadtrip partway across
| the US, including a stop at Salt Lake City. Irony of
| ironies, that's where we had the best beers on the trip, in
| a "private members club" (literally just a bar). I
| particularly enjoyed a local brew called "Polygamy Porter"
| - a really lovely beer, and better than anything I've had
| by Anchor in the years since. No idea if it's still in
| production, although I hope so.
|
| _[0] Of all the mass produced beers in the US I do have
| quite a big soft spot for Blue Moon, to the point that if a
| bar offers it, because it 's relatively uncommon in the UK,
| I'll often order it in preference to craftier offerings,
| particularly if those craftier offerings are mostly IPAs or
| APAs._
| Rapzid wrote:
| Their Porter is fantastic and on par with Fuller's.
| stickfigure wrote:
| I love porters but they're getting hard to find. Every
| supermarket is wall-to-wall IPAs. I assume they know what
| sells, so apparently that's what the market wants right
| now. You can't make a living brewing porters.
|
| I would be a lot more disappointed with this turn of events
| if I had access to their porter. But the ubiquitous steam
| beer was never one of my favorites.
| Rapzid wrote:
| At least the super markets aren't wall-to-wall hazy like
| the draft houses haha. I can't wait for more West Coast
| and Pacific IPAs to get back on tap.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Totally agree. The craft beer industry needs to stop with
| all this IPA nonsense. It's absurd how hard it is to find
| anything but yet another weird IPA.
|
| If the craft beer industry is shrinking, this is one
| large component. Stop with the nonstop IPA's. There is
| way more beers than just IPA's.
| kulshan wrote:
| I work at a craft beer bar, in general folks want live
| fresh beer...I pour 1 stout for every 50 Ipas I pour. We
| have the option but folks love their pale ales and ipas.
| Anchor would just go bad on our rotation...a freshly
| brewed pilsner, i'll sell a bunch. A blaise steam beer
| that isn't "fresh" isn't winning any body over. That said
| I'm a big fan of anchor porter, the general public is
| not.
| paulmd wrote:
| pale ales are frankly a lot more palatable than IPAs imo.
| When I looked back at the IPAs I liked, I realized most
| of them weren't actually IPAs, they were just pale.
|
| but yeah I'm tired of being assblasted by overhopped
| west-coast IPAs. The ones I've liked, it turns out to be
| east coast. Even then, I'm tired of being hit over the
| head with hazy, juicy, mosaic, fruity, citra, etc. Very
| very rarely do I see these hops used effectively -
| Oddside Citra Pale Ale is an example of an exception.
| kelnos wrote:
| I do wonder how much of this phenomenon is just self-
| reinforcing. Sell a large variety of IPAs, and only a
| small number of other choices, and sure, people will tend
| to gravitate toward IPAs. Add on top of that heavy
| marketing of IPAs over other options, and people will
| gravitate toward them.
| bartread wrote:
| I think this is a lot of it: people order IPA because
| they think they know what it is and because they're
| everywhere. It's the John Smith's of the 2010s/20s.
|
| I went through a phase of drinking a lot of different
| IPAs, and it was fun, but now I'm looking at other
| options. The IPA thing has just been overdone and there
| are only so many iterations of weird IPA formulae that I
| can deal with.
|
| I _will_ still drink IPA if that 's the only ale/craft
| beer on offer in the bar... and that really goes back to
| your point about self-reinforcement.
| kulshan wrote:
| Well we have 10 taps...representing nearly 10
| styles...I'll tell ya I change pale and Ipa every shift.
| The others, once a week.
| lockhouse wrote:
| Not sure why you were downvoted. What you say is true!
|
| I'm a bit biased, but I'd like to see a few more Porters
| and Stouts.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Stouts are so good but even in a store with a large beer
| selection they are hard to find.
| kelnos wrote:
| At least you can usually find Guinness. Obviously not the
| best stout in the world, but at least it's consistent and
| you know what you're gonna get.
| paulmd wrote:
| Everyone rants about how great guinness is, but the
| draught cans taste incredibly watered-down to me for some
| reason. Extra Stout and Foreign Stout are fine and I have
| to imagine that's what guiness tastes like for EU
| customers.
| lockhouse wrote:
| Guinness Foreign Extra stout is so good! It's a shame its
| so difficult to find.
| kelnos wrote:
| And things are better now! I feel like 10-15 years ago it
| truly _was_ wall-to-wall IPAs, and if you wanted
| something else, you had maybe one or two choices. Now at
| least it seems like the IPA craze has died down a bit,
| though they 're still well over-represented.
|
| I personally don't like IPAs at all, and it's really
| frustrating. Most of the time I end up going for a
| cocktail or wine since the beer selection at most bars is
| still pretty IPA-heavy. I do enjoy that a lot of more
| beer-focused places stock sours and stouts, both of which
| I love, but I feel like most bars don't sell them, or
| much of them.
| Rapzid wrote:
| I really love IPAs myself, but I'm very tired of hazy
| styles (hazy, NEIPA, etc). My favorite hop varieties are
| from NZ and I can tell you they have been doing some
| excellent stuff with IPAs there for over a decade. West
| Coast and NZ collabs are also awesome.
| splonk wrote:
| The local reports were that Anchor had been slowly losing money
| for years before the Sapporo acquisition. Supposedly Sapporo
| was intending to use the Anchor facility to brew Sapporo
| locally and then eventually found out that the site wasn't
| really suitable or would require too much renovation. Whether
| this led directly to the Stone deal, I don't know (I doubt it,
| given relative sizes, but it may have been a contributing
| factor). In general, even before the Sapporo acquisition,
| Anchor was slowly getting pushed out of local bars by other,
| smaller local breweries. Once I started seeing things like
| Standard Deviant's kolsch or Harmonic's pilsner taking up one
| of the taps in smaller restaurants that only had 2-4 taps, the
| writing was probably on the wall.
|
| I suspect one of the local breweries will be happy to acquire
| Anchor if Sapporo's going to sell it off at fire sale prices
| (c.f. Cellarmaker/Rare Barrel, Drake's/Bear Republic).
| photonerd wrote:
| Oddly I only have ever seen Anchor in bottles in the Bay, but
| it was (and is) still really popular as a beer of choice
| locally.
|
| I'm guessing it's not the local market that's the issue
| paulmd wrote:
| Aldi carries them, I'd always seen them but assumed it was
| an Aldi knockoff brand lol.
| rco8786 wrote:
| Genuine question. Why is this important to note?
| gjvc wrote:
| It's not the case that a family-owned self-contained company
| had to cease trading -- someone higher up in the ownership of
| the business decided to pull the plug. Although the inputs
| and outputs might arguably be the same, these are two quite
| different scenarios and decision-making processes.
| jessriedel wrote:
| I thought this was useful context that changed my
| interpretation of what was going on.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| For me it's the end of an era. I started drinking Anchor in
| the 1980s on frequent trips to Silicon Valley. This was long
| before microbreweries existed or were even legal in most
| places, with two exceptions that I'm aware of: Anchor in San
| Francisco and Shiner in Texas. One's choices of beer in the
| US included the ones made by the giant breweries and ...
