13 ms·

It’s important to note that Anchor as a division is being shut down as a cost-saving measure by its owner Sapporo, a transnational, publicly-traded corporation.

It’s important to note that Anchor as a division is being shut down as a cost-saving measure by its owner Sapporo, a transnational, publicly-traded corporation. Sapporo says they have tried to find a buyer for Anchor, but to no avail. Meanwhile Sapporo recently purchased Stone Brewing in San Diego and are beginning Sapporo production there while still making Stone beers. If Sapporo hadn’t also bought Stone, presumably their plan was to brew Sapporo at Anchor in a similar way. In that scenario, they probably would have continued producing Anchor beers in some quantity too.

last_responder 3y ago
Well Stone is now off the buy list.
- codyb 3y ago
  Is Sapporo a bad company?
- ChainOfFools 3y ago
  Thankfully San Diego and the whole region south of camp pendleton has about a hundred other excellent craft brews to choose from, including the beer that inspired Stone and out-stoned Stone even after Stone tried to copy it, Green Flash. Sadly it's nearly impossible to find these days, largely thanks to Stone.
  - jerhewet 3y ago
    Green Flash used to be amazing. Not any more. https://www.brewbound.com/news/tilray-acquired-green-flash-and-alpine-for-5-1m-dissolves-anheuser-busch-inbev-jv https://www.brewbound.com/news/tilray-acquired-green-flash-a...
- everybodyknows 3y ago
  Don't see how shutting down an unsuccessful operation makes Sapporo an unethical actor. Regarding Stone however, there's this, predating its acquisition by Sapporo: https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/08/21/national-brewer-goes/ https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/08/21/national-brewer-goes/
- jerhewet 3y ago
  They shouldn't be. Yes, they aren't as "amazing" as they used to be, but their staple IPA's are just as good as they've always been. I'm drinking one of their Delicious IPA's right now, and I'm enjoying it just as much as I did when they first released it. The new citrus variation on Delicious is one of my favorites.
rco8786 3y ago
Genuine question. Why is this important to note?
- eweise 3y ago
  Can Anchor be considered a craft brewer if its owned by Saporro?
  - avisser 3y ago
    What about the fact that I can get Stone at my corner liquor store in Rhode Island? You know, the one that doesn't have a great selection.
    - dehrmann 3y ago
      I remember seeing Lagunitas all over Sweden.
      - smugma 3y ago
        Makes sense. Heineken, the world's #2 beer producer, bought them for ~$1B (half in 2015, rest in 2017).
  - TravelPiglet 3y ago
    https://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics-and-data/craft-brewer-definition/ https://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics-and-data/craft...
    - stagger87 3y ago
      By this definition, it is not "craft" anymore.
  - kodt 3y ago
    Only if you are using to the definition of craft promoted by the Brewers Association. There are many other uses of the term "Craft Beer" that use other definitions often based on the style of beer, and having nothing to do with ownership.
Solvency 3y ago
I think we can start dropping useless affectations like "it's important to note" now that ChatGPT has utterly co-opted them and revealed how meaningless they are. You could have simply stated that Anchor division is being dropped. I'm already reading your comment. You don't have to sell me on why you're noting it.
- gjvc 3y ago
  Did you mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A... ?
- backtoyoujim 3y ago
  Are you kidding ? You want us to bend our language usage for ChatGPT ? Can you just let humans write without LLMs controlling the development of our language ? We have managed to have language without your ChatGPT.
- alex_young 3y ago
  Personally I think it’s important to note the community standards here when replying to comments. It’s better to thoughtfully discuss something than to criticize the writing style of someone else in my opinion.
  - ifyoubuildit 3y ago
    That style of comment does bother me though. It implies some kind of authority or consensus. "It is important to note" should just be read as "I (and people as enlightened/ informed as myself) think". Just tell me your opinion, and I'll evaluate it based on it's content. You telling me that it's Important only puts me on alert for some kind of bias. EDIT: to clarify, if I'm doing my job correctly as a critical reader, I can't trust a commenter to be speaking for anyone but themselves. Phrasing like "it's important to note" serves to divert from that, because it implies that it's not the commenter's opinion, they're just spreading the gospel. Their assertion may be correct, but I'm doing it wrong if I take their word on it just because "it's important to note." Which is why I would prefer they leave it out, because I still need to do the work whether they tell me to or not, and telling me not to makes me suspicious.
lesdeuxmagots 3y ago
It would seem that Sapporo did not do enough diligence when they bought Anchor. Anchor's facilities are far too small, their infrastructure and their team not setup to brew at that sort of scale. Stone is a much better fit for what they seem to be trying to do.
- AnotherGoodName 3y ago
  I mean they had an entirely unique process. That was their whole shtick. They had a big multistory warehouse type brewery with fields of open air swimming pools fermenting. That's what made it steam beer. Their setup isn't like any other brewery at all. No vats for brewing! Anchor Steam brewery is as similar as a concrete plant to other breweries. So if Sapporo bought this for $143million thinking they could make other style of beer there and didn't even do a brewery tour omfg.
