Pioneering Anchor Brewing Co. to halt operations after 127 years with beer sales in decline

San Francisco’s 127-year-old Anchor Brewing Co. will shut down and liquidate after years of declining gross sales, citing powerful financial circumstances.

Anchor was a trailblazer within the U.S., brewing craft beers within the Seventies when most Americans had been loyal to a handful of main manufacturers. Its distinctive brewing methods ignited demand past the town borders of San Francisco, and it shortly grew to become a sought-after prize by beer geeks in every single place.

In current years, nevertheless, brewers have confronted rising issue turning a revenue with a proliferation of canned cocktails, crafted drinks, spirits and wines dinging beer gross sales. Lockdowns in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic pressured brewers additional.

Last 12 months, total beer gross sales quantity slid 3.1 per cent within the U.S., based on the Brewers Association. Craft brewer gross sales quantity ticked 0.1 per cent larger in the course of the interval, however imports are rising.

“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,” brewery spokesperson Sam Singer stated in a written assertion Wednesday.

Anchor Brewing had teetered close to insolvency earlier than and within the Sixties it was acquired by a Stanford University grad, Fritz Maytag. Maytag carried out new brewing practices resembling dry hopping, and commenced bottling the beer in 1971, based on the brewer.

By the mid-Seventies, Anchor Brewing had assembled a strong portfolio of revered brews — together with Anchor Porter, Liberty Ale, Old Foghorn Barleywine Ale and its first annual Christmas Ale, which grew to become a vacation custom in locales removed from San Francisco.

Jeff Alworth, writer of The Beer Bible, stated in a weblog publish Wednesday that Maytag “sparked a revival in small-scale brewing” that may remodel the trade and provides the rising craft brewing trade its ethos and perspective.

“He had this approach to beer, which was, `We’re going to use traditional ingredients and we’re going to use traditional methods and we’re going to be defiant as we do it and we’re going to be hyper-local,”‘ Alworth stated. “It served as a blueprint.”

Anchor Brewing was offered to the Japanese brewer Sapporo in 2017 and it is determined to discontinue the model.

Anchor stated that it made repeated efforts over the previous 12 months to search out consumers for the brewery and its manufacturers, however that it was unable to search out one. It remains to be doable {that a} purchaser will come ahead as a part of the liquidation course of, the corporate stated.

The news of the brewery closing got here as a shock to San Francisco native Frances Baxter, who stated Anchor Steam beer is basic San Francisco similar to sourdough bread.

“It’s just really sad because it’s over 100 years of history and it’s something so uniquely San Francisco,” Baxter stated. “We lost so many sourdough bakeries ΓǪ it’s a shame to lose this, too, because I’m not sure anyone is going to save it now.”

Baxter went to Anchor on Wednesday to purchase Christmas Ale for a brother who lives in Pennsylvania, however the brewery was closed for the day. She stated one other brother would attempt to purchase the beer for him Thursday as a result of she might be working.

“A lot of these companies just buy something and dispose of it, and that’s apparently what Sapporo is doing. It’s just a shame,” Baxter stated.

Anchor lately introduced that it will restrict gross sales of its beers to California and that it will minimize manufacturing of its Anchor Christmas Ale in an effort to chop prices.

The firm has stopped brewing and can proceed packaging and distributing the beer available whereas accessible via across the finish of the month.

The brewer is giving staff a 60-day discover and plans to offer transition help and separation packages.

“Anchor has invested great passion and significant resources into the company,” Singer stated. “Unfortunately, today’s economic pressures have made the business no longer sustainable, and we had to make the heartbreaking decision to cease operations.”

Anchor Public Taps will stay open to promote what stock stays, together with a small batch of 2023 Anchor Christmas Ale.

The batch was brewed previous to the corporate’s choice to cancel the nationwide launch.

AP reporters Janie Har and Olga Rodriguez contributed from San Francisco.