| almost nothing else except Anchor and Shiner, which were both
| much better than Bud or Coors or Miller.
|
| But today Anchor and Shiner are objectively not that great
| compared to modern craft-brewed beers. I still drink them
| mostly because of nostalgia.
| astura wrote:
| Boston had a few craft beers in the mid 80s - Sam Adams
| started in 1984 and Harpoon in 1986.
| eweise wrote:
| I remember drinking Sierra Nevada at college in Chico in
| the 80s. they were still in a garage in town.
| ChainOfFools wrote:
| Portland had Henry Weinhard's at the time, and I believe
| toward the late'80s at least that Sam Adams existed, and
| was actually a real craft microbrewery still at that time.
| And we could also add Rolling Rock and Yuengling in
| Pennsylvania to that as well. both also still around though
| against the standards of today or even a decade ago are
| barely distinguishable from mass market domestics. also
| some candidates that I think those familiar will question
| my taste as craft microbreweries, but they were
| alternatives, like Rainier up in Vancouver Wa.
| saltcured wrote:
| Henry Weinhards! I miss the days when supermarkets in CA
| carried them in affordable 12-packs.
|
| But I also miss when there was shelf space for a range of
| import beers, instead of 30 feet of IPAs with different
| circus colored labels...
| [deleted]
| jccalhoun wrote:
| I don't live anywhere near this place so I may be wrong but
| because the article makes it sound like some small company is
| closing when in reality is it a division of a company that is
| closing. So to me it doesn't matter any more than when Coke
| stopped making Tab.
| WhyCause wrote:
| That was impression I got from the article as well.
| kelnos wrote:
| It matters because Anchor has been an iconic independent
| brand for over 125 years, and was only more recently bought
| by a giant multinational brand. I'm not surprised a local
| news outlet mainly identifies Anchor by their longevity and
| nostalgia value, and doesn't put much emphasis on the (IMO
| sad) fact that they haven't been independent since 2010.
|
| I personally didn't care for the limited beer choices they
| made available to bars, but some of the things available in
| their tap room in SF were really good. It's a shame to see
| them go, though I think more in the "sign of the times" way
| than the idea that I'll actually miss their beer.
| kodt wrote:
| The decision to close is likely influenced by their
| ownership, while if it were still independent they may try to
| find a way to make it work on a smaller level.
| eweise wrote:
| Can Anchor be considered a craft brewer if its owned by
| Saporro?
| avisser wrote:
| What about the fact that I can get Stone at my corner
| liquor store in Rhode Island? You know, the one that
| doesn't have a great selection.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I remember seeing Lagunitas all over Sweden.
| smugma wrote:
| Makes sense.
|
| Heineken, the world's #2 beer producer, bought them for
| ~$1B (half in 2015, rest in 2017).
| kodt wrote:
| Only if you are using to the definition of craft promoted
| by the Brewers Association. There are many other uses of
| the term "Craft Beer" that use other definitions often
| based on the style of beer, and having nothing to do with
| ownership.
| TravelPiglet wrote:
| https://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics-and-
| data/craft...
| stagger87 wrote:
| By this definition, it is not "craft" anymore.
| ipqk wrote:
| Because half the people here think this has to do with the
| local economy and politics of SF, when in reality it's the
| economic situation of the craft beer market & world economy
| at-large.
| thrashh wrote:
| Or maybe because a lot of people in this scene have ties to
| SF so they post it in the way that you tell friends of
| happenings.
| Solvency wrote:
| I think we can start dropping useless affectations like "it's
| important to note" now that ChatGPT has utterly co-opted them
| and revealed how meaningless they are. You could have simply
| stated that Anchor division is being dropped. I'm already
| reading your comment. You don't have to sell me on why you're
| noting it.
| draw_down wrote:
| [dead]
| gjvc wrote:
| _Did you mean_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-
| terminating_clich%C3%A... ?
| ChainOfFools wrote:
| Lazy hack English professors teaching 1A and 1B gen eds to
| students by prescribing robotic formulas that include
| appositives and qualifiers like this, in my opinion
| completely deserve what they are getting when the same
| students are now feeding them robotically written essay
| assignments that follow these rules slavishly.
| backtoyoujim wrote:
| Are you kidding ? You want us to bend our language usage for
| ChatGPT ?
|
| Can you just let humans write without LLMs controlling the
| development of our language ?
|
| We have managed to have language without your ChatGPT.
| alex_young wrote:
| Personally I think it's important to note the community
| standards here when replying to comments. It's better to
| thoughtfully discuss something than to criticize the writing
| style of someone else in my opinion.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| That style of comment does bother me though. It implies
| some kind of authority or consensus. "It is important to
| note" should just be read as "I (and people as enlightened/
| informed as myself) think".
|
| Just tell me your opinion, and I'll evaluate it based on
| it's content. You telling me that it's Important only puts
| me on alert for some kind of bias.
|
| EDIT: to clarify, if I'm doing my job correctly as a
| critical reader, I can't trust a commenter to be speaking
| for anyone but themselves. Phrasing like "it's important to
| note" serves to divert from that, because it implies that
| it's not the commenter's opinion, they're just spreading
| the gospel.
|
| Their assertion may be correct, but I'm doing it wrong if I
| take their word on it just because "it's important to
| note." Which is why I would prefer they leave it out,
| because I still need to do the work whether they tell me to
| or not, and telling me not to makes me suspicious.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| perhaps it is affections which give language its
| character
|
| it's worth noting that the simplification of language was
| ostensibly the goal of newspeak in the book, 1984
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| I like the affectations. It shows other users that noting
| something of relevance is good user behavior. "Is your
| comment actually worth noting??" is a good consideration
| to keep HN high quality. Some users will misuse it but
| that's very transparent so I believe it's worth
| mentioning when you believe something is worth mentioning
| (haha)
| i_am_jl wrote:
| We can start dropping useless affectations like "I think" now
| that ChatGPT has utterly co-opted them and revealed how
| meaningless they are. You could have simply stated that
| reading hurts you. I'm already reading your comment, you
| don't need to tell me that you think the things you write.
| Reason077 wrote:
| If enough of us stop adding useless affections to our
| comments, ChatGPT will learn to do so too. Better comments
| = better bots!
| RC_ITR wrote:
| Also worth noting that Sapporo went through with a rather
| disastrous rebrand that both made it less unique and harder to
| find on shelves.
|
| https://sfist.com/2021/01/28/anchor-brewing-dragged-on-twitt...
| mrobins wrote:
| The rebranding really was disastrous. Echoing other comments,
| as someone who bought 6 packs largely for nostalgia or to
| reconnect with SF from the east coast the new packaging
| ruined that.
| xkgwkdmgjtx wrote:
| See also my comment about what Anchor employees are saying:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36696764
| last_responder wrote:
| Well Stone is now off the buy list.
| ChainOfFools wrote:
| Thankfully San Diego and the whole region south of camp
| pendleton has about a hundred other excellent craft brews to
| choose from, including the beer that inspired Stone and out-
| stoned Stone even after Stone tried to copy it, Green Flash.
