Anchor Brewing Company

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Anchor Brewing Company
Type Private
Industry Alcoholic beverages
Founded 1896
Founder(s) Ernst F. Baruth
Otto Schinkel, Jr.
Headquarters San Francisco, California, United States
37°45′49″N 122°24′02″W / 37.7636°N 122.400542°W / 37.7636; -122.400542Coordinates: 37°45′49″N 122°24′02″W / 37.7636°N 122.400542°W / 37.7636; -122.400542
Key people Frederick Louis Maytag III
Joseph Kraus
August Meyer
Henry Tietjen
Joe Allen
Lawrence Steese
Products Beer
Production output 180,000 barrels[1]
Owner(s) Keith Greggor
Tony Foglio
Website www.anchorbrewing.com

Anchor Brewing Company is an American alcoholic beverage producer, operating a brewery and distillery on Potrero Hill in San Francisco, California. The brewery was founded in 1896 and was purchased by Frederick Louis Maytag III, in 1965, saving it from closure. It moved to its current location in 1979. It is one of the last remaining breweries to produce California common beer, also known as Steam Beer, a trademark owned by the company.

History[edit]

Anchor began during the Gold Rush when Gottlieb Brekle arrived from Germany and began brewing in San Francisco. In 1896, Ernst F. Baruth and his son-in-law, Otto Schinkel, Jr., bought the old brewery on Pacific Avenue and named it Anchor. The brewery burned down in the fires that followed the 1906 earthquake, but was rebuilt at a different location in 1907.[2] There is no record of what Anchor did during Prohibition, but it resumed serving Steam Beer after Repeal, possibly as the only steam brewing company still in operation.[3] However the brewery burned down yet again within the year, and it relocated once more, this time to a building a few blocks away.

The brewery offers tours and tastings weekly, by reservation. Above the beer taps is a row of Christmas Ale bottles, one from each year beginning 1975.

The brewery continued operations into the late 1950s, but suffered heavily from the country's increasingly strong preference for the light lagers produced by the megabreweries.[4] Whereas there had been more than 4,000 breweries at the turn of the twentieth century, only 70 remained by the 1960s.[5]

Anchor shut its doors briefly in 1959, but was bought and reopened the following year.[6] By 1965, however, it was doing so poorly that it nearly closed again. Anchor's situation continued to deteriorate largely because the current owners lacked the expertise and attention to cleanliness that are required to produce consistent batches of beer for commercial consumption. The brewery gained a deserved reputation for producing sour, bad beer.[7]

In 1965, Frederick Louis Maytag III bought the brewery, saving it from closure. Maytag purchased 51 percent of the brewery for several thousand dollars, and later purchased the brewery outright. It moved to its current location near Potrero Hill in 1979.[8]

Turning the failing brewery around required more than the money in Maytag's fortune. He also had to change the character of the beer that was produced there. Between purchasing Anchor and producing the first batches of bottled Anchor Steam in 1971, Maytag had to learn the brewing process from scratch, invest in improvements to the equipment, and focus heavily on cleanliness in the brewing process.[7] The new beer was a definitive representative of California common beer, a derivative of historic steam beer.

Stirring hops into the wort in the brewhouse.

During the 1980s Anchor Steam Beer began to achieve national notice and demand increased from only a few thousand cases per year that had been produced in the old location. It was the first of the modern microbreweries, being among the first American breweries to produce a porter, barley wine, or India pale ale with regularity. Its success inspired many others to enter the brewing business,[5] notably New Albion.[9]

In 1989 the company produced a limited edition of beer (known in Sumerian as sikaru) which they named Ninkasi after the Sumerian goddess of beer. It was based on a scholarly reconstruction of an ancient Sumerian recipe known as the "hymn to Ninkasi".[10] The recipe started with a twice-baked bread known as bappir as well as malt, and was sweetened with honey and dates. It did not include hops or other bittering ingredients, so it was considerably sweeter than modern beers.[11] The recipe is described by Charlie Papazian.[12]

In 1993, the company opened Anchor Distillery, a microdistillery in the same location as the brewery, and began making a single malt rye whiskey, named Old Potrero after the hill. In 1997, the microdistillery began producing gin, called Junípero—Spanish for juniper, and a reference to Fr. Junípero Serra, an important figure in San Francisco's and California's history. Recently they have also begun producing a Jenever style gin called Genevieve, using wheat, barley, rye, and the same herbal ingredients as their Junípero gin.

