Anchor Brewing Company facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Anchor Brewing Company

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Alcoholic beverages
Founded	1896
Founder	Ernst F. Baruth Otto Schinkel, Jr.
Headquarters	Potrero Hill, San Francisco, California , United States 37°45′49″N 122°24′02″W / 37.7636°N 122.4005°W / 37.7636; -122.4005
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Frederick Louis Maytag III Arnold Schwarzenegger Joseph Kraus August Meyer Henry Tietjen Mark Carpenter Joe Allen Jim Glowner Lawrence Steese Garrett Kelly
Products	Beer
Production output	132,000 barrels (2013)
Parent	Sapporo Holdings

Anchor Brewing Company is an American company that makes alcoholic beverages. It has a brewery on Potrero Hill in San Francisco, California. The company started in 1896. Frederick Louis Maytag III bought it in 1965, which saved it from closing down. The brewery moved to its current spot in 1979.

Anchor Brewing is famous for making a special type of beer called Steam Beer. This is also known as California common beer. Anchor Brewing owns the trademark for the name "Steam Beer".

In 2010, The Griffin Group bought the company. This group focuses on drink brands. In 2017, a big Japanese brewing company called Sapporo Breweries bought Anchor Brewing for $85 million.

History of Anchor Brewing

Anchor Brewing began during the California Gold Rush. A man named Gottlieb Brekle came from Germany and started brewing beer in San Francisco. In 1896, Ernst F. Baruth and his son-in-law, Otto Schinkel, Jr., bought an old brewery. They named it Anchor Brewery.

The brewery burned down after the 1906 earthquake. It was rebuilt in 1907 in a new place. During Prohibition (when alcohol was illegal), we don't know what Anchor did. But after Prohibition ended, they started making Steam Beer again. They might have been the only company still making it. The brewery burned down again that same year. So, it moved once more to a nearby building.

The brewery kept working into the late 1950s. But people started preferring lighter beers made by very large breweries. In the early 1900s, there were over 4,000 breweries. By the 1960s, only about 70 were left.

Anchor closed for a short time in 1959. It was bought and reopened the next year. But by 1965, it was doing very badly. It almost closed again. The owners at that time didn't have the right skills or equipment. They also didn't keep the brewery clean enough. This meant the beer they made wasn't always good.

Fritz Maytag Saves the Brewery

In 1965, Frederick Louis "Fritz" Maytag III bought the brewery. He saved it from closing. He first bought 51 percent of the company. Later, he bought the whole brewery. It moved to its current home near Potrero Hill in 1979.

To make the brewery successful again, Maytag needed more than just money. He also had to improve the beer. He learned how to brew beer from the beginning. He also invested in better equipment. And he made sure the brewing process was very clean. The new beer was a great example of California common beer.

Stirring hops into the wort in the brewhouse.

At first, Anchor only sold its beer on tap to about 30 local places. They had always sold the brand. In 1971, Anchor started selling Anchor Steam in bottles. This helped the company grow.

In the 1980s, Anchor Steam Beer became well-known across the country. Demand for it grew a lot. Anchor was one of the first modern microbreweries. They were among the first American breweries to regularly make porter, barley wine, and India pale ale. Their success inspired many other people to start brewing.

Open-top fermentation tanks are used

In 1989, the company made a special limited edition beer. They named it Ninkasi after the ancient goddess of beer from Sumer. This beer was based on an old Sumerian recipe. It used a special bread and malt. It was sweetened with honey and dates. It did not have hops, so it was sweeter than today's beers.

Also in 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake happened. This earthquake interrupted the brewing of a batch of Steam Beer. The beer was still sold as normal Anchor Steam. But it had an upside-down label. This beer is now called Earthquake Beer.

New Products and Ownership

In 1993, Anchor opened Anchor Distillery. This was a small distillery in the same place as the brewery. They started making a single malt rye whiskey called Old Potrero. It was named after the hill. In 1997, the distillery began making gin called Junípero. This name comes from the Spanish word for juniper. It also refers to Fr. Junípero Serra, an important person in California's history. They also make a gin called Genevieve.

In 2010, Fritz Maytag sold the company. It was bought by Keith Greggor and Tony Foglio. They planned to make Anchor's business bigger. But they also wanted to keep its focus on making craft beer. In 2013, the brewery launched Anchor California Lager. This beer was a new version of an old lager from the 1870s. The brewery also announced plans to expand a lot. They wanted to increase how much beer they could make each year.

In 2014, Anchor officially announced Anchor IPA. This was the first India Pale Ale the brewery had ever made.

In 2017, Sapporo Breweries bought Anchor.

In 2019, workers at Anchor Brewing voted to join a union. This made Anchor Brewing the first unionized craft brewery in the United States. This included their brew pub, Anchor Public Taps.

In 2021, Anchor Brewing changed its logo and beer labels. For their 125th birthday, they updated their old-fashioned labels. They now use a big Anchor logo with two colors for each beer. The beer inside the bottles stayed the same.

Products

Anchor Brewing makes seven types of beer all year round. They also make several seasonal beers. In 2012, Anchor started the Zymaster series. This series focuses on old brewing traditions. These beers are usually made in very small amounts.

Core beers

Seasonal beers

Zymaster Series

• 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
• No. 6: Saaremaa Ale
• No. 7: Potrero Hill Sour Mash IPA
• No. 8: Luxardo Cherry Ale

Images for kids

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  The Anchor Brewing Company building on Potrero Hill in San Francisco (2020)

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  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.