| Sadly it's nearly impossible to find these days, largely
| thanks to Stone.
| jerhewet wrote:
| Green Flash used to be amazing. Not any more.
|
| https://www.brewbound.com/news/tilray-acquired-green-
| flash-a...
| jerhewet wrote:
| They shouldn't be. Yes, they aren't as "amazing" as they used
| to be, but their staple IPA's are just as good as they've
| always been. I'm drinking one of their Delicious IPA's right
| now, and I'm enjoying it just as much as I did when they
| first released it. The new citrus variation on Delicious is
| one of my favorites.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| Don't see how shutting down an unsuccessful operation makes
| Sapporo an unethical actor.
|
| Regarding Stone however, there's this, predating its
| acquisition by Sapporo:
|
| https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/08/21/national-brewer-goes/
| codyb wrote:
| Is Sapporo a bad company?
| lesdeuxmagots wrote:
| It would seem that Sapporo did not do enough diligence when
| they bought Anchor. Anchor's facilities are far too small,
| their infrastructure and their team not setup to brew at that
| sort of scale. Stone is a much better fit for what they seem to
| be trying to do.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| I mean they had an entirely unique process. That was their
| whole shtick.
|
| They had a big multistory warehouse type brewery with fields
| of open air swimming pools fermenting. That's what made it
| steam beer. Their setup isn't like any other brewery at all.
| No vats for brewing!
|
| Anchor Steam brewery is as similar as a concrete plant to
| other breweries.
|
| So if Sapporo bought this for $143million thinking they could
| make other style of beer there and didn't even do a brewery
| tour omfg.
| tptacek wrote:
| My understanding was that the Sapporo transaction was a fire
| sale; is that wrong? If it isn't, it doesn't much matter what
| Sapporo did; Anchor was a dead brewery walking anyways.
| rdj wrote:
| That's the sentiment in the industry. Here's some numbers
| from when the sale happened.
|
| https://www.marketwatch.com/story/japans-sapporo-buys-
| craft-...
| domh wrote:
| This is pretty gutting as someone who lived in SF for a few years
| and drank quite a lot of Anchor Steam beer during that time. It's
| a shame to see such an iconic brewery closing down. I did a tour
| last year and loved the history and seeing the old copper brewing
| tanks that they still used. Shame they couldn't keep up with the
| modern tastes and amount of microbreweries popping up. RIP
| joshuaheard wrote:
| I loved this beer when I was in my twenties. My college-age
| daughter and her friends, however, don't even drink beer. They
| drink this fruit-flavored hard seltzers.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Really surprising to me how long it took for the seltzers and
| cocktail in a can stuff to take off. Especially among college
| age people my informal survey has around 70% of people
| preferring their flavor yet until like 5 years ago the only
| fruity beverage widely available was mikes hard lemonade. And
| not only do most young people prefer the taste, seltzers are
| much cheaper to make than beer and require much less expertise.
| I guess it was just a tradition is hard to break thing.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| Maybe this has to do with bars wanting to sell cocktails to
| these consumers and they thought popularizing seltzers would
| lose them money? I'm not in the industry so I'm not sure how
| close of ties the Bar Industry has with Alcohol Companies but
| I'm sure there is a lot of lobbying back and forth.
| dmoy wrote:
| IIRC it had a lot to do with figuring out a manufacturing
| process that involved brewing to be taxed as a malt beverage,
| instead of a hard liquor.
|
| https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/09/how-tax-policy-
| gave-...
| TillE wrote:
| Mike's Hard Lemonade fills basically the same ecological
| niche that cider does in the UK, and does it really well
| because American-style lemonade is great.
|
| Canned cocktails are generally pretty bad, and hard seltzers
| are fine but does anyone really enjoy the flavor? I feel like
| they're just a convenient low-calorie way to get drunk.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| > I feel like they're just a convenient low-calorie way to
| get drunk.
|
| Well yea, but for a lot of people that's what beer is too,
| and when given the choice between light beer and seltzer
| they prefer the seltzer.
|
| Canned cocktails like cutwater have gotten incredibly
| popular in the last year or so here. I suspect because
| they're 15% alcohol and the same size as a beer so many
| people can just drink one and be good for the night.
| dsr_ wrote:
| 127 years? Is it an overflow problem?
| eduction wrote:
| Photo of Steve Jobs with an Anchor Stream c1984
| https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/steve-jobs-dr...
| jimmychoozyx wrote:
| [flagged]
| bbor wrote:
| What do you mean by this? This national brand shut down because
| of rising rates of theft at CVS? And do you not think fairness
| is important? Don't think I've ever met anyone who's taking a
| strong anti-fairness stance, lol.
|
| P.S. I think "Europinize" is more accurate, and it seems to be
| working ok for them, not to mention America's richest and most
| productive state. The global drumbeat of social and economic
| progress will beat on, and the angry few will be left behind
| mjfern wrote:
| You're just regurgitating conservative talking points that
| don't align with reality. The California economy is the largest
| in the USA, by a significant margin, and its economic growth
| over the last 15 years far outpaced the U.S national average.
| California is on track to overtake Germany as the world's 4th
| largest economy.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| Also, don't Californians move to other states for the same
| reason expats move to Costa Rica or Thailand? Because they
| are much richer than the locals, so they can have an outsized
| lifestyle for their money. Coming in and outbidding for the
| nicest houses certainly doesn't sound like refugees fleeing a
| collapsing government. I don't understand how people can see
| that and think people are "escaping".
| emodendroket wrote:
| Motivated reasoning.
| farzinadil wrote:
| [flagged]
| emodendroket wrote:
| California will survive the loss of a brewery.
| bink wrote:
| This has nothing to do with politics:
|
| > "We recognize the importance and historic significance of
| Anchor to San Francisco and to the craft brewing industry, but
| the impacts of the pandemic, inflation, especially in San
| Francisco, and a highly competitive market left the company
| with no option but to make this sad decision to cease
| operations."
|
| You really think California is "collapsing economically" or are
| you just trying to inject your politics into something
| unrelated?
| brigadier132 wrote:
| Guess you missed
|
| > especially in San Francisco
|
| San Francisco had some of the most restrictive covid policies
| in the country.
| jedberg wrote:
| And lowest rates of death, especially for the density. A
| choice was made to trade off companies (which can be
| replaced) for lives (which can't be replaced).
| athinggoingon wrote:
| Companies that provide store fronts that law abiding
| customers living in those neighborhoods can't live
| without.
| brigadier132 wrote:
| Everyone left, im sure san francisco factored that into
| the denominator and didnt use statistics from before
| covid
| jkubicek wrote:
| I'm not saying that you're wrong, but I'm having trouble
| seeing how covid policies from a year ago (strict or not)
| would still affect a manufacturer that ships beer
| everywhere in the US.
| jimmychoozyx wrote:
| I am mostly referring to the exodus of citizens who find
| California can no longer sustain them economically.
|
| As a result, they're moving in substantial proportions to
| conservative states.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_exodus
|
| There has also been a significant exodus of businesses.