In 2010, Fritz Maytag sold the company to the former Skyy vodka executives Keith Greggor and Tony Foglio, who plan to expand Anchor's business while keeping its commitment to artisan brewing.[5] In 2013, the brewery launched Anchor California Lager, a re-creation of an historic Boca Brewing lager from the 1870s.[13] The brewery also announced a major expansion plan at Pier 48 in the Mission Rock neighborhood near AT&T Park.[1] Construction is expected to begin in late 2014, and will expand Anchor's annual production capacity from 180,000 barrels to 680,000 barrels.[1]

Products[edit]

Assortment of Anchor Brewing Company's beers, displayed at the brewery's tap room

Anchor has a year-round range of seven beers, as well as several seasonal beers.[14] In 2012, Anchor introduced the Zymaster series, which places an emphasis on brewing tradition.[15] These beers are generally of an extremely limited nature.

Core beers[edit]

Name Alcohol by volume Style First brewed
Anchor Steam 4.9% Steam Beer 1896
Anchor Small 3.3% Small beer 1997
Liberty Ale 5.9% India Pale Ale 1975
Anchor Porter 5.6% Porter 1972
Old Foghorn 8–10% Barley wine 1975
Breckle's Brown 6.0% Brown ale 2010
Anchor California Lager 4.9% Lager 2012
Humming Ale 5.9% Export ale 2009
Our Barrel Ale[16] 6.5% Barrel aged beer 2009

Seasonal beers[edit]

Name Alcohol by volume Style Availability First brewed
Anchor Bock 5.5% Bock January–March 2005
Summer Beer 4.5% Wheat beer April–October 1984
BigLeaf Maple Autumn Red 6% Red ale August–October 2013
Christmas Ale

(a.k.a. Our Special Ale)

 5–6% Christmas beer November-February 1975

Zymaster Series[edit]

  • No. 1: California Lager
  • No. 2: Mark's Mild
  • No. 3: Flying Cloud San Francisco Stout
  • No. 4: Fort Ross Farmhouse Ale
  • No. 5: Harvest One American Pale Ale

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c "Anchor Brewing to Quadruple its Production with New Facilities Planned for Pier 48". February 19, 2013. Retrieved February 26, 2013. 
  2. ^ "Anchor Brewing: Our History I". Anchor Brewing Company. 27 January 2010. Archived from the original on 15 September 2010. Retrieved 28 September 2010. 
  3. ^ "Anchor Brewing: Our History II". Anchor Brewing Company. 27 January 2010. Archived from the original on 5 October 2010. Retrieved 28 September 2010. 
  4. ^ "Anchor Brewing: Our History III". Anchor Brewing Company. 27 January 2010. Archived from the original on 5 October 2010. Retrieved 28 September 2010. 
  5. ^ a b c Tom Abate (27 April 2010). "Anchor Brewing Co. sold to Greggor, Foglio". The San Francisco Chronicle. 
  6. ^ "Anchor Brewing: Our History IV". Anchor Brewing Company. 27 January 2010. Archived from the original on 5 October 2010. Retrieved 28 September 2010. 
  7. ^ a b Ogle, Maureen (2006). Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer. Orlando: Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-15-101012-7. 
  8. ^ "Anchor Brewing Company: Company History". Funding Universe. Archived from the original on 27 May 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-06. 
  9. ^ Acitelli, Tom (2013). The Audacity of Hops: The History of America's Craft Beer Revolution. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. p. 335. ISBN 9781613743881. OCLC 828193572. 
  10. ^ Helfferich, Carla (17 July 1991). "Beer before Bread". Alaska Science Forum. Retrieved 25 February 2011. 
  11. ^ "Sumerian Beer Project". Anchor Brewing. Archived from the original on 15 September 2010. Retrieved 23 September 2010. 
  12. ^ Papazian, Charlie (1994). Home Brewer's Companion. New York: Avon Books. ISBN 0-380-77287-6. 
  13. ^ "Anchor Brewing Company Launches Anchor California Lager® And Forms Partnership with California State Parks Foundation". February 7, 2013. Retrieved February 26, 2013. 
  14. ^ "Anchor Steam | Beers | Anchor Steam". Anchor Brewing Company. Retrieved 2013-02-26. 
  15. ^ "Zymaster™ Series No. 1: California Lager – Part I". Anchor Brewing Company. Retrieved 22 September 2013. 
  16. ^ Nason, Adam. "The story behind Anchor Our Barrel Ale". Beerpulse.com. Retrieved 22 September 2013. 

External links[edit]

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