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SF's Anchor Brewing Company shutting down after 127 years

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

#351

Post by throwawaymobule »

yamazakiwi wrote: post #260
spookthesunset wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those light beers are also low ABV, which is ideal for warm summer days where to just want something refreshing without getting plastered. A simple tasting 4% beer works great for that. A complex, bitter 12% double IPA? Not so much. I’d much rather drink an amber ale on a nice warm day than yet another IPA.

To take that one step further I think most new drinkers find seltzers more refreshing in the heat than low abv light beers.

Worth noting that most 'hard seltzers' like whiteclaw are still brewed sort of like beers for tax reasons. Since brewed drinks have less excise on them than premixed drinks.

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

#352

Post by fennecfoxy »

sfpotter wrote: post #117
bartread wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fro…

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…

I still only love sours; I'm a little gay cocktail freak usually, but sour beers have always seemed kind of special to me - I love the flavour and the history of using wild yeast (I think there was a river somewhere with the right type of yeast where they just used to leave fruit next to the river for the yeast to collect).

But unfortunately there doesn't seem to be as many sours around in the UK now, when I was still in NZ we have tonnes, but now all I find in the UK is IPAs and "DIPA"s etc. So boring.

Ah there we are: https://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/lambic-... tbf idt they leave the wort by the riverside anymore per se, the yeast seems to just be in the air all around that area. Super cool, though.

Belgium is definitely worth a visit if you like interesting beers, there are countless places, but I'd have to recommend Delirium Café (a honestly confusing maze of various beer halls) but for good weather "Little Delirium" is great too, smaller location but with nice outdoor seating.

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

#353

Post by fennecfoxy »

throwawaymobule wrote: post #351
yamazakiwi wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To take that one step further I think most new drinkers find seltzers more refreshing in the heat than low abv light beers.

Worth noting that most 'hard seltzers' like whiteclaw are still brewed sort of like beers for tax reasons. Since brewed drinks have less excise on them than premixed drinks.

Well nah, the ingredients just like "alcohol": https://ussupport.whiteclaw.com/en/support/solutions/article....

You could argue that the alcohol in it was fermented, but all alcohol is fermented, aha. Apparently WC base alcohol is a pure spirit "5 times distilled from corn & gluten free".

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

#354

Post by fennecfoxy »

tezka wrote: post #342
bartread wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fro…

> but as a Brit coming from somewhere with a by then thriving real ale scene, Served at room temperature. Yikes.

You can buy more than Ale in the UK.

Out of all countries I've been to, New Zealand has the best craft beer scene though, imo.

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

#355

Post by fennecfoxy »

softwaredoug wrote: post #107

The pandemic has triggered / accelarated a lot of trends One trend I wonder about is cutting back on drinking. From a health perspective, I see more and more health officials loudly saying no healthy amount of alcohol[1]. It's simply poison. Not that I'm aggressively for any kind of prohibition, and don't very rarely drink, but I wonder if we'll see increased awareness and more people just deciding not to drink as mu…

Lmao, the microplastics and particulates from ever increasing pollution will get us before the alcohol does, imo.

Plus most people I know that drink craft beers have just 1-2 at a time, it's the people that drink piss/regular beers that I see having as many as they can, pint after pint.

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

#356

Post by fennecfoxy »

munificent wrote: post #225
necubi wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trend isn't away from drinking, it's away from beer. Seltzers and other malt-based drinks have had huge growth in the past few years, mostly at the expense of beer sales, and liquor sales are up as well. Slate's been doing a great series over the past week about these trends if you're interested: https://slate.com/tag/beer-package .

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…

Seltzers are also basically no empty calories. I feel like millennials (like me) and gen Z are increasingly aware of this, we don't care about the alcohol, but we do care about drinking liquid sugar or liquid bread.

And seltzers are great cause many are naturally sweetened, no artificial sweeteners either, whether they're bad or not is still up for debate I suppose.

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

#357

Post by mattmaroon »

floren wrote: post #126
mattmaroon wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yuengling is not considered craft beer by a lot of people because it’s made mainly from adjuncts, in their case corn. It’s only recent that the Brewer’s Association changed the definition to include them, but most people in the industry disagree with it. Yuengling is just a cheaply made lager that’s really no better than Budweiser. But, that term doesn’t have an official definition so they still can claim the title.

> Yuengling is just a cheaply made lager that’s really no better than Budweiser. Now, maybe in terms of production methods, but I've consumed plenty of Bud and absolutely gallons of Yuengling, and Yuengling stands apart. It's not fancy, but it's good. College parties in Rochester would usually include Labatt, Molson, Yuengling, and Genesee. Only the Yuengling was worthy as a drinking beer; Labatt and Molson were just…

Eh. A lot of people have very distinct expressed preferences for one mass market lager over another ("I only drink Coors!")and then in blind taste tests completely fail to pick them apart at any better a rate than chance. I'm always skeptical when people tell me one adjunct beer is better than another.

I'm not saying you're for sure wrong, certainly some beers are distinguihsable from some other beers, but you might consider having someone do a blind taste test with you some day just for fun. I've made a number of friends angry when they tell me they like one particular vodka and I do a few triangle tests and show them that they can't actually tell one from another.

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

#358

Post by astura »

local_crmdgeon wrote: post #165
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem is that the steam beer process they used is a cheap and nasty process by design and they were one of the last holdouts of that style. I did a tour of their brewery where they do the open air fermenting (hence the name, steam came off it). It's a way to save refrigeration costs in brewing and makes for a poor beer. If they adapted to modern tastes they wouldn't really be steam beer anymore. They'd…

>Last holdouts They were only a "holdout" insofar as they sued anyone else who used that process. They were kind of a shitty corporate citizen and I'm not sad to see them go.

No they didn't, they own the trademark term "steam beer" and only went after the people using the trademark, not people using the same process using the generic term "California Common."
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