RIP Anchor Brewing: Sapporo Is Shutting Down the Original American Craft Brewery
Photo via Getty Images, John Sullivan
It’s a headline that the savvy beer geeks and industry watchers had been dreading but expecting for several years now, and it’s finally here: The original American craft brewery is being shut down. Anchor Brewing Co., the influential modern incarnation of a company stretching all the way back to 1896, purchased and saved from the brink of extinction by Frederick Louis “Fritz” Maytag III in 1965, has presumably brewed its very last batch of steam beer. It’s yet another victim of the dire economic straits facing the brewing industry, but has simultaneously been a victim of poor management and half-hearted attempts to revive its brands at the hands of its multinational corporate ownership at Japanese megabrewer Sapporo. In the 13 years since Maytag sold the brand in 2010, it’s safe to say that Anchor has slowly but surely been run into a position that was truly untenable.
The brewery announced its closure in a furtive press release, hitting the wire at 1:45 a.m. last night, announcing that brewing operations had ceased and that the business would be liquidated. Staff were given their 60-day notices, and will receive “transition support and separation packages.” Local fans wanting to give a last hurrah to the brewery will want to head to its Anchor Public Taps taproom on De Haro Street, which is remaining open temporarily to sell through remaining stock. In a statement, Anchor Brewing spokesperson Sam Singer said the following:
“This was an extremely difficult decision that Anchor reached only after many months of careful evaluation. 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.”
Things seemed sustainable for Anchor at first, following the brewery’s 2010 sale from an exiting Maytag to Skyy Vodka execs Keith Greggor and Tony Foglio. In the years that followed, the company released new flagship producs such as Anchor California Lager, and greatly expanded production. But this growth was likely a mirage, a factor of the shared growth that was being experienced through the first half of the 2010s by almost every brewing outfit as awareness of American craft beer rapidly spread. In 2017, the brewery was sold to Sapporo, and from this point on the challenges increased and cracks began to show on the walls. In 2019, the brewery was caught in the center of a contentious fight with its own employees after opposing their drive to unionize, casting itself as a local villain in its San Francisco home base. By 2021, the struggles were clearly apparent and Sapporo decided to completely revamp the branding of Anchor Brewing and its flagship Anchor Steam, casting aside the iconic, weathered labels for colorful, simplified, modern ones that were widely reviled by fans as the product of soulless corporate thinking. And finally, just last month the brewery announced it was ceasing production of its classic, annual Christmas Ale, which had been produced every year since 1975.
