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

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

#311

Post by marcus0x62 » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 9:20 PM UTC

fishtoaster wrote: post #281

Aaronstotle wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just bought a random craft beer 4 pack that cost me $17 the other day, reminds me why I don't buy craft beer. Is it hard to home brew something like a Pilsner? I imagine the hard part is consistency

At small scales, a rule of thumb is that it's harder to brew beers with lighter/subtler flavors. You can hide a lot of minor brewing mistakes behind an IPA or a heavy stout. Not so much with something like a pilsner.

To add on, in addition to needing more consistency and skill to brew something light in flavor, it also more difficult to brew a lager (which a Pilsner is) than an ale -- the yeast involved are different, and the fermentation process is generally longer (more opportunity for stuff to go wrong) and more temperature sensitive (more opportunity for stuff to go wrong.)

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

#312

Post by ibejoeb » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 9:22 PM UTC

xp84 wrote: post #302

ibejoeb wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to see what '23 the numbers look like before declaring it a contracting market. Sales by volume for the entire category are indeed down, but somewhere between 2-3%, and that is still likely attributable to the crash starting in 2020, when it was actually illegal to serve or even order beer in many places. (To this day, there are still aggressive measures taken against breweries, brewpubs, and taprooms, like…

Oh my gosh. Section 1 of that about tours. What a ridiculous ordinance. I assume all this is in there to protect some other class of business that lobbied for it, right? Like bars trying to prevent breweries from competing?

Yeah. They nailed it, too:

"licensee may offer for sale or make gratuitous offer of de minimis types of food such as water" (2)

...but...

"licensee shall not brew and sell coffee" (7)

That is full de minimis lol.

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

#313

Post by lockhouse » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 9:27 PM UTC

paulmd wrote: post #307

kelnos wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least you can usually find Guinness. Obviously not the best stout in the world, but at least it's consistent and you know what you're gonna get.

Everyone rants about how great guinness is, but the draught cans taste incredibly watered-down to me for some reason. Extra Stout and Foreign Stout are fine and I have to imagine that's what guiness tastes like for EU customers.

Guinness Foreign Extra stout is so good! It’s a shame its so difficult to find.

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

#314

Post by MarkMarine » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 9:27 PM UTC

Aaronstotle wrote: post #278

MarkMarine wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be a conclusion in the beverage world as well, the craft beer wave has broken and people are just trying to drink something that tastes like what it says on the label. I home brew beer and the instinct is to make something crazy, but I get sick of my own experiments and double sick of paying 18$ for a 4 pack of someone else’s experiments. I could never stand being told that hop burn was a sign of craft…

I just bought a random craft beer 4 pack that cost me $17 the other day, reminds me why I don't buy craft beer. Is it hard to home brew something like a Pilsner? I imagine the hard part is consistency

It’s not hard to brew a Pilsner, and brewing your own beer is rewarding, but the light German styles are the hardest to really improve on. If you just put some quality ingredients and decent temp control fermentation at a Pilsner, you’re going to get a super great beer judged against some regular commercial offerings, and a good beer in general. To get better that that, look into LoDo brewing if you want to go down the rabbit hole.

If you like to strive for perfection, the german styles will scratch that itch for you.

Edit: I will add that brewing Pilsner or Helles will literally never impress your friends. You’ll get a shrug and a “oh that’s good” out of them when you’ve put your heart and soul into driving out one little off flavor from your ferment that no one else can taste but you. IPA is basically the polar opposite.

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

#315

Post by MarkMarine » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 9:33 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #235

MarkMarine wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be a conclusion in the beverage world as well, the craft beer wave has broken and people are just trying to drink something that tastes like what it says on the label. I home brew beer and the instinct is to make something crazy, but I get sick of my own experiments and double sick of paying 18$ for a 4 pack of someone else’s experiments. I could never stand being told that hop burn was a sign of craft…

Some of the highest-status beers during Peak Beer were well-executed straightforward beers; Pliny comes to mind. As does Zombie Dust.

I think the whole world is off axis if Pliny is a straight forward beer. Maybe we were all better off when Russian River was sending it out for us to buy in lots of 2 bottles to a local store that you had to call every day and check to see if they got any.

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

#316

Post by munificent » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 9:46 PM UTC

hyperbovine wrote: post #234

munificent wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much of this is the beer industry eating its own seedcorn by focusing more and more on super bitter IPAs that beer snobs love at the expense of more middle of the road palatable beers. The long term consequence of that plus beer snobbery looking down on light beers is that younger drinkers with sweeter palates just don't drink beer at all because the beer that is socially acceptable is too bitter for the…

I really despise this about the American beer industry. Your typical tap list these days is 8 IPAs, 1-2 dIPAs, 4 sours, something that contains coffee, some other weird shit (cucumber göse e.g.), and like one normal everyday lager or pilsener that isn't making some sort of personality statement and pairs well with food. Worse, this appears to be catching on among trendier bars in Europe, even in places like Munich an…

> Your typical tap list these days is 8 IPAs, 1-2 dIPAs, 4 sours, something that contains coffee, some other weird shit...

