Beer in the new era

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.

that video dan m posted is really neat. 1989 and places like Anderson Valley appearing is surprising to me.

Was tempted to go tonight but I also figured it would socked in. As a friend from the UK was visiting I suggested Cellarmaker instead, and it was a hit.

I'm bummed Cellarmaker closed that SF taproom. Did they reopen in Oakland yet? Or did you go to the pizza place?

That was actually the brewery there in SOMA. The landlord raised their rent which is kind of nuts as that area has been a ghost town since the pandemic. So Cellarmaker purchased The Rare Barrel's space in Berkeley and transferred brewery ops there (ultimately they will open a taproom there as well). The Oakland location in Jack London Square is opening soon (early August).

I posted in this about it 9 years ago but I'm 99% sure that the first craft beer I ever had in my life was an anchor steam that Trey Anastasio gave me backstage at a Phish show when I was 18.

So Cellarmaker purchased The Rare Barrel's space in Berkeley and transferred brewery ops there (ultimately they will open a taproom there as well).

"ultimately" = tomorrow at noon! That was much faster than expected.

lol joygoat, that is a perfect story.

I'm pretty sure anchor steam was my first as well, though in a far less glamorous setting.

That was actually the brewery there in SOMA. The landlord raised their rent which is kind of nuts as that area has been a ghost town since the pandemic. So Cellarmaker purchased The Rare Barrel's space in Berkeley and transferred brewery ops there (ultimately they will open a taproom there as well). The Oakland location in Jack London Square is opening soon (early August).

Thanks, I knew they had closed there, but didn't know the story. I really liked that location, super chill, good brewery vibes day and night. I was planning on going again when we are back in SF in December.

Shame about Rare Barrel. One of my friends was way into their stuff.

i don't think that cellarmaker is stopping rare barrel's sour program. you can get both there!

!!

https://vinepair.com/booze-news/anchor-employees-brewery-takeover-bid/

That would be excellent.

Yeah, I wish them luck.. hopefully some silicon valley billionaire can cough up some capital to get them started

RIP Toppling Goliath

https://decorahnews.com/news/8898/2024-presidential-hopeful-ron-desantis-hosted-an-event-friday-at-toppling-goliath-in-decorah/

Toppling Goliath makes a good beer, but hey, fuck 'em. Same happened to Noon Whistle (a good suburban Chicago brewery I used to drink) not long back. They hosted some Republican asshole, then when they got pushback from fans pulled the "we're just a business making a living, hosting this guy is not necessarily an endorsement, free speech, both sides, we're neutral, open minds, blah blah." And the usual conservative assholes then respond to the response with "oh, so now who's the intolerant ones?" And so on.

Ultimately, it's just such an unforced error. Iowa might be a red state, but it's not overwhelmingly red, just run by the usual red bullies these days. Why alienate the other 40% or so?

What's interesting to me about that is that the one time I visited Decorah (on a road trip from Minneapolis-St Paul to Chicago), I felt it less red-state-y than the surrounding areas. But that is bad optics for TG, I could see some fall out among their distro outposts in urban areas.

I'll be at the big beer fest in Madison this weekend (even though I'm not drinking), kinda hope they'll be a boycott of their booth. I'm sure most people will be unaware though.

lol I just talked to someone from Decorah on the phone at work

xpost You should try and visit New Glarus, just 30 minutes away. It's a nice self-guided tour, and you can get some good unique to brewery beer there.

Yeah, deceptively flying vulnerable migrants all over the country pretty much demands a disinvite

Lol Josh, I live in Madison and have def been to New Glarus a few times, thanks though. My band is playing at the fest. Looking forward to the Untitled Art N/A beers (best in the land).

Those Untitled Art ones are even ending up around Portland.

xpost I had no idea! My daughter goes to school there. We're moving her back in next weekend, otherwise this fest would have been fun.

Untitled Art is great. If you haven't had it, I recommend Roaring Table (out of Lake Zurich) and Hop Butcher (especially of you like NEIPAs and DIPAs).

It appears... (based on some financial filings that were screenshotted to me in a slack group)... that Anchor will be back as a co-op sometime soon.

I paused thinking, Wait, were the new-ish house beers at Hopleaf Untitled Art? But no, they were from Art History, and I really liked both of those a few weeks ago.

I love Art History, another one nailing lagers and the like. They put out a really good ... Czech dark lager?

The other day I had a Grodziskie beer, and oof, not my thing. By design, really light, bubbly and low-alcohol, which are all fine, but also smokey, which made it taste like drinking a kielbasa. I assume all smokey beers are kind of controversial, but this one was especially not my jam.

Speaking of Czech lagers, this is probably more "Beer in the Old Era", but to an American traveling within Prague, these variations on beer culture were quite a shock.

During my first night at a Vinohrady burger joint, I noticed servers distributing glasses of a local Pilsner-style lager called Unětický Pivovar 12° that were 2/3 foam, and one glass that was all foam. I asked my server about this, and they pointed me to a diagram of 3 types of beer pours. I eventually tried the 2 alternative pours, and damn, they are definitely worth investigation.

https://www.hopculture.com/the-proper-czech-pours-the-best-foam-youll-ever-drink/

Drinking a 2012 Bourbon County Stout. Tastes fine.

Sounds like Metropolitan Brewing in Chicago is closing, too bad.

Despite being a huge fan of the modern era of beer (lots of local breweries, a sense of adventurousness in style), I really miss having good estery British ales like London Pride available. And it seems impossible to get a good flavourful beer that isn’t some variation on a sour/fruited/novelty-flavoured beer or of an IPA. The occasional porter pops up, but even they — and certainly all the stouts — are usually some kinda saguaro-limestone-toothpaste imperial bourbon breakfast cereal thing. Fuck, dudes, can ya just brew a solid ESB nowadays ffs?