|
| "An exodus of California businesses is gaining steam, with
| the number of departing establishments nearly doubling from
| 2012 to 2019"
|
| [2] https://www.ocregister.com/2023/06/05/california-
| business-de...
|
| From [2] ( June 5, 2023 )
|
| "Companies that have moved their U.S. headquarters out of
| state in recent years include Hewlett Packard Enterprise,
| Oracle, Charles Schwab, CBRE, Toyota and Tesla.
|
| Nevada, Texas, Arizona, Oregon, Washington and Florida ranked
| as the top destinations for relocating California
| establishments, the data shows.
|
| The findings resemble those in the Hoover Institution's
| latest business exodus study, released last September. The
| Stanford University institution reported that at least 352
| business moved their headquarters out of California from 2018
| through 2021, including 11 Fortune 1,000 companies.
|
| "Headquarter relocations are accelerating substantially, with
| no sign of reversing course," the Hoover Institution report
| said. It blames the departures on a business environment
| "that ranks near the bottom of all U.S. states."
|
| "RELATED: Tesla's Elon Musk follows 687,626 Californians who
| moved to Texas"
| bink wrote:
| Your own links suggest that peak migration was in 2021,
| when California lost 360,000 people. That's less than 1% of
| the population.
|
| You're also ignoring the fact that Anchor Steam is owned by
| Sapporo and has been for the last 6 years. This isn't a
| decision being made by people working in the factory who
| are angry that they had to wear masks or upset about a rise
| in homelessness.
|
| Despite Musk's political nonsense claims about moving the
| Tesla HQ, he's still expanding the Fremont factory:
| https://www.tesla.com/fremont-factory
|
| The most common reason cited for normal companies to leave
| California is the cost of living, especially housing and
| labor costs. If the economy were collapsing those costs
| would be decreasing.
|
| California's GDP has also continued to rise, with only a
| brief blip at the beginning of 2020:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/187834/gdp-of-the-us-
| fed...
|
| California saw historic budget surpluses from 2021 to 2023:
| "As a result, in the last two years, the state saw historic
| budget surpluses--including $47 billion in 2021-22 and $55
| billion in 2022-23.
| https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4687
| jkubicek wrote:
| Too many people were shoplifting beer from their gift shop
| and SF police refused to do anything about it. Anchor had no
| choice but to shut down. /s
| athinggoingon wrote:
| Do you expect these corporate announcements to contain
| anything but PR and euphemisms?
| jimmychoozyx wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| One of the cardinal sins in statistics is:
|
| Self-reports are biased.
|
| A corporation is telling you about that same corporation?
| You can expect some bias ;)
|
| I find it quite telling this attitude of "If someone tells
| you something, it's got to be true! Especially if it's a
| corporation!!" quite telling, regarding those folks who are
| saying "Hey you can't criticize California! You
| conservative!"
|
| It's like... Really? California is some gleaming pinnacle
| of perfection? It's with great hesitation that I say this:
| Californians... get out-- and ask people in other states
| how they feel about California & its citizens-- and then go
| right back and stay in your confinement zone lol (I kid! I
| kid! Dang plz don't ban me :))
| emodendroket wrote:
| I moved here a few years ago, so I don't think I'm that
| lacking in perspective, and I think it's nicer than other
| places I lived in a lot of ways. Certainly not seeing
| reasons for panic.
| bink wrote:
| "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation
| of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to
| criticize. Assume good faith. "
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| hyperbovine wrote:
| Many this really sucks. Many a cold summer day did I spend
| sipping a pint of Anchor at Kennedy's on Columbus, at the
| Albatross in Berkeley, and at various other water holes around
| the city and in the East Bay. Feels like my 20s just died.
| Neff wrote:
| I wonder what will happen to the term "Steam Beer" now.
|
| If I remember correctly, after the end of prohibition Anchor
| claimed ownership of the term "steam beer" even though it is a
| name of a style of beer and forced any other brewery to use the
| names "Steam Ale" or "California Common".
|
| With Anchor being shuttered it would be great for Sapporo to
| release ownership of the style name so the BJCP can update the
| category back to the historically accurate title.
| ceroxylon wrote:
| I kinda saw this coming after their ghastly label redesign with
| the sharp yellow and blue, it made it look like a completely
| different product on the shelf, and anyone who was inspired to
| try it due to the new label was most likely underwhelmed.
| farzinadil wrote:
| [flagged]
| ChatGTP wrote:
| I've heard quite a few SF people say they welcome this, once
| all the rich dudes leave it might actually return to being a
| fun and affordable city again. Let's see :)
| farzinadil wrote:
| Those people are delusional. They should see how the doom
| loop worked out for detroit.
| ribyni wrote:
| San Francisco has been a boom and bust town since the
| beginning, with countless "doom loop" stories. The reality
| is that it's a desirable city. If we're in a true bust,
| prices will begin to drop--and those places are quickly
| filled up with people who can now afford to live here
| (again). We're not witnessing a drop in demand per se,
| we're witnessing a decreased demand at the high-end (this
| is a good thing! it's run out of control for the last
| decade.) combined with commercial real estate investment
| that won't lower leases because it devalues their
| properties and puts their RE investment underwater.
| (Ultimately, their hands will be forced, of course, which
| will lead to much lower cost commercial real estate in a
| highly desirable city with better affordability for
| homes... again, this is a good thing.)
|
| The problem in Detroit was there was no price low enough to
| get people to live there when there were so many places
| with similar amenities and better quality of life nearby.
| In SF, the second housing prices fall, they're scooped up
| instantly. People move across the country/world to live in
| SF even when the job market has been terrible in the past.
| (There's a lot more to SF than a job.) I'm not saying San
| Francisco could never fall, but we're nowhere near that
| reality.
| xgl5k wrote:
| [dead]
| ChatGTP wrote:
| I think this is true. I'd buy in SF immediately if I
| could.
| pengaru wrote:
| [flagged]
| xgl5k wrote:
| [dead]
| stephencanon wrote:
| Detroit is now a fun and affordable city.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Where do you live?
| mc32 wrote:
| So only four decades to go before it's fun again?
|
| Works for long term planning. In the meantime it won't be
| fun for locals.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| It is not.
|
| It is a city that he lost 3/4 of its population, GDP and
| is still spiraling down.
|
| It has huge abandoned districts. It is hyper-violent.
|
| It has an urban revival that has failed in numbers by
| population and revenue. But sure, for now it's "fun".
| yttribium wrote:
| "Fun" if you like living in a PvP zone
| asdajksah2123 wrote:
| While I think the people who think this is a good thing are
| out of their minds, Detroit had entirely different issues,
| and probably is not a good example for what could happen to
| SF in the worst case. 1. Detroit has none of the natural
| advantages SF does. 2. Detroit was hollowed out largely
| because of the white flight that drove the tax base to the
| suburbs. 3. Detroit was uniquely built as a highly car
| friendly city, which meant that once the jobs were gone,
| there was no good reason to be within Detroit itself. 4.