bartread 3y ago
I think that is an important point but, with that said, I'd suggest that perhaps the reason Anchor were struggling is they didn't really innovate. Rather they rested on the laurels of that 127 year heritage. Certainly a very personal opinion but the first time I tried Anchor beers sometime in the noughties I was underwhelmed. Don't get me wrong: they're certainly better than Bud, Coors, etc., but as a Brit coming from somewhere with a by then thriving real ale scene, Anchor's beers just weren't that great. More than that, they weren't up to the standards of many other US-brewed craft beers I'd tried, many of which are at least as good as anything the UK or mainland Europe has to offer[0]. The microbrewing scene in the US has really taken off over the past 20 years so, to me, it felt like Anchor just got left behind by it. And maybe Stone Brewing have a bit more to offer[1] and it was easier for Sapporo to buy them and roll with it than to try and revitalise a brand seen as ailing? I'm not saying I like it but I can certainly imagine that perspective within the company. [0] By the mid-2010s there did seem to be a tendency to overegg IPAs by making many of them ludicrously strong, and just trying to cram in too much flavour, not to mention the consistency of many was borderline gloopy (more like drinking blood than beer) - mercifully I think this trend may be reversing. [1] Pure speculation: I don't remember ever trying any of Stone's beers so have no comment to make on their quality or otherwise.
- sfpotter 3y ago
  I'm a little surprised Anchor didn't do better. I personally got worn out by all the craziness and experimentation in the craft brewing scene. Really unique IPAs or sour beers were fun for a while, but after a while, I realized I just wanted something reasonably good and predictably normal, i.e. a Normal Good Beer. It seemed like Anchor was delivering on this, but maybe there were enough other options that they just didn't distinguish themselves well enough. Too bad, considering they're a local beer with a lot of history and had a successful unionization effort.
  - uoaei 3y ago
    The recipe changed after the acquisition by Sapporo. Fans of the original Anchor Steam didn't like the new taste and stopped buying. So it faded into the background with the other ~3-5 domestics being served at a given bar. Lots of people talking out their ass here, clearly none of them spend any time in SF dives talking to other patrons.
RC_ITR 3y ago
Also worth noting that Sapporo went through with a rather disastrous rebrand that both made it less unique and harder to find on shelves. https://sfist.com/2021/01/28/anchor-brewing-dragged-on-twitter-after-nixing-iconic-label-in-favor-of-blue-and-yellow-design/ https://sfist.com/2021/01/28/anchor-brewing-dragged-on-twitt...
- mrobins 3y ago
  The rebranding really was disastrous. Echoing other comments, as someone who bought 6 packs largely for nostalgia or to reconnect with SF from the east coast the new packaging ruined that.
xkgwkdmgjtx 3y ago
See also my comment about what Anchor employees are saying: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36696764 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36696764
splonk 3y ago
The local reports were that Anchor had been slowly losing money for years before the Sapporo acquisition. Supposedly Sapporo was intending to use the Anchor facility to brew Sapporo locally and then eventually found out that the site wasn't really suitable or would require too much renovation. Whether this led directly to the Stone deal, I don't know (I doubt it, given relative sizes, but it may have been a contributing factor). In general, even before the Sapporo acquisition, Anchor was slowly getting pushed out of local bars by other, smaller local breweries. Once I started seeing things like Standard Deviant's kolsch or Harmonic's pilsner taking up one of the taps in smaller restaurants that only had 2-4 taps, the writing was probably on the wall. I suspect one of the local breweries will be happy to acquire Anchor if Sapporo's going to sell it off at fire sale prices (c.f. Cellarmaker/Rare Barrel, Drake's/Bear Republic).
- photonerd 3y ago
  Oddly I only have ever seen Anchor in bottles in the Bay, but it was (and is) still really popular as a beer of choice locally. I’m guessing it’s not the local market that’s the issue
  - paulmd 3y ago
    Aldi carries them, I'd always seen them but assumed it was an Aldi knockoff brand lol.
tptacek 3y ago
My understanding was that the Sapporo transaction was a fire sale; is that wrong? If it isn't, it doesn't much matter what Sapporo did; Anchor was a dead brewery walking anyways.
- rdj 3y ago
  That's the sentiment in the industry. Here's some numbers from when the sale happened. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/japans-sapporo-buys-craft-beer-pioneer-anchor-brewing-for-85-million-2017-08-03 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/japans-sapporo-buys-craft-...
111111IIIIIII 3y ago
> presumably their plan was to brew Sapporo at Anchor in a similar way Think again. Anchor was unionized. Stone is not.
AnotherGoodName 3y ago
Fun fact is that anchor had a custom brewing setup unlike any other. Custom made pots, open air swimming pools to brew (that's what makes it steam beer) and a different process to every other brewery. It was fun to tour their brewery since it's so wildly different. If Sapporo bought this brewery assuming they could make Sapporo premium there that's fucking hilarious. All it would have taken was a tour to understand that's not possible. Anchor Steam brewery is as different to any other brewery as a concrete plant is to any other brewery. I didn't like their beers myself but did appreciate their unique process.

