SF's Anchor Brewing Company shutting down after 127 years • Hacker News Board

Re: SF's Anchor Brewing Company shutting down after 127 years

#41

Post by ribyni » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 2:11 PM UTC

farzinadil wrote: post #23

ChatGTP wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard quite a few SF people say they welcome this, once all the rich dudes leave it might actually return to being a fun and affordable city again. Let's see :)

Those people are delusional. They should see how the doom loop worked out for detroit.

San Francisco has been a boom and bust town since the beginning, with countless "doom loop" stories. The reality is that it's a desirable city. If we're in a true bust, prices will begin to drop--and those places are quickly filled up with people who can now afford to live here (again). We're not witnessing a drop in demand per se, we're witnessing a decreased demand at the high-end (this is a good thing! it's run out of control for the last decade.) combined with commercial real estate investment that won't lower leases because it devalues their properties and puts their RE investment underwater. (Ultimately, their hands will be forced, of course, which will lead to much lower cost commercial real estate in a highly desirable city with better affordability for homes... again, this is a good thing.)

The problem in Detroit was there was no price low enough to get people to live there when there were so many places with similar amenities and better quality of life nearby. In SF, the second housing prices fall, they're scooped up instantly. People move across the country/world to live in SF even when the job market has been terrible in the past. (There's a lot more to SF than a job.) I'm not saying San Francisco could never fall, but we're nowhere near that reality.

Re: SF's Anchor Brewing Company shutting down after 127 years

#42

Post by sithadmin » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 2:11 PM UTC

sparrish wrote: post #34

Honest question: how did this SF brewing company survive prohibition? If it really is 127 years old, it must have existed during prohibition. How was it not shut down then? I'm curious.

A lot of American brewers survived by switching to non-alcoholic beverages or selling the raw ingredients for home brewing and winemaking operations under the guise of 'baking ingredients' or the like. Some sold practically non-alcoholic 'near beer'/kvass-type malt drinks, but it wasn't especially popular.

Re: SF's Anchor Brewing Company shutting down after 127 years

#43

Post by semi-extrinsic » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 2:13 PM UTC

sparrish wrote: post #34

Honest question: how did this SF brewing company survive prohibition? If it really is 127 years old, it must have existed during prohibition. How was it not shut down then? I'm curious.

Slightly less than 10% of US breweries surcived the 13 years of prohibition, mostly through a) being large companies that owned a lot of assets and real estate, and b) successfully pivoting into anything from ceramics production to non-alcoholic foods like ice cream/tea/coffee/juices to the sale of yeast and malt syrup that people could use to homebrew beer.

And prohibition had been a long time coming, some companies like Anheuser-Busch had been preparing for several decades.

Re: SF's Anchor Brewing Company shutting down after 127 years

#44

Post by pengaru » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 2:13 PM UTC

farzinadil wrote: post #23

ChatGTP wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard quite a few SF people say they welcome this, once all the rich dudes leave it might actually return to being a fun and affordable city again. Let's see :)

Those people are delusional. They should see how the doom loop worked out for detroit.

[flagged]

Re: SF's Anchor Brewing Company shutting down after 127 years

#45

Post by domh » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 2:13 PM UTC

This is pretty gutting as someone who lived in SF for a few years and drank quite a lot of Anchor Steam beer during that time. It's a shame to see such an iconic brewery closing down. I did a tour last year and loved the history and seeing the old copper brewing tanks that they still used. Shame they couldn't keep up with the modern tastes and amount of microbreweries popping up. RIP

Re: SF's Anchor Brewing Company shutting down after 127 years

#46

Post by WiseWeasel » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 2:13 PM UTC

the_common_man wrote: post #28

WiseWeasel wrote: post #16

A shame they weren’t able to adapt to modern beer tastes. As long as I can remember, I've thought of them as the mediocre beer I’ll begrudgingly drink only if all other options are exhausted.

