The Food Disruptors

The Food Disruptors


#48 Anchor Steam: The Vanguard of a Craft Beer Renaissance

August 01, 2019

Today, those of us who enjoy beer expect to plop down at our neighborhood brew pub and order up a cold, fresh, tasty craft beer. We do not realize how endangered was this alcoholic refreshment option. During the twentieth century, economic and political pressures resulted in massive consolidation in the beer industry.

Commercial breweries previously peaked at 4131 in 1873. That number reached a nadir in 1983, with 51 U.S. beer companies. Of those, the top six controlled 92 percent of the market. Today, less than four decades after the low point, the number of breweries in the U.S. exceeds its previous high. We owe this resurgence to the imaginative vision, entrepreneurial risk-taking, and persistence of one dedicated beer aficionado, Fritz Maytag.

In 1965, Maytag purchased a nearly defunct San Francisco brewery with a long history, a checkered ownership record, and a spotty reputation for consistent quality, although when Anchor Steam Beer was good, it was quite good. The equipment was old, the infrastructure gone, and the market microscopic. But Maytag saw -- or dreamt -- potential for a great craft beer, when almost nobody remembered when beer was local.

Many Food Disruptors in history have focused on making money with resultant food system changes an unplanned collateral effect. In contrast, before he focused on maximizing the monetary value of his investment in the old brewery, Maytag sought to change an important strand of food culture. He revitalized craft beer, which had all but gone extinct in the face of beer behemoths.

Big Beer made a light, commodity-like lager and pumped it out through a distribution network that they controlled. Nobody in the beer-drinking public thought to challenge the status quo until Maytag bought Anchor Steam. It took him nearly a decade to turn a profit, and even longer to realize a sustainable industry infrastructure, which we take for granted today.

The beer story continues to build with Big Beer following the market into the craft space via acquisitions. Not least, after interim ownership by Skye Vodka from 2010-2017, Anchor Brewing Company was sold to former Skyy Vodka executives. In 2017, Big Beer, in the form of Sapporo, acquired Anchor. For a bit of historical context, tune in to Part 1 of The Food Disruptors' quick tour of the Anchor Steam Beer Story.

 

Anchor Brewing

BeerHistory.com

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