last_responder 3y ago

Well Stone is now off the buy list.

codyb 3y ago
Is Sapporo a bad company?
ChainOfFools 3y ago
Thankfully San Diego and the whole region south of camp pendleton has about a hundred other excellent craft brews to choose from, including the beer that inspired Stone and out-stoned Stone even after Stone tried to copy it, Green Flash. Sadly it's nearly impossible to find these days, largely thanks to Stone.
- jerhewet 3y ago
  Green Flash used to be amazing. Not any more. https://www.brewbound.com/news/tilray-acquired-green-flash-and-alpine-for-5-1m-dissolves-anheuser-busch-inbev-jv https://www.brewbound.com/news/tilray-acquired-green-flash-a...
everybodyknows 3y ago
Don't see how shutting down an unsuccessful operation makes Sapporo an unethical actor. Regarding Stone however, there's this, predating its acquisition by Sapporo: https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/08/21/national-brewer-goes/ https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/08/21/national-brewer-goes/
jerhewet 3y ago
They shouldn't be. Yes, they aren't as "amazing" as they used to be, but their staple IPA's are just as good as they've always been. I'm drinking one of their Delicious IPA's right now, and I'm enjoying it just as much as I did when they first released it. The new citrus variation on Delicious is one of my favorites.

rco8786 3y ago

Genuine question. Why is this important to note?