| Detroit had no political power at the state level, and if
| anything, was held up as a punching bag for the rest of the
| state. This is unlikely to be the case for SF, which is
| likely to have political support at all levels.
|
| I'd say the worst case scenario for SF is probably a city
| like Philadelphia, which also went through bad years, but
| has rebounded and has become a pretty great city in many
| ways, even if it doesn't have the cachet of its past. And
| I'd imagine that would be the worst case scenario for SF,
| and the more likely case would be something much better
| than that, even if all the wealthiest people left SF.
| ribyni wrote:
| Exactly. The reality is that San Francisco has lost a lot
| of people over the last decade, even though our
| population has grown. We've displaced people through a
| crisis of (lack of) affordability as wealthier folks have
| flocked to the city. If we view SF's success purely
| through population growth, that looks like success, but
| in practice, it has been a truly devastating decade for
| so many who loved this city. The demand to live in the
| city may be just as high today, but the demographics may
| look less rich. As housing prices slowly come back down
| to something vaguely closer to earth, some of those
| people come back -- and new residents eager to take
| advantage of the quality of life SF offers at a lower
| price point move in. It's a cycle that's a microcosm of
| American boom/bust mentality, but SF always comes through
| with being a
| beautiful/unique/storied/creative/walkable/dense city.
| xgl5k wrote:
| [dead]
| asveikau wrote:
| > According to a press release, the brewery has been facing
| challenging economic factors and declining sales since 2016.
|
| Well before this "doom loop" shit was coined. Seems like a very
| long, slow loop if that's the case.
|
| Also, it seems like you created your account to talk about the
| doom loop on this thread. Edit: no, correction, your account is
| older but this is the only comment?
| smt88 wrote:
| The doom loop started when SF became so expensive, it started
| to price out all the people and culture that made it unique
| and interesting.
|
| That certainly did start decades ago.
| asveikau wrote:
| I feel you are moving the goal posts. The "doom loop"
| narrative only emerged in the last few months.
|
| Lots of problems existed for a long time. Affordability is
| one. Smash and grab at tourist spots is another.
| Homelessness. Drugs in the tenderloin. All old problems.
| Then there are the pandemic problems, and relatedly, lack
| of demand for office and retail.
|
| But there are a bunch of false narratives that SF suddenly
| became mad max in the last 3 years. That what the people
| who bring "doom loop" into literally every SF discussion
| seem to be on about. I suspect the person I replied to is
| thinking of this.
| xgl5k wrote:
| [dead]
| xgl5k wrote:
| [dead]
| maxiepoo wrote:
| I'll be surprised if none of the bigger beer companies ends up
| buying it for the brand and history alone. But maybe it doesn't
| have as much name recognition as I thought.
| astura wrote:
| They are already owned by a big company - Sapporo.
|
| I've heard that Sapporo has been trying to sell it for couple
| years now. Nobody's buying.
| garciasn wrote:
| Anchor Steam had its place, 20+ years ago. It had a long-
| standing tradition of being a beer that stood the test of time,
| head and shoulders above the usuals of the time.
|
| The problem is they failed to continue to keep up with the
| times as the proliferation of truly fantastic beers hit and
| later dominated the scene. Take a look through their flagships;
| they look more like what any new and likely-soon-to-close
| brewery will start with (a hazy, a west coast, a porter, a
| lager, and an ale) rather than a brewery steeped in 100+ years
| of history and brewing mastery.
|
| Anchor Steam may have had the brand recognition necessary to
| survive in an overcrowded market say 10 years ago, but now
| people are flocking to the breweries themselves and are not as
| tied down into a single brand as they used to be.
|
| It's sad but in the same way that any long-standing brand that
| couldn't keep up with the Joneses and went out of business is
| sad. Not really in any other way.
| schnable wrote:
| Props for being the original craft beer, but I never liked it.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| It's not the craft beer even though the article states such
| hospitalJail wrote:
| [flagged]
| lobf wrote:
| So edgy
| Eisenstein wrote:
| You don't have to feel bad for them, but even if all the
| breweries shut down that wouldn't make alcoholism go away, and
| it would also deprive people who drink responsibly of something
| they enjoy.
| ryaneager wrote:
| Is it alcohol that's killing society or societies lack of
| support for addiction that's killing? It is a disease, you need
| treatment and can't fix it yourself.
| deadballcretin wrote:
| Simply put, par for the course when it comes to what little of
| San Francisco's soul is actually left. Slowly dismantling the
| weird to make way for the boring.
|
| Saporro has mismanaged this from the very start, they had no plan
| when they bought the company and will almost certainly turn to
| victim blaming and crying foul amidst their successful
| unionization effort in 2019.
| jeffbee wrote:
| The idea that in the absence of Anchor we will be at a loss for
| "soul" breweries is somewhat hilarious. Over my 40+ years of
| life the number of breweries in America has exploded 100-fold.
| In San Francisco and the immediate area craft breweries are
| almost a menace. There must be 5000 of them in California. If
| you insist that your beer be sourced from your immediate
| political jurisdiction, you could get beer from Fort Point Beer
| Co, a large and successful independent with statewide
| distribution.
| deadballcretin wrote:
| I'm talking about the city, not the brewing scene. The
| brewery is a staple of the city and it is a shame to see it
| shutter in such a fashion. Looking at the rest of the scene
| and not what the brewery represents is intentionally missing
| the point of what I was trying to say. The city is being
| dismantled, bit by bit, being replaced with facsimiles of
| what people think San Francisco is supposed to be instead of
| letting the city be.
| jeffbee wrote:
| As a long-time resident I think that most of the city needs
| to be scraped flat and redone, so this does not
| particularly bother me. Nostalgia does not befit any place.
|
| Anchor is being dismantled by a corporate entity ten
| thousand miles away in Japan and arguably its dismantlement
| was foretold, and inevitable, when it was acquired. The
| time to grieve over it was when they sold it.
| kelnos wrote:
| You're using the brewing scene as a proxy for the city, so
| it's completely fair to dispute your claim about the
| brewing scene, and extrapolate that to the rest of the
| city.
|
| SF has been having problems -- big problems -- sure, but
| there's still a lot of good here.
|
| I'm bummed Anchor is disappearing, but not because I
| particularly liked their beer. Maybe iconic brands _shouldn
| 't_ stick around if they don't really bring all that much
| interesting to the table anymore.
| zerocrates wrote:
| There's a decent argument to be made that there's a
| qualitative difference between a 100+-year-old institution
| and a mid-2010s local brewery of which there are, as you
| point out, untold similar ones all over the country.
|
| Of course Anchor didn't exactly maintain its own "soul" on
| the way down to this end, selling to larger owners and
| eventually foreign ownership, and more recently abandoning
| their old logos and packaging. So it's not totally playing
| fair hearkening back to their proud history and all that.
| kelnos wrote:
| I think it's sad that such an iconic brand is shutting down,
| but Anchor's "weird" actually made their beer a fairly boring
| product. There are much more interesting options all over the
| place, though, like everywhere else in the US, there are still
| too many IPAs, to my endless disappointment.
