I was in Napa, CA recently. To get to Napa, we (me, my wife, youngest daughter, and son-in-law) flew into San Francisco, CA, rented a car, and drove north. On our return trip home we decided to spend a day in San Francisco before catching our flight the next morning. When we knew that we were going to spend some time in San Francisco, I had one destination in mind – Anchor Brewing.
Any craft beer drinker worth his or her salt knows of Anchor Brewing. It’s status among American craft breweries is legendary and iconic. For those of you unfamiliar with its story and historic significance, here is the CliffNotes version.
In 1871, Gottlieb Brekle, a German immigrant purchased an old beer and billiards saloon on San Francisco’s Pacific Street. He transformed it into a brewery. It was not called Anchor back then. The Anchor name did not materialize until 1896 when, another German brewer, Ernst F. Baruth and his son-in-law, Otto Schinkel, Jr., purchased the brewery and called it Anchor. In the years that followed, Anchor Brewing faced and overcame a number of challenges. In 1906 the brewery was destroyed by a devastating fire; the fire being the result of the great San Francisco earthquake. A new Anchor Brewery was built, on Market Street. In 1920, Prohibition arrived. Unlike many breweries across the country, Anchor opted not to produce alternative products (e.g., ice cream or soft drinks) during Prohibition. The brewery sat idle. In 1934, Anchor Brewery suffered another fire. Once again, a replacement brewery was constructed; this one being only a few blocks from Anchor’s present-day location. In 1959, Anchor Brewery was shut for a brief period by its then owners, Joe Allen and Joe Krause. In 1960, the brewery was as purchased and reopened by Lawrence Steese. But these proved challenging times for a small brewery like Anchor. Mass produced lighter lagers were growing in popularity, and Anchor struggled to retain accounts and maintain sales. By 1965, Steese was ready to close down Anchor Brewing. Enter stage left, Fritz Maytag.
Fritz Maytag is the great-grandson of Fred Maytag, founder of the Maytag Corporation. Fritz was a big fan of the beer brewed at Anchor Brewery. So when he heard that it was going to close, he decided to do something about it; he purchased a fifty-one percent share in the brewery. With that single act, and the subsequent success of Anchor Brewery, Maytag has become known to many as the “Godfather” of craft beer. Maytag revitalized the brewery. Both its portfolio and sales of beer expanded. Such was Anchor’s success that by the late-1970s, they were looking for a new production facility. In 1979, the moved into their current home on Mariposa Street. The building, had started life as a coffee roasters in 1937. In 2010 Maytag retired, selling the brewery to Keith Greggor and Tony Foglio. In 2017, Anchor Brewing was sold to the Japanese brewing giant Sapporo. The purchase price was a reported eighty-five million dollars.
Maytag’s influence on craft brewing extended well beyond what he achieved at Anchor. Maytag assisted other prospective craft brewers and was thus instrumental in assisting the broader growth of the fledgling craft brewing industry. In a 2015 paper, published in the Journal of Wine Economics, Kenneth G. Elzinga, Carol Horton Tremblay, and Victor J. Tremblay, observe that “many early entrants clustered near Anchor Brewing to learn the art of craft brewing from Maytag . . . several of the pioneers in craft brewing were in geographic proximity to Maytag’s operation, visited his facility, and learned (and received encouragement) from him.”
Anchor offers guided tours of its brewery, so we signed up for one. The cost was $25 per person. We arrived at the brewery several hours before our tour time. This gave us time to have lunch. We found a couple of lunch options within walking distance of the brewery, and decided upon Dos Piñas Taqueria. As I was standing in line waiting to order our food, I noticed a poster on the wall that stated, “We support Anchor Steam Workers”. Six days prior to our tour of the brewery, the members of a worker’s organizing committee had delivered a letter to the Anchor management requesting that they formally recognize an employees’ union.
Following lunch we headed over to Anchor Public Taps, the taproom across the street from the main production brewery. In addition to being a taproom, Anchor Public Taps is a pilot brewery, where a number of small batch beers are produced. These are available exclusively for sale in the taproom. I opted for Dank Denali, a session IPA.
After Anchor Public Taps, it was time for our tour of the main production brewery. After entering the brewery we were greeted at the brewery’s bar by what would be our friendly and highly informative tour guide, Pedro. Pedro provided us with a history of Anchor Brewery and a sample of the brewery’s signature product, Anchor Steam. First brewed in 1896, Anchor Steam is widely recognized today as an iconic American beer. After an overview of Anchor’s history, Pedro offered us another beer (I opted for their Anchor Porter) and, with brew in hand, we started our tour of the brewery. The tour was, in many ways, a typical brewery tour. We learned about the brewing process and saw where the magic happened. Buy this was not a typical brewery. This was an iconic brewery, and the building for me constituted something of a sacred space. It was not the original space occupied by Anchor. Nor was it the original space purchased by Fritz Maytag. But it was a space that Anchor now occupied. It was a space that represented and symbolized a revolutuon; a revolution in which ordinary beer drinkers stood up and declared, with a certain conviction, that ‘we can do better’. And it was a conviction upon which many acted, witness the seven thousand plus breweries that dot the American landscape today.