eweise 3y ago
Can Anchor be considered a craft brewer if its owned by Saporro?
- avisser 3y ago
  What about the fact that I can get Stone at my corner liquor store in Rhode Island? You know, the one that doesn't have a great selection.
  - dehrmann 3y ago
    I remember seeing Lagunitas all over Sweden.
    - smugma 3y ago
      Makes sense. Heineken, the world's #2 beer producer, bought them for ~$1B (half in 2015, rest in 2017).
- TravelPiglet 3y ago
  https://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics-and-data/craft-brewer-definition/ https://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics-and-data/craft...
  - stagger87 3y ago
    By this definition, it is not "craft" anymore.
- kodt 3y ago
  Only if you are using to the definition of craft promoted by the Brewers Association. There are many other uses of the term "Craft Beer" that use other definitions often based on the style of beer, and having nothing to do with ownership.

Solvency 3y ago

I think we can start dropping useless affectations like "it's important to note" now that ChatGPT has utterly co-opted them and revealed how meaningless they are. You could have simply stated that Anchor division is being dropped. I'm already reading your comment. You don't have to sell me on why you're noting it.

gjvc 3y ago
Did you mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A... ?
backtoyoujim 3y ago
Are you kidding ? You want us to bend our language usage for ChatGPT ? Can you just let humans write without LLMs controlling the development of our language ? We have managed to have language without your ChatGPT.
alex_young 3y ago
Personally I think it’s important to note the community standards here when replying to comments. It’s better to thoughtfully discuss something than to criticize the writing style of someone else in my opinion.
- ifyoubuildit 3y ago
  That style of comment does bother me though. It implies some kind of authority or consensus. "It is important to note" should just be read as "I (and people as enlightened/ informed as myself) think". Just tell me your opinion, and I'll evaluate it based on it's content. You telling me that it's Important only puts me on alert for some kind of bias. EDIT: to clarify, if I'm doing my job correctly as a critical reader, I can't trust a commenter to be speaking for anyone but themselves. Phrasing like "it's important to note" serves to divert from that, because it implies that it's not the commenter's opinion, they're just spreading the gospel. Their assertion may be correct, but I'm doing it wrong if I take their word on it just because "it's important to note." Which is why I would prefer they leave it out, because I still need to do the work whether they tell me to or not, and telling me not to makes me suspicious.

lesdeuxmagots 3y ago

It would seem that Sapporo did not do enough diligence when they bought Anchor. Anchor's facilities are far too small, their infrastructure and their team not setup to brew at that sort of scale. Stone is a much better fit for what they seem to be trying to do.

AnotherGoodName 3y ago
I mean they had an entirely unique process. That was their whole shtick. They had a big multistory warehouse type brewery with fields of open air swimming pools fermenting. That's what made it steam beer. Their setup isn't like any other brewery at all. No vats for brewing! Anchor Steam brewery is as similar as a concrete plant to other breweries. So if Sapporo bought this for $143million thinking they could make other style of beer there and didn't even do a brewery tour omfg.

bartread 3y ago

I think that is an important point but, with that said, I'd suggest that perhaps the reason Anchor were struggling is they didn't really innovate. Rather they rested on the laurels of that 127 year heritage. Certainly a very personal opinion but the first time I tried Anchor beers sometime in the noughties I was underwhelmed. Don't get me wrong: they're certainly better than Bud, Coors, etc., but as a Brit coming from somewhere with a by then thriving real ale scene, Anchor's beers just weren't that great. More than that, they weren't up to the standards of many other US-brewed craft beers I'd tried, many of which are at least as good as anything the UK or mainland Europe has to offer[0]. The microbrewing scene in the US has really taken off over the past 20 years so, to me, it felt like Anchor just got left behind by it. And maybe Stone Brewing have a bit more to offer[1] and it was easier for Sapporo to buy them and roll with it than to try and revitalise a brand seen as ailing? I'm not saying I like it but I can certainly imagine that perspective within the company. [0] By the mid-2010s there did seem to be a tendency to overegg IPAs by making many of them ludicrously strong, and just trying to cram in too much flavour, not to mention the consistency of many was borderline gloopy (more like drinking blood than beer) - mercifully I think this trend may be reversing. [1] Pure speculation: I don't remember ever trying any of Stone's beers so have no comment to make on their quality or otherwise.