I thought anchor steam is pretty good. What beer do you like?

I guess Sierra Nevada was a big influence early on, and since then I’ve come to appreciate a large variety, from more hoppy offerings from the likes of Russian River, Lagunitas, Stone and recently Almanac, to lagers from Pacifico and Dos Equis, several prominent Belgian brands, and some local sours. I enjoy a wide variety, but always thought of Anchor Steam as bland, malty, and mediocre, on the same low level as Fat Tire, to name a comparable brand.

That said, I’ve only had it bottled, never on tap.

Re: SF's Anchor Brewing Company shutting down after 127 years

#47

Post by ryaneager » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 2:14 PM UTC

greesil wrote: post #19

I got to do a tour of the place, it was really fun. It's located near Potrero Hill. I can't say anything about their cost structure but having a location that's in SF probably has some disadvantages. But, there are a lot of other craft brewers in the bay area that are quite good. Drake's, Faction come to mind. You don't have to go much further afield to find Bear Republic, Russian River Brew Co. I would not consider…

There’s 50+ smaller breweries sprinkled across the North Bay within 1.5hrs of SF. Civilization, Fog Belt, Cooperage, Iron Ox, Henhouse, Barrel Brothers, Moonlight, Shadyoak… just to name a few.

Re: SF's Anchor Brewing Company shutting down after 127 years

#48

Post by samstave » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 2:14 PM UTC

sparrish wrote: post #34

Honest question: how did this SF brewing company survive prohibition? If it really is 127 years old, it must have existed during prohibition. How was it not shut down then? I'm curious.

Some p[eople I knew purchased a really huge victorian in the Castro some years ago - and in the bottom floor was an original speak-easy with full bar and pool table and booths etc...

I would assume that there were many of these speak-easys in SF during prohibition...

Sadly they immediately remodeled and took the speak-easy out.

Re: SF's Anchor Brewing Company shutting down after 127 years

#49

Post by ribyni » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

asdajksah2123 wrote: post #36

farzinadil wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those people are delusional. They should see how the doom loop worked out for detroit.

While I think the people who think this is a good thing are out of their minds, Detroit had entirely different issues, and probably is not a good example for what could happen to SF in the worst case. 1. Detroit has none of the natural advantages SF does. 2. Detroit was hollowed out largely because of the white flight that drove the tax base to the suburbs. 3. Detroit was uniquely built as a highly car friendly city,…

Exactly. The reality is that San Francisco has lost a lot of people over the last decade, even though our population has grown. We've displaced people through a crisis of (lack of) affordability as wealthier folks have flocked to the city. If we view SF's success purely through population growth, that looks like success, but in practice, it has been a truly devastating decade for so many who loved this city. The demand to live in the city may be just as high today, but the demographics may look less rich. As housing prices slowly come back down to something vaguely closer to earth, some of those people come back -- and new residents eager to take advantage of the quality of life SF offers at a lower price point move in. It's a cycle that's a microcosm of American boom/bust mentality, but SF always comes through with being a beautiful/unique/storied/creative/walkable/dense city.

Re: SF's Anchor Brewing Company shutting down after 127 years

#50

Post by arp242 » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

sparrish wrote: post #34

Honest question: how did this SF brewing company survive prohibition? If it really is 127 years old, it must have existed during prohibition. How was it not shut down then? I'm curious.

According to their website: "Prohibition effectively shut Anchor down in 1920. There may have been a few “activities” during Prohibition and the era of bootlegging, but there is no record of Anchor Brewery doing anything—legal or illegal—during this time. After Prohibition ended in April 1933, owner Joe Kraus began brewing Anchor Steam Beer after a thirteen year hiatus. As luck would have it, the Brewery went up in smoke the following February. He re-opened Anchor in an old brick building with a new partner, Joe Allen, just a few blocks from where the historic Brewery is today."

https://www.anchorbrewing.com/about-us/the-anchor-story/