Beer in the new era

I suppose this sort of post is very much in character from a beer as (usually) innocuous as Bud-Light:

pic.twitter.com/oyyfPzd1FM

— Anheuser-Busch (@AnheuserBusch) April 14, 2023

Maybe insipid is a better word? Mealy-mouthed?

Did they really think this 'boycott' would have any real impact? It's already forgotten

Guessing it had an impact in old-man bars in certain states…

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/13884/49215/

this my jam

https://vimeo.com/830643144

Two Hearted still my fav

My 8 year old told me recently that for as long as he can remember his mental image for 'beer' has a bottle of two hearted

Not a fan of ambers

Is that directed at Two Hearted? Because that's an IPA (and an excellent one imo.) I once picked it out in a blind taste test easily, the floral hop profile is very unique.

Otherwise yeah, amber ale is mostly pretty meh.

Weather's been super hot here, I've been enjoying some lagers and pilsners, and a few Maibocks.

My mistake, I thought the bells 2 was an amber ale
I’ve had it many times but never felt the need to seek it out

https://i.imgur.com/NQAw9CD.jpg
This is a bells 2 and it is an amber

I honestly don't think I've ever seen this.

https://storage.googleapis.com/images-cub-prd-9400d55.cub.prd.v8.commerce.mi9cloud.com/product-images/detail/5908ee7f-830d-471d-9e74-58cf56859045.jpeg

What

i have suddenly lost my taste for "sweet" hazies.

tired hands' "alien church" is now my "king of beers." it has the rich, oaty mouthfeel but a dry finish.

that bells' amber ale is an ai generated prank btw. the only "bells" beer has a fish on it and it is an ipa.

Ha. it's real, but iirc they have new owners, maybe they did it.

it has all the tells of an ai rendering. for example, the person featured on the box has unusually thin legs and a long neck.

Ehh

Lmao Two Hearted is not amber and Bells Amber is a classic in its own right

Source: I am from Michigan and drink a lot of beer

My go-to Bells beer is the Lager of the Lakes. Pretty decent for a domestic lager. Another one I'm currently enjoying is the Sierra Nevada Summerfest.

Scab beer

https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2023/06/26/surly-omar-ansari-declining-sales-beer-thc

Anyone in the Baltimore/DC area drinking Union beers? They don’t know their distribution range but they are consistently great.

Anchor Steam will stop distributing nationally and just focus on California..

Also: they're likely discontinuing their Christmas Ale, which has been around forever

There’s a recent episode of TrueAnon discussing Anchor, the Sapporo takeover, the union drive (which te host was involved in), and the recent changes.

https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/anchor-brewing-company-to-cease-operations-in-san-francisco/

sad

It's a real bummer

I used to really like the Liberty Ale and the Porter, but I've seen neither in a store or on tap for years. You'd think Sapporo would bring better distribution, but that didn't seem to be the case... also the repackaging of the Steam Beer was a major fail

Yeah, I'm in the northeast and it's been at least 3-4 years since I can recall seeing any of their products regularly and the new packaging was so ugly and generic that it looked like a knock off brand. The classic packing was iconic as far as beer labels go and likely would have inspired me to pick it up every once in a while for pure nostalgia if I still saw it around.

Anyone in the Baltimore/DC area drinking Union beers? They don’t know their distribution range but they are consistently great.

I had an Anchor Steam on tap a few weeks ago when they announced ceasing national distribution. Not flashy, but definitely good.

A good solid standby, a shame to lose it. It's also just weird thinking last year's Christmas beer will be the last time I ever had that.

That said, writing was kinda on the wall over the past few weeks -- the big cutbacks announced the other week was a clear signal.

Yeah, it was definitely the first beer I had that wasn't bud/coors/michelob etc.

But beer is selling like hotcakes now... had they not sold to Sapporo USA in 2017, they might have well have survived; they made it through Prohibition and the Depression, after all

great, drinkable, no bullshit beer RIP

Liberty Ale was so good, but generally hard to find.

last year's Christmas beer will be the last time I ever had that

Article says that they have some 2023 Xmas beer they're selling at the tap room

Hm, so it is. I suspect there'll be a crush...but this does give me an idea.

My first bourbon barrel aged beer was one Anchor had released. Had it in a bar and later found it bottled at Total Wine. Only saw it once more after that though. As a Californian "of a certain age," Steam was also my first craft beer.

Liberty Ale was so good, but generally hard to find

Seems like 15-20 years ago, it was on tap all over the place in San Francisco area... but yeah, I haven't seen it in years. You can't buy what's not there

a chicago beer industry guy I know shared this earlier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJJsrNUKRZw

Nice overview of Liberty Ale:

https://coolmaterial.com/food-drink/the-story-of-anchor-liberty-ale-the-beer-that-started-the-craft-revolution/

eh... Anchor's been sold/abandoned like 4 or 5 times before. Someone will come in and sweep them up. The brewery infrastructure itself is worth over $2M at least. Sapporo was a lousy/absentee owner making terrible decisions from the rebranding on down.

xp: Liberty Ale is the best.

Yeah, and that brand legacy is worth a lot in the craft world... I wouldn't be surprised if Sierra Nevada or someone makes a bid

But they might move the brewery somewhere cheaper than San Francisco

When I was going to Jazzfest in New Orleans every year in the 90s and early 00s, pre- craft beer boom, finding Liberty Ale available in the notoriously funky Saturn Bar on St. Claude was an amazing discovery.

oh man it's been a tradition for some time now that my BIL buys a 6 pack of the Christmas ale for us to split every year when we come over for the holidays

Saturn Bar! Love that place. Bummer about Anchor, for a long time it was just a legend to me, it was exciting when their distribution reached the Southeast. Hard to overstate its importance in launching the "new era," it was what every aspiring brewer in the '90s would point to.

This is very sad news, I did two tours there when I was living there. It's a big part of San Francisco and very sad to see it go.

Reactions from San Francisco:

https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/san-francisco-reacts-to-anchor-brewing-closure-18197647.php

I checked my corner store today to see if they had any Anchor on sale... some kind of 'tropical hazy IPA' and a 'mexican style lager with lime flavoring', that was it

I know it's a competitive market, but more than a few of us are looking for anything that's NOT a hazy IPA or flavored beer

100%

shasta otm, the smart thing to do would be for someone to buy the brand and rebuild it as a local go-to. trying to be any bigger than that feels like a death sentence these days.