sfpotter 3y ago
I'm a little surprised Anchor didn't do better. I personally got worn out by all the craziness and experimentation in the craft brewing scene. Really unique IPAs or sour beers were fun for a while, but after a while, I realized I just wanted something reasonably good and predictably normal, i.e. a Normal Good Beer. It seemed like Anchor was delivering on this, but maybe there were enough other options that they just didn't distinguish themselves well enough. Too bad, considering they're a local beer with a lot of history and had a successful unionization effort.
- uoaei 3y ago
  The recipe changed after the acquisition by Sapporo. Fans of the original Anchor Steam didn't like the new taste and stopped buying. So it faded into the background with the other ~3-5 domestics being served at a given bar. Lots of people talking out their ass here, clearly none of them spend any time in SF dives talking to other patrons.

RC_ITR 3y ago

Also worth noting that Sapporo went through with a rather disastrous rebrand that both made it less unique and harder to find on shelves. https://sfist.com/2021/01/28/anchor-brewing-dragged-on-twitter-after-nixing-iconic-label-in-favor-of-blue-and-yellow-design/ https://sfist.com/2021/01/28/anchor-brewing-dragged-on-twitt...

mrobins 3y ago
The rebranding really was disastrous. Echoing other comments, as someone who bought 6 packs largely for nostalgia or to reconnect with SF from the east coast the new packaging ruined that.

xkgwkdmgjtx 3y ago

See also my comment about what Anchor employees are saying: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36696764 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36696764

splonk 3y ago

The local reports were that Anchor had been slowly losing money for years before the Sapporo acquisition. Supposedly Sapporo was intending to use the Anchor facility to brew Sapporo locally and then eventually found out that the site wasn't really suitable or would require too much renovation. Whether this led directly to the Stone deal, I don't know (I doubt it, given relative sizes, but it may have been a contributing factor). In general, even before the Sapporo acquisition, Anchor was slowly getting pushed out of local bars by other, smaller local breweries. Once I started seeing things like Standard Deviant's kolsch or Harmonic's pilsner taking up one of the taps in smaller restaurants that only had 2-4 taps, the writing was probably on the wall. I suspect one of the local breweries will be happy to acquire Anchor if Sapporo's going to sell it off at fire sale prices (c.f. Cellarmaker/Rare Barrel, Drake's/Bear Republic).

photonerd 3y ago
Oddly I only have ever seen Anchor in bottles in the Bay, but it was (and is) still really popular as a beer of choice locally. I’m guessing it’s not the local market that’s the issue
- paulmd 3y ago
  Aldi carries them, I'd always seen them but assumed it was an Aldi knockoff brand lol.

tptacek 3y ago

My understanding was that the Sapporo transaction was a fire sale; is that wrong? If it isn't, it doesn't much matter what Sapporo did; Anchor was a dead brewery walking anyways.

rdj 3y ago
That's the sentiment in the industry. Here's some numbers from when the sale happened. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/japans-sapporo-buys-craft-beer-pioneer-anchor-brewing-for-85-million-2017-08-03 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/japans-sapporo-buys-craft-...

111111IIIIIII 3y ago

> presumably their plan was to brew Sapporo at Anchor in a similar way Think again. Anchor was unionized. Stone is not.

AnotherGoodName 3y ago

Fun fact is that anchor had a custom brewing setup unlike any other. Custom made pots, open air swimming pools to brew (that's what makes it steam beer) and a different process to every other brewery. It was fun to tour their brewery since it's so wildly different. If Sapporo bought this brewery assuming they could make Sapporo premium there that's fucking hilarious. All it would have taken was a tour to understand that's not possible. Anchor Steam brewery is as different to any other brewery as a concrete plant is to any other brewery. I didn't like their beers myself but did appreciate their unique process.