|
| Meanwhile, I have two great small breweries within an easy
| walking distance of my home in the Dogpatch (not far from where
| Anchor is/was): Harmonic Brewing and Olfactory Brewing (the
| latter of which just opened a few months ago).
|
| It's always a shame when an iconic, century-old brand
| disappears, but it's not like Anchor's beer was all that unique
| or interesting.
| romellem wrote:
| Are there any others breweries that make a "steam" style beer
| that you'd recommend as a replacement?
|
| I've always enjoyed Anchor Steam but never really found a
| suitable alternative.
| lamontcg wrote:
| Entirely unrelated but I turned off support for DRM'd videos in
| firefox yesterday and this crappy news website now just has a
| firefox banner for "You must enable DRM to play some audio or
| video on this page" instead of having some video player
| desperately chasing me around the page trying to get me to play
| it.
| gohwell wrote:
| This beer always reminds me of NOFX - Scavenger Type
| dpifke wrote:
| I miss the days when you could get a pint for 13 quarters.
|
| And as someone who left SF almost a decade ago, I just checked
| and was very surprised to see that Bottom of the Hill is still
| open.
| olliecornelia wrote:
| [flagged]
| HappySweeney wrote:
| The employee unionization was likely a result of the cost-
| cutting measures being implemented on their backs, meaning the
| business was already failing.
| hooverd wrote:
| AB seems to be doing just fine with one.
| suby wrote:
| It's pretty lame to put out a one sentence implication that
| unions are the reason for the downfall of this 127 year-old
| business without, you know, any actual proof or data or
| argument for that being so. The only sentence in the actual
| article hinting at why they closed links it to falling sales
| starting in 2016, and the general state of the economy.
| xkgwkdmgjtx wrote:
| I hesitate to post this hearsay accusation, but it hasn't been
| mentioned in this thread and it might be important to discuss.
|
| I talked to Anchor employees after the news about stopping the
| Christmas Ale and stopping sales outside of California. They told
| me the writing was on the wall that Anchor would be closed down
| and sold for scraps. They were adamant that the root issue here
| is Sapporo mismanagement, not anything about Anchor being an
| unviable business. Public Taps alone makes good money and I'm
| pretty sure they have owned their brewing building for a long
| time. They asked me to boycott Sapporo.
|
| Of course, laid off workers are usually disgruntled at their ex-
| employers, but nonetheless it's an important angle to consider.
| The other comment about Sapporo's plans for that San Diego
| brewery seem to bolster this perspective.
| ______ wrote:
| I met a former Anchor brewer who left and moved to at a brewery
| in Flagstaff AZ two years ago, they seemed pretty unhappy back
| at Anchor.
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't mean to invalidate or deny this person's experience,
| but I think it's unavoidable that any business will have at
| least a few employees who aren't happy working there, for
| whatever reason. It doesn't have to mean working conditions
| are bad or that there's something wrong with the company, and
| it doesn't have to mean the employee is bad at their job or
| has unrealistic expectations; sometimes it's just not a good
| fit.
|
| On the other hand, employees having the opinion that their
| parent company is mismanaging the business (while still
| sticking with them) is a little bit more compelling to me as
| being potentially true.
| flyinghamster wrote:
| I hadn't really kept up with that side, but Anchor had a
| distilling operation as well, with a rye whiskey that was
| unusually 100% malted rye (Old Potrero).
|
| From what I can see, that's now owned by Hotaling, and not
| affected.
| splonk wrote:
| I believe the distilling operation was separated from the
| brewing operation when Sapporo acquired it (I think maybe they
| had to remove the still through the roof with a crane?). I used
| to drink some with a guy who worked on the distilling side and
| tried a few of the Old Potrero variants, but none of them were
| really to my taste. Certainly unusual and worth trying, though.
| missilepsilo wrote:
| I will miss that Xmas ale that comes in a magnum. Great to bring
| to a holiday party.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Why aren't we celebrating the market efficiency?
| whartung wrote:
| I'm not a beer guy, but as I understand it many craft beers are
| actually made through contract brewers. That suggests that beer
| can be, well, "reduced" to a recipe that can be replicated. I've
| heard that Samuel Adams uses contract breweries, and, in fact, a
| fellow who used to work with us had his own private label that he
| went and got a bunch of cases brewed, made up a label, found a
| bottler, and sold locally.
|
| Now, I know water quality is an important factor, but even then
| I've heard of pizza restaurants that have analyzed New York water
| (apparently an important aspect of New York Pizza) to the point
| of having it replicated (adding back proper mineral amounts,
| etc.).
|
| So, I don't know how much of Anchor Steam is purely based on
| location.
|
| If, however, it can be "just a recipe" suggests that it can be
| returned at any time if the corporate parent deigns it worthy to
| bring it back.
| nemo44x wrote:
| > I'm not a beer guy, but as I understand it many craft beers
| are actually made through contract brewers.
|
| Same thing with spirits like whiskey. There's massive
| distillery named MGP that makes a ton of whiskey but they don't
| market or sell any direct. They sell to companies that want to
| sell a whiskey brand. They're known as a "production
| contractor". This way you can bring a product to market but you
| don't have to vertically integrate the production of it.
| stcroixx wrote:
| If their flagship had actually been a steam beer, I'd be sad, but
| as it was just a decent lager there are a billion replacements.
| tristor wrote:
| This doesn't surprise me. As somebody who got deep into craft
| beer, I have always thought of Anchor Steam as being relatively
| mediocre. They were likely a breath of fresh air well until the
| 1980s, but my the early 1990s there was a burgeoning US craft
| brewing revival that had a solid brewery (and in most cases
| better than Anchor) in every US state. They also aren't the only
| old craft brewery in the US, generally.
|
| It's unfortunate, but operating in one of the most expensive
| places in the US isn't something that's compatible with being
| mediocre in a highly competitive market.
| pastor_bob wrote:
| How many readily available American Porters are better or even
| comparable to the Anchor Porter? I can only think of 1 (Sierra
| Nevada) off the top of my head.
|
| It's a sad that you can't just sell a Porter anymore. Have to
| throw banana and peanut butter in it or make it 15% alcohol to
| get accepted by the 'craft beer' aficionados.
| photonerd wrote:
| If it's not pretty much pureed & juiced hops or a fruit
| infused saison it seems the "craft" community hates it.
|
| The craft beer community mostly seems to hate beer that is
| actually beer.
| divbzero wrote:
| How about Deschutes' Black Butte Porter [1]? It started
| regional but has been expanding distribution in recent years
| [2].
|
| [1]: https://www.deschutesbrewery.com/news-
| media/2021-02-08/how-i...
|
| [2]: https://www.deschutesbrewery.com/news-
| media/2021-03-22/more-...
| jdmichal wrote:
| I've felt similarly for a while. It seems like all these
| smaller brewers start with an IPA, then maybe make something
| else later. Well, I don't like hoppy beers, and I especially
| don't like IPAs. I like malty dark beers like dunkels or
| Irish reds, and those are apparently way down on the "craft
| beer" clout list.