Yup. I live close to a bunch of breweries in Seattle. The taplists of the two nearest are:

Stoup:

    // IPAs:
    Mosaic Pale Ale
    Citra IPA
    Chur to Twelve IPA
    Rainbow Bubbles IPA
    Nothing Crazy IPA
    Simcoe Studies IPA
    Stoup Dog IPA
    Sir Dank A Lot IPA
    Space Garden IPA
    Paraderade IPA
    Easy A IPA

    // Everything else:
    German Style Pilsner
    NW Red
    Imperial Porter
    Cervecita Mexican Lager
    Bavarian Hefeweizen
    What a Tart Raspberry Sour

Bale Breaker:

    // IPAs:
    Field 41 Pale Ale
    Topcutter IPA
    Bottomcutter IIPA
    Daybreak Pale Ale
    Hazy L IPA
    Frenz IPA: Sierra Nevada
    Long White Clouds IPA
    Evenfall Hazy IPA
    Bubba's Brew IPA
    Bale Breaker Why the Ek-Not IPA
    Bale Breaker Tropical Penguin

    // Everything else:
    Bale Breaker Pilsner PNW Pilsner
    Dormancy Stout - Coffee
    Raging Ditch Dry-Hopped Blonde Blonde Ale
    Bale Breaker Pasketti Sauce Pilsner - Italian
    YOXI Lime Agave Ranch Water Hard Seltzer

And note that even the "everything else" category can't escape the "hop the fuck out of everything" trend. Stoup's pilsner is described as "spicy hop aroma and refreshingly dry, hop-forward finish". The Red "provides a distinctly Northwest hop character".

I get it, Cascadia grows a lot of hops. But some of us just want to taste beer and not win some macho contest to see who can choke down the most IBUs per fluid ounce.

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

#317

Post by ChatGTP » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 9:49 PM UTC

ribyni wrote: post #41

farzinadil wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ou…

I think this is true. I’d buy in SF immediately if I could.

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

#318

Post by Rapzid » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 9:59 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #288

stickfigure wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love porters but they're getting hard to find. Every supermarket is wall-to-wall IPAs. I assume they know what sells, so apparently that's what the market wants right now. You can't make a living brewing porters. I would be a lot more disappointed with this turn of events if I had access to their porter. But the ubiquitous steam beer was never one of my favorites.

And things are better now! I feel like 10-15 years ago it truly was wall-to-wall IPAs, and if you wanted something else, you had maybe one or two choices. Now at least it seems like the IPA craze has died down a bit, though they're still well over-represented. I personally don't like IPAs at all, and it's really frustrating. Most of the time I end up going for a cocktail or wine since the beer selection at most bars…

I really love IPAs myself, but I'm very tired of hazy styles (hazy, NEIPA, etc). My favorite hop varieties are from NZ and I can tell you they have been doing some excellent stuff with IPAs there for over a decade. West Coast and NZ collabs are also awesome.

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

#319

Post by gffrd » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 10:12 PM UTC

mynameishere wrote: post #224

gffrd wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once had a homeless fella ask me to buy him a beer by name: Voodoo Ranger. Which is like 9% alcohol, sold in 16oz cans. As casual drinkers drink less, maybe we're not the target market …

He must have had you pegged for a sucker. When bums spend their own money they are strictly economical. That means handles of vodka, fortified wine, or (maybe) something like Steel Reserve.

He did pretty well. He was our neigbborhood bum, and positioned himself outside the high-end grocer.

He expressed enjoying his lifestyle, and seemed to relish his “role” … almost leaning in to cultural stereotypes and subverting them.

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

#320

Post by OkayPhysicist » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 10:27 PM UTC

xp84 wrote: post #287

geodel wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it could be management didn't meet labor's demand and labor got the brewery closed. So in that sense it could be success.

20th century labor movement: We want improved working conditions and more jobs to exist, let’s bargain in pursuit of that goal 21st century labor movement: we’d consider it a success to destroy all of the jobs altogether rather than accept less than 100% of our demands (which may or may not be economically feasible). It sure incentivizes eliminating human labor as fast as possible.

That's not exactly being generous to the unions. The corporations fight unionization at every turn, so the unions need to play aggressive to get the kinds of wins that keep them being supported. At the same time, the corporations have taken the position that unionization is such an existential threat that they'll happily close a profitable location if it unionizes, in order to make an example of them, raising the stakes for unionization even higher. Meanwhile, the government will happily back the bigwigs at every turn.

The result is that good faith negotiations between capital and labor are now impossible. If the government would do its job, and seriously punish companies and investors (think less "angry email" and more "Old Yeller") who engage in illegal union busting, then unionization wouldn't be a massive risk for the employees, and more modest demands could be seen as acceptable.