Anchor Brewing Company parent organization Sapporo Breweries
Anchor Brewing Company is an American alcoholic beverage producer, operating a brewery 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.In 2010, the company was purchased by The Griffin Group, an investment and consulting company focused on beverage alcohol brands. The brewery became one facet of the Anchor Brewers & Distillers, LLC portfolio.On 3 August 2017, it was acquired by Japanese brewing giant Sapporo Breweries for US$85 million.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". 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. The recipe is described by Charlie Papazian. Also in 1989, the brewing process for a batch of Steam was interrupted during the Loma Prieta earthquake. The resulting (altered) brew was released as normal Anchor Steam, but with an inverted label; this beer has come to be referred to as Earthquake Beer.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, Maytag sold the company to former Skyy vodka executives Keith Greggor and Tony Foglio, from Novato, California, who planned to expand Anchor's business while keeping its commitment to artisan brewing. In 2013, the brewery launched Anchor California Lager, a re-creation of a historic Boca Brewing lager from the 1870s. The brewery also announced a major expansion plan at Pier 48 in the Mission Rock neighborhood near Oracle Park, which would expand Anchor's maximum annual production capacity from 180,000 barrels to 680,000 barrels.In 2014, Anchor officially announced Anchor IPA, the first India Pale Ale in the brewery's history. Anchor ended production of its winter seasonal Bock in 2014 and replaced it a year later with Anchor Winter Wheat.In 2017, Anchor was purchased by Sapporo.In 2019, Anchor Brewing workers voted by an almost 2-to-1 margin to join the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, making Anchor Brewing – including Anchor Public Taps, the brewery's on-site brew pub – the first unionized craft brewery in the United States.In 2021, Anchor Brewing announced a major makeover of their logo and beer labels. On the eve of their 125th birthday, the brewery replaced their vintage-looking labels with a large Anchor logo in a two-tone color schemes per beer. Most labels were not changed in decades or at all. The beer itself remained unchanged.
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