No more. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
It just ran out of steam. After 127 years of beers in San Francisco, Anchor Steam Brewery has shut down, a turn of events that is not entirely surprising if you’ve been following recent news.
In June, journalist Dave Infante reported that the brewery was no longer going to produce its popular Christmas Ale or distribute its beers outside of California. (The company blamed manufacturing and packaging costs for the Christmas Ale’s demise.) Just yesterday, it was also reported that Anchor was possibly going to be sold by its parent company, Sapporo, which had bought the brewery in 2017.
Spokesperson Sam Singer tells the San Francisco Chronicle that Anchor had been losing millions of dollars a year, and that the pandemic (Anchor sold mostly to restaurants and bars), inflation, and competition “left us with no choice” but to close up shop.
Anchor is a historic brand. It is referred to as the first craft brewery and survived the shift in this country toward large-scale production macro-lagers. While now you can’t find a midsize American without at least a handful of micro-breweries producing IPAs infused with black currants and cocoa nibs, this wasn’t the case all that long ago. When Fritz Maytag bought the company in 1969, he abandoned the use of food coloring and started buying malted grains. In the ’80s, he took advantage of the craft-beer boom to expand distribution. Most important, Anchor Steam was just good beer.
The reasons for Anchor’s demise seem various. Employees who spoke with Infante about the company’s uncertain future painted a tense picture, saying Sapporo has held off on plant maintenance and was contentious with the union (which formed in 2019). Sales data also shows that Americans are drinking less beer, a downward trend that has been happening for several years and has put the squeeze on midsize breweries. (As of 2022, 60 percent of the market was controlled by Anheuser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors.)
In 2018, Sam Calagione of DogFish Head commented on the saturation of craft breweries, arguing a “market correction” could be coming. Other, not-so-historic breweries have been consolidating and closing, with 319 breweries shutting down in 2022.
