Anchor Steam Beer
date: label: date made
content: 1989 - 1990
label: date made
content: 1989
name: label: maker
content: Anchor Brewing Co.
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: One (1) beer bottle
label: Description (Brief)
content: Brown bottle with blue cap and yellow labels. The main label is upside down. "Anchor Steam Beer" "Made in San Francisco since 1896". Bottled in 1989-1990 right after a major earthquake struck San Francisco.
label: Description
content: The beer in this bottle of Anchor Steam Beer was being brewed at Anchor Brewing Company in San Francisco, California, when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck the region shortly after 5:00 pm on October 17, 1989, with a magnitude of 6.9. It was the strongest earthquake to strike the city since 1906. As a result of the quake, Anchor Brewing Co. lost power, halting its pumps, until power was restored at 9:45 pm. When the beer was ready to be bottled on November 16, 1989, Anchor owner Fritz Maytag III instructed the labels to be affixed to the bottles upside down, to designate this singular batch of “Earthquake Beer.”
label: Description
content: In 1965, Maytag had purchased the historic but struggling Steam Beer Brewing Company (later, Anchor Brewing Company). With his entrepreneurial roots and zeal for science, Maytag revitalized the brewery. He perfected the brewery’s recipe for steam beer, an effervescent style that had originated in nineteenth-century San Francisco, and brewed European styles—porter, barleywine, pale ale—then unfamiliar to many Americans. As a self-taught brewer and savvy entrepreneur, Maytag inspired many who dreamed of opening their own small breweries. Historians consider Anchor Brewing Company to have been the first post-Prohibition American microbrewery. Microbreweries, brewpubs, and “craft” breweries proliferated throughout the nation in the 1970s, 1980s, and beyond. In August 2023, Sapporo USA liquidated Anchor Brewing Company.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: California, San Francisco
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Food Technology
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Anchor Brewing Company through Mike Minami
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2023.0113.08
label: accession number
content: 2023.0113
label: catalog number
content: 2023.0113.08
objectType: label: Object Name
content: bottle, beer
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: glass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 7 1/2 in x 2 1/2 in; 19.05 cm x 6.35 cm