| dbcooper wrote:
| It's an excellent beer of its type, and IMO of any beer type.
| It may be subtle, but not everything has to be an big hoppy
| IPA, or a sweet NEIPA etc.
|
| Do you also think that Pilsner Urquell, Jever, or Budvar are
| mediocre?
| tristor wrote:
| Anchor hasn't made actual steam beer in a very long time.
| Their brewing operation is effectively similar to most other
| mid-sized batch lagers, with modifications to bring it in
| line with their historic flavor profile. Historic steam beers
| were considered, even at the time, to be low-quality, and the
| method of making steam beer is primarily a way to make large
| quantities of beer at a low cost. Modern brewing is much more
| efficient thanks to technical advances than historical
| brewing and these types of techniques are mostly unnecessary
| to achieve the same thing. Anchor does do a high temperature
| fermentation process, which is part of what made steam beer,
| steam beer, and this still has direct impacts on its flavor
| profile. The actual process of making steam beer was only
| necessary prior to refrigeration, with modern technology you
| can have a much higher volume and more controlled brewing
| operation even when using high temperature methods.
|
| The flavor of the beer is heavily influenced by the yeast
| strain and fermentation temperature, and the primary basis of
| what steam beer is, fundamentally, is lager that is fermented
| at relatively high temperature. The yeast strains that stand
| up these higher temperatures tend to produce lower quantities
| of the types of esters that produce lasting flavors in beer,
| and higher temperatures tend to result in a loss of important
| flavoring compounds which are types of volatile organic
| chemicals and tend to be temperature sensitive.
|
| There's very specific, replicable, and well-understood
| reasons why high temperature lagers and steam beers don't
| taste as good as typical low temperature lagers. I do not
| think your representation of steam beer is accurate, and I
| feel I have some authority to that claim. I am a subject
| matter expert on beer, a certified cicerone, and an extensive
| home brewer.
|
| I am not trying to diss Anchor, I'm simply stating a mere
| fact, which is that their beer is mediocre. Not bad, but it
| is certainly not a world class beer. It may have been in pre
| 1980s, but the current craft brewing culture has advanced far
| beyond most beer drinkers expectations. For the record, I am
| not a huge fan of IPAs, although I will drink them, and I
| don't think "craft beer" and "IPA" are analogous concepts.
| Your reply to me reveals your biases, and indicates you
| didn't critically engage with my prior comment.
| awithrow wrote:
| Honestly I always saw the California Common/Steam beer
| style as more marketing than a true style. In my head I
| grouped them in with amber lagers. I Totally agree that
| Anchor Steam was mediocre.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| They really did use steam beer process fwiw. Big stainless
| steel swimming pools in open air and unrefrigerated. It
| wasn't completely outdoors but that's a fair change to the
| process. I think it's reasonable to consider this as steam
| beer.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchor_Brewing_Company#/media
| /...
| photonerd wrote:
| > high temperature lagers and steam beers don't taste as
| good as typical low temperature lagers
|
| Given I like Anchor & think almost all other lagers are
| absolutely _vile_ piss water, I most strongly dispute this
| statement
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| I agree that it is an excellent beer for it's type but steam
| beer as a style is dying and for good reason. Very few like
| that type.
|
| The steam beer process was literally created as a way to
| cheaply make a lot of beer.
| bamfly wrote:
| I like a _lot_ of styles of beer.
|
| I long ago put Anchor in the "meh, don't bother buying again"
| category.
|
| There's a lot of new stuff to try, more all the time, and the
| bar for making it into the "buy again" category is _damn_
| high these days. Has been for years, really.
| sheepybloke wrote:
| I agree. When I went to SF Giants games as a 415 member, you
| could get Anchor Pilsners for $9. It was a good deal for a
| baseball game, but they were competing against more interesting
| local beers or better beers (imo) like Pliny the Elder. Their
| beer was good, but the hard part is that I would always choose
| something else to drink.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| They had to be famously saved by a rich guy as a vanity project
| earlier in their life.
|
| Perhaps it's time to admit it's just not a viable product,
| especially now that the US beer scene is so expansive.
| wl wrote:
| Famously saved in a way that kicked off the American craft
| brewing movement. Fritz Maytag brought a modern microbiological
| perspective to American brewing, reintroduced dormant American
| styles, validated that there was a market for such beers, and
| deliberately helped other breweries brew great beer rather than
| expanding faster than he felt comfortable to meet demand. It
| was a viable business when Maytag decided to retire in 2010.
| flyinghamster wrote:
| And I think the economy has a great effect. Craft beer is
| _expensive_ , and when everything else has doubled in price,
| it becomes a luxury. Between that and competing for shelf
| space when the oligopoly has crammed the shelves with faux
| "craft" beers, I'm expecting a shakeout in the craft brew
| business - a local brewery closed up at the end of May with
| about a week of warning and no reason why, even though the
| taproom always had customers.
| hooverd wrote:
| Some* craft beer is expensive. My extremely non-scientific
| survey found that Anchor Steam is roughly the same price as
| Shiner, or Boulevard Wheat, and only a couple dollars more
| than a six pack of Budweiser. It's no Founder's KBS prices,
| but that beer fills a different niche anyways.
|
| The craft brewers that are all making the same N-times-
| hopped IPAs might die off, and for the better.
| astura wrote:
| >the taproom always had customers.
|
| I know the owners of a local craft brewery. When they
| opened 7 years ago it was ONLY the taproom. Nowadays their
| money is almost entirely in distribution, taproom is only
| like 5% of their sales.
| trashface wrote:
| Sad news. I drank a ton of it back in the 90s (back then at many
| bars in CA, it was either that or Sierra, or else megabrew
| swill). But I generally liked both of them and still do. I did a
| tour of the brewery then and it was a fun time, and "sampled"
| plenty of good beer there too. At one point the tour guide asked
| a brewer what he was making and he said "Sierra Nevada Pale Ale"
| and everyone chuckled, as there was a rivalry at that time.
|
| Steam is a lager beer which at least in the craft segment seems
| to have lost out to highly hopped IPAs (which are also often very
| high ABV) in the US. Anchor did have liberty IPA which was pretty
| good but perhaps not really exceptional; hard to stand out when
| everyone is doing the same thing. I still think Steam is pretty
| unique flavorwise, you can really taste the Cascade hops they use
| whereas other brewers often tend to drown them out. Never really
| found another lager like it.
|
| They also made the "small beer", which was nice low alcohol beer
| (~3%) derived from the brewing of the (much stronger) old
| foghorn. I haven't seen it in stores for a long time though as I
| now live on east coast and its harder to get anchor here.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| A month ago the story was limiting national distribution
| etc....... that escalated quickly
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36301974
| [deleted]
| MikeMacMan wrote:
| Ironically, back in the 90s Anchor Steam was just about the only
| good craft beer I could get in Japan.
| symfoniq wrote:
| Won't miss Steam, but Anchor Porter is quite good.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| Liberty ale was my first IPA and still holds a dear place in my
| heart. At least Sierra Nevada seems to be thriving still
| sparrish wrote:
| Honest question: how did this SF brewing company survive
| prohibition? If it really is 127 years old, it must have existed
| during prohibition. How was it not shut down then? I'm curious.
| astura wrote:
| Some breweries pivoted to selling near-beer and other NA
| beverages or foods during Prohibition, or just closed for those
| years and restarted afterwards.
|
| Yuengling famously sold ice cream during Prohibition, and
| apparently still makes it in small batches.
| sithadmin wrote:
| A lot of American brewers survived by switching to non-
| alcoholic beverages or selling the raw ingredients for home
| brewing and winemaking operations under the guise of 'baking
| ingredients' or the like. Some sold practically non-alcoholic
| 'near beer'/kvass-type malt drinks, but it wasn't especially
| popular.
| floren wrote:
| The grape growers dehydrated grape juice and sold it in
| bricks as "instant juice", with instructions: "After
| dissolving the brick in a gallon of water, do not place the
| liquid in a jug away in the cupboard for twenty days, because
| then it would turn into wine."
|
| https://grapecollective.com/articles/prohibitions-grape-
| bric...
