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I’ve followed this a bit. One take I’ve heard is that one reason Sapporo is shuttering the brewery instead of selling it is that the Union agreements make it d
by mikeryan 3y ago
I’ve followed this a bit. One take I’ve heard is that one reason Sapporo is shuttering the brewery instead of selling it is that the Union agreements make it difficult to sell. It can’t be cheap having a brewery in prime SF.
It would certainly be interesting if they ended up buying it.
I lived for 10 years blocks from the brewery and fondly remember the musty smell it gave off during certain days of brewing. I hope someone is able to keep it alive and a co-op may be the most tenable long term solution.
- xyzzy_plugh 3y agoA lot of Sapporo's acquisitions over the past few decades seem to indicate they prioritize strategic supply chain access over anything else. And that makes sense. It's easier to buy an established brewery with established supply chains and market access in a foreign country and use that as a boardwalk into the market rather than trying to figure it out from scratch. And Sapporo has clearly done well. But I can't see what they're getting out of owning a brewery in San Francisco in this day and age. Globally, beer consumption is way down. They're already supplying most of their addressable American market with beer they produce in and export from Canada. It makes sense to me that they'd want to cut their losses here. And as decent as Anchor has been, it's a wildly saturated market out there. Unless SF makes a U-turn recovery in the next year or two I can't really see how this ends well for Anchor.
- User23 3y agoOut of curiosity, who drinks Sapporo? I've occasionally seen it at sushi houses of course, like Maneki in Seattle, but that's not going to be the volume that drives buying out regional breweries. Is there a big west coast immigrant Japanese community that drinks it habitually in mass market quantity like the American market drinks domestics? None of my east Asian American friends really drink to speak of, at least not where I can see.
- mikeryan 3y agoSapporo owns Sleeman Brewing in Canada which owns PBR and Old Milwaukee in the States.
- wahnfrieden 3y agov common in canada, fresh bc it's made locally and often a cheaper menu option than other similar options. it's not popular w the japanese friends i know at least.
- flomo 3y agoWe used to buy it because it came in a huge can which you could bring into places. It is widely available in San Francisco at least.
- caskstrength 3y agoI mean, they might have tried Bud and expected Americans to appreciate _any_ better product? Can't blame them I guess.
- villaaston1 3y agoWhat’s your source for beer consumption being way down? Apart from the pandemic, growth looks strong: https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1232738/beer-revenue-by-sales-channel-worldwide https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1232738/beer-revenue-by-s...
- xyzzy_plugh 3y agoYou linked a revenue forecast. > In terms of domestic sales, about 64.2 billion U.S. dollars were registered in off-premise retail sales. Only 43.8 billion dollars in on-premise sales were recorded in 2021. While this is an increase from the large decline in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is still below pre-pandemic levels. > Craft rebounded in 2021 and saw its largest share of the beer market ever even though dollar sales of craft beer remained below their peak. This indicates that although Americans are drinking less beer overall, they are more often opting for craft brews. https://www.statista.com/topics/1654/beer-industry-in-the-united-states/#topicOverview https://www.statista.com/topics/1654/beer-industry-in-the-un... I just looked this up now, but it's been a recurring topic to read reports about since the start of the pandemic.
- kodt 3y agoAlso they already own Stone Brewing also in California. Seems like Anchor’s brewing capacity and existing supply chains does not benefit them much in addition to what Stone already provides.
- callalex 3y ago> It can’t be cheap having a brewery in prime SF. Real estate prices make things stupid expensive in SF, but this business has been around, owning the same property, for close to a century before real estate prices became insane in SF.
- mikeryan 3y agoI'm more thinking of HR then the real estate. Brewers in SF are going to need to get paid a lot more then folks in Colorado or the South.