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   Anchor, first and oldest US craft brewery, to shut down after 127 years   
      
   ‘Grandfather of American craft brewing,’ started in San Francisco in 1896,   
   to end operations amid financial struggles   
   Edwin Rios   
   @edwin_d_rios   
   Thu 13 Jul 2023 15.58 BST   
   Last modified on Thu 13 Jul 2023 17.30 BST   
      
   After 127 years, Anchor Brewing is no more.   
      
   The first and oldest craft brewery in the US, which started in San   
   Francisco in 1896, announced on Wednesday that it would end its operations   
   after it struggled financially as a result of a competitive market,   
   inflation and declining sales, particularly after the storied brand’s 2017   
   acquisition by the Japanese beer distributor, Sapporo.   
      
   Those factors “left the company with no option but to make this sad   
   decision to cease operations” a company spokesperson, Sam Singer, said in   
   a statement.   
      
   Garrett Oliver, brewmaster of Brooklyn Brewery, mourned the loss of the   
   company in an interview with the Guardian.   
      
   “Anchor was essentially the grandfather of all American craft brewing,” he   
   said. “When I was still a home brewer in the mid-1980s, Anchor Steam was   
   well-loved but their massively hoppy Liberty Ale was a revelation. You   
   know that old saying about a band who only had maybe 50 people at its   
   first show… but every one of those people went and started a band? That   
   was Anchor Brewing Company. And all their people were the best.”   
   Fritz Maytag uses a long-handled ladle to check the Anchor Steam beer in   
   one of the large copper vats of his brewery in San Francisco, on 4   
   February 1986.   
   Fritz Maytag uses a long-handled ladle to check the Anchor Steam beer in   
   one of the large copper vats of his brewery in San Francisco, on 4   
   February 1986. Photograph: Jeff Reinking/AP   
      
   Anchor’s decline represents the wider economic challenges craft beer   
   distributors face in the years since the pandemic when consumer habits   
   have changed and sales have suffered across the industry, leading to   
   smaller breweries being acquired by major beer distributors, to rebrand,   
   or to cease altogether. Sales are down.   
      
   “The stake through the heart of Anchor was the pandemic,” Singer told the   
   New York Times. He added that 70% of the company’s products had been sold   
   to restaurants and bars, which suffered in the years since the Covid   
   pandemic.   
      
   The company was on the verge of bankruptcy in the 1960s, with the   
   headlines in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1959 spelling its fate: “Last   
   Steam Beer – An Institution Dies.” It had already survived through San   
   Francisco’s historic earthquake, which destroyed its operations, and the   
   prohibition era. But after Fritz Maytag acquired the brewery in 1965, the   
   storied company ushered in an era of specialty beer popularity, guided by   
   its popular pale ale and its bold Christmas ale.   
      
   Harry Schuhmacher, publisher of the trade publication Craft Business   
   Daily, told CNN that the end of Anchor represented a “sad day in the   
   history of craft brewing in America”.   
      
   “I know Fritz must be heartbroken,” Schuhmacher added. “He literally   
   nurtured that brewery from insolvency in the 60s to becoming San   
   Francisco’s hometown beer and symbolic of America’s craft beer   
   resurgence.”   
      
   During the pandemic, they rebranded and sold its products in grocery   
   stores. But in the last month, the company limited its distribution to   
   California and ceased making its popular Christmas ale after 50 years.   
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   Anchor ultimately “couldn’t make up for the significant loss of sales”,   
   Singer told the New York Times. “The bottom line is that Anchor ran out of   
   money, and it ran out of time.”   
      
   The company has given its 61 workers 60 days’ notice and would continue to   
   sell whatever beer remains in its possession through the end of July.   
      
   Over the years, Sapporo made “repeated efforts” to sell Anchor, without   
   luck. Anchor’s statement left open hope that history would repeat itself,   
   noting it was “possible that a buyer will step forward for the brewery as   
   part of the liquidation process”.   
      
   “It takes a lot of creativity, nimbleness and no small amount of luck for   
   breweries, even great ones, to survive all storms and remain the choice of   
   the people,” said Oliver. “I hope they climb back somehow.”   
      
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