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Slightly less than 10% of US breweries surcived the 13 years of
| prohibition, mostly through a) being large companies that owned
| a lot of assets and real estate, and b) successfully pivoting
| into anything from ceramics production to non-alcoholic foods
| like ice cream/tea/coffee/juices to the sale of yeast and malt
| syrup that people could use to homebrew beer.
|
| And prohibition had been a long time coming, some companies
| like Anheuser-Busch had been preparing for several decades.
| samstave wrote:
| Some p[eople I knew purchased a really huge victorian in the
| Castro some years ago - and in the bottom floor was an original
| speak-easy with full bar and pool table and booths etc...
|
| I would assume that there were many of these speak-easys in SF
| during prohibition...
|
| Sadly they immediately remodeled and took the speak-easy out.
| floren wrote:
| > Sadly they immediately remodeled and took the speak-easy
| out.
|
| Well sure, gotta get that basement unit... bar & pool table
| out, vinyl flooring & Ikea in!
| renewiltord wrote:
| Yes, that's a good thing. Constantly navel gazing at the
| past is a bad thing.
|
| https://apnews.com/article/us-army-ukraine-russia-
| ammunition...
|
| Enough of this nonsense. Those who remember history are
| doomed to relive it. We're going to build the future, man,
| and it's going to be better, and we'll remember our past in
| our museums. The world matters. The present matters.
|
| > The obstacles the U.S. faces in ramping up production can
| be seen at the Scranton plant.
|
| > The factory -- built for the Delaware, Lackawanna and
| Western Railroad just after 1900, when the city was a
| rising coal and railroad powerhouse -- has produced large-
| caliber ammunition for the military going back to the
| Korean War.
|
| > But the buildings are on the National Historic Registry
| of Historic Places, limiting how the Army can alter the
| structures.
| arp242 wrote:
| According to their website: _" Prohibition effectively shut
| Anchor down in 1920. There may have been a few "activities"
| during Prohibition and the era of bootlegging, but there is no
| record of Anchor Brewery doing anything--legal or illegal--
| during this time. After Prohibition ended in April 1933, owner
| Joe Kraus began brewing Anchor Steam Beer after a thirteen year
| hiatus. As luck would have it, the Brewery went up in smoke the
| following February. He re-opened Anchor in an old brick
| building with a new partner, Joe Allen, just a few blocks from
| where the historic Brewery is today."_
|
| https://www.anchorbrewing.com/about-us/the-anchor-story/
| beembeem wrote:
| I went down this rabbit hole on National Beer [1] day this
| year.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Beer_Day_(United_Stat...
| lesdeuxmagots wrote:
| They started selling at scale 1 or 2 days after prohibition
| ended. This is logistically impossible if they were truly shut
| down during the entirety of prohibition.
| pbsladek wrote:
| I'll miss you anchor porter...
| acheron wrote:
| > Anchor was established in San Francisco in 1896 and was the
| country's first craft brewery.
|
| So what definitions are being used here to claim this? Yuengling
| is quite a bit older, for example.
| awithrow wrote:
| Its just plain incorrect. As you note, Yuengling is older
| (1829) and is considered a craft brewery by the Brewers
| Association. Given that this is just a local news website, I
| just assume they're not exactly doing a ton of work verifying
| the press release
| tanjtanjtanj wrote:
| The definition of a craft brewery from the brewer's
| association is more practically stated as "The same size or
| smaller than Sam Adams".
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Yuengling is not considered craft beer by a lot of people
| because it's made mainly from adjuncts, in their case corn.
| It's only recent that the Brewer's Association changed the
| definition to include them, but most people in the industry
| disagree with it. Yuengling is just a cheaply made lager that's
| really no better than Budweiser.
|
| But, that term doesn't have an official definition so they
| still can claim the title.
| ak217 wrote:
| Yuengling sure tastes better than most "craft" beers to me.
| floren wrote:
| > Yuengling is just a cheaply made lager that's really no
| better than Budweiser.
|
| Now, maybe in terms of production methods, but I've consumed
| plenty of Bud and absolutely gallons of Yuengling, and
| Yuengling stands apart. It's not fancy, but it's good.
|
| College parties in Rochester would usually include Labatt,
| Molson, Yuengling, and Genesee. Only the Yuengling was worthy
| as a drinking beer; Labatt and Molson were just for
| shotgunning & pong, and Genesee was for joking about what it
| did to your bowels.
| ryandamm wrote:
| Yeah the article is a little muddled; it's better to understand
| Anchor as the oldest existing brewery that makes what we think
| of as craft beer.
|
| When it started there were many small, local brewers making a
| variety of beers. Prohibition and changing tastes killed off
| most of the breweries -- it helped to be above a certain size
| so you could profitable brew, say, malted syrups during
| prohibition. Those that remained after prohibition ended
| quickly consolidated -- that's how we got the oligopoly off
| Bud, Miller, and Coors.
|
| Consolidation continues for decades afterwards of course; the
| brands that got rolled up into the conglomerates included a
| number of light lager breweries. What distinguishes Anchor from
| Yuengling and others is Anchor made something other than a
| light lager -- they made steam beer, a warm-fermented lager
| that has some ale characteristics.
|
| I would categorize it as "proto-craft," since the real craft
| movement started in the 80s with Sierra Nevada and Sam Adams;
| Anchor was an inspiration, a holdover, and an anomaly.
|
| (Most of my sources for this post are Celebrator beer magazine
| and a series of books I've read, but I don't have them at my
| fingertips so I may have some specifics slightly wrong here,
| caveat emptor for reading random internet comments.)
| acheron wrote:
| Makes sense, thanks.
| awithrow wrote:
| Yuengling's flaghsip is an Amber Lager, not a light lager in
| the same vein as bud/miller/coors. Also, they didn't
| introduce their amber until the 80s. Prior to that their main
| beer was their porter.
|
| I don't think there is a coherent definition of craft
| breweries that includes Anchor but not Yuengling
| pinot wrote:
| Yuengling is "Craft" per the BA and older then Anchor.
| Author is wrong.
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