Good Memories of Anchor Brewing

Rumors and DMs have been flowing for the past few weeks about the impending doom of beloved Anchor Brewing out of San Francisco, CA. When I began getting pinged, I chuckled as Anchor Brewing has been such an after thought, I forgot they were even a thing. No disrespect to the employees or the highly reputable beers from the brewery, they just have not had any presence here in Southern California for at the very least, the last 8 years in my neck of the woods. Sure enough, it was announced that Anchor Brewing, recently owned by Sapporo, would be ceasing operations.

I’ve never had a bad Anchor Beer, maybe some of their last attempts at a new product didn’t wow me, but never a bad beer. I have fond memories of my journey exploring California beer since 1999, and Anchor is part of that, it’s just that when they left town, I didn’t think to look them up so I could revisit and re-enjoy those memories. I think I am ok with them riding into the sunset. I’m pretty sure I’m not interested in a company like Firestone Walker, Sierra Nevada, Drakes Brewery (home of Bear Republic Racer 5) brewing Anchor beers. I’ve seen a lot of people take the news as if their family dog died, and I suppose I can’t relate to being bummed about a beer I haven’t been able to enjoy at any regularity since about 2015. This is a company that was overshadowed by most of it’s peers in the market 5-10 years prior to that.

I am still grateful for the memories that I have tied to all of their core beers, in no particular order, I’d like to look back.

Anchor Steam

Fresh in college, I was introduced to California, and a whole slew of California craft beer favorites like Mendocino Red Tail Ale, North Coast Acme Pale Ale, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Firestone Double Barrel Ale. Dudes a good 10 – 20 years older than me would introduce me to these beers at kick backs, and kind of fill me in on these good grocery store beers. When I’d go to a bar or restaurant, and I had two good beers to pick from, usually it was Anchor Steam that was always there, tried and true. Toasty, crushable, flavorful, seemingly full bodied all at the same time. The places that served it always would offer it with a sense of pride that this was California’s beer.

Anchor Our Special Ale / Anchor Christmas

Before there was a craft brewery or a craft beer scene in Los Angeles, we had a few early good beer institutions that paved the good beer way for us. We had Crown City Brewery, an amazing beer bar in Pasadena, Lucky Baldwins, also in Pasadena and The Stuffed Sandwich, near by in San Gabriel. These places would always have seasonal or brand based special events, and by late fall, any of these places would have a few vintages of Anchor Christmas on tap. This is where I learned that I liked this beer a lot but could never place it in any particular category to share why I liked it so much. There was always so much folk lore around this beer, partially due to Anchor’s guarded secrecy surrounding this old friend of a beer. What was different from last year’s in terms of spices, is it stronger this year, did you see what 3 years does to this beer? It was our annual right to discuss these things whether any of it was reality based or not.

Anchor Old Fog Horn

Just like Anchor Christmas, my fondest memories of Anchor Old Fog Horn, a Barleywine Ale, is tied to Crown City Brewery and The Stuffed Sandwich. The OGs at the bar took so much pride in mentioning this was a very strong beer, in both alcohol content and flavor. This also introduced me to the concept of a vertical of aged beer. I do recall my first impression was it was pretty powerful, but in my mid twenties, this wasn’t really an issue to get a little fired up off of some barleywine on a Sunday during football. While it became harder and harder to find on tap, as beer bars would be stuck with this beer forever, I’d have a little bit whenever I’d see it. Places like Whole Foods Market seemed to keep Anchor bottles going for a long time.

Anchor Liberty Ale

I don’t have any particular memories with Liberty, I just remember loving it once I tried it. One common thread with all my experiences with Anchor beers were that I never identified them by style first, but as a special Anchor offering. I was never thinking man, what a great Pale Ale, or what a trusty IPA. It was just a great Liberty Ale, if that makes sense. Last time I really enjoyed a session of Liberty Ale was at The Other Room in Venice, where it was on tap, that was probably somewhere around 2008.

Anchor Porter

When I was in my ticking era, I was glued to RateBeer, and at the time, they were so indexed, I was able to try the best of styles and by country. I remember it was suggested Anchor Porter was at the tippy top of the list of porters, and at that point, it was hard for me to be wowed by any porter. This is what changed my mind. It’s such a complex, beautiful, flavorful dark beer, it became the only porter I would buy and drink from then on. To this day, out of reflex, when someone tells me “they aren’t into porters, or porters usually suck”, I reply that they should try Anchor Porter if they can find it.

The later years

As The Full Pint was in full force, we we were part of the news cycle when Anchor would attempt some new products to keep up with what was going on with California beer and the experimental beer movement. It was very challenging to watch them perform a balancing act of remaining their classic, minimalist self while also trying to experiment with fruit beers, saisons, lagers and IPAs. At the time, they still had the soft old timey branding and even though we were a decade before the age of loud, obnoxious IP theft cans, they stuck out like a sore thumb on the shelf, but in a way that you would quickly skip them because they felt dated and passé. Anchor Christmas never seemed to get the love, and any bottle shop that got tricked into buying six-packs, cases and magnums were guaranteed to be stuck with them for an eternity. I mentioned above that Whole Foods Market seemed to be their biggest recent steward, and even they would be stuck with some immovable Anchor Christmas if they didn’t buy carefully.

Now that I’m in my forties, buying a twelve pack of Anchor Steam or Liberty Ale sounds majestic. Although there was a pretty bad reaction to them changing the Anchor Steam label to resemble Land Shark Lager, they always had the opportunity for throwback labels for those easy nostalgia sales. But it wasn’t meant to be. So I am happy that Anchor was an important part of my beer education and craft beer journey and will leave it like that.