A Heavy Anchor For Beer Geeks to Carry
Hi. Hope you’re doing okay.
Sapporo shutting down Anchor Brewing this week is nothing but a bummer. A brewery that’s been here since the 1800s (there during the freaking gold rush, people), now going away.
It’s been pissing me off this week seeing people blame beer geeks for this.
This is not on us.
When a brewery sells to big beer or some corporate entity, beer geeks are no longer responsible for what happens to the brewery.
If an indie brewery sells-out, that is them breaking up with a large portion of its fan base. They should know that. And if the brewery doesn’t understand that, they never deserved that indie beer drinker fan in the first place.
You couple that with Anchor not being very dynamic before selling and then Sapporo not knowing what the hell to do with a craft beer icon, and you get a bankrupt brewery.
You feel bad for the employees. You feel bad for Northern California beer. You feel band for history. And you worry if one of Sapporo’s other iconic “craft” beer brewery (Stone) is going to be the next one to go.
Biggest lesson here, whether you are indie or buyout: Don’t take beer geeks for granted.
Side note: Some of the best writing on this Anchor thing (and there has been a lot) has been done by Beervana Blog, you can read it here. (It’s really good, please read it)
Two of my favorite quotes in the eulogy style post are:
Anchor was at once the past and the future, the proof that small breweries could exist outside an ecosystem of commodity canned lagers.
Whatever craft beer is, it’s a different thing now that Anchor is gone.
Beer Instagram Post of the Week
If there is one volcano beer you’ll have this year, let it be this iconic one from Einstok:
Go Buy Some Anchor Before You Can’t
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Since Anchor is going away, I lifted my “don’t buy corporate beer” ban and bought a six-pack for the first time in forever (certainly before the bad label change).
To add to the sadness, I gotta say, it’s as tasty and as easy drinking as I remember. Hopefully someone is able to pick it up in post-bankruptcy and put it out again.
But anyway, take care of yourself and have a great week with your beers!
-Mikey
Peace ✌️ Beer 🍻 & Metal 🤘
I have a lot of thoughts about Anchor, a LOT. I'll take a bit, i've not had any Anchor for probably a couple of years.... Not that i would have turned one down, but i never saw it, ... and for me, they don't ship.
I cannot blame Fritz for selling, that is how retirement works, and he sold it to a local group i think... then a BIG company threw a bunch of money at them, and well...
I sure hope nothing like this happens to Stone, but, like i've read elsewhere, the good news is that there is a lot of Great Beer that is local to semi local -Talking to you firestone and barrelhouse ...
Here's hoping!
I really hope someone will purchase Anchor. I have not seen Anchor in my local market in So Cal. One of my first go to craft beers. It is really sad to hear of its demise. But is the market over saturated? Is the craft beer market correcting itself?