One day, you’ll wake up and there won’t be anymore time to do the things you’ve always wanted to do. Don’t wait. Do it now.
He would seem to be the right person to do it
As a yogurt guy, he probably knows more about fermentation than Fritz did back when he bought Anchor.
He’s a management guy, which means he knows how to hire the right people.
He actually knows very little about brewing beer and owns no other holdings related to brewing. He really didn’t know much about yogurt when he bought Chobani. Ulukaya says it was the people and incredible history of Chobani that drove him to save that company and he had the same feeling after visiting Anchor.
“Steam Beer” is a trademark registered by anchor
Now that anchor is “alive” again, we can ensure that no other regional san francisco breweries will be able to promote “steam beer” (whether it is a real style or not, and what defines that style aside). what else do they call it - “california common”?
oh well
He started out in cheese and then expanded into yogurt. It’s true that he’s the business guy and has never been the hands-on guy (he brought over a yogurt maker from Turkey (I think) to develop the original Chobani recipe), but I was just pointing out that it’s a shorter leap from fermented foods to fermented beverages than it is from appliances to fermented beverages. Both involve managing live cultures, time & temperature, sanitation, packaging, etc. — even as a C-suite manager, there’ll be a lot of common vocabulary that he’s already picked up on.
And was always going to be no matter how the sale went down. You bet your sweet bippy that trademark was part of the IP package for sale.
As for Mr. Chobani - he seems like the kind of guy to do this. he loves history and stories. That’s why he bought the shuttering Kraft yogurt factory - he talked with the employees there and got the stories and decided that he wanted in where Kraft wanted out.
He treats the employees well, does big work in terms of refugee causes and all in all seems like a decent person and businessman.
Yes. In the rare circumstance that you find another brewery selling this style (e.g. Arizona Wilderness), they typically call it California common.
GREAT NEWS! I do hope the Anchor beers are the Anchor beers of a few years ago and not the recent (before closing) Anchor beers. IMO, the Anchor Steam beers where NOT the same, in a bad way, over the years.
I’m glad they are coming back, but are you guys gonna start buying it regularly once it’s back in production? My guess is it will be a one and done for most. A 6 pack to see if it’s as good and that’s it.
In truth I rarely bought Anchor because it was more than most other beers on the shelf. The only time I would was when something special was released or I needed it for a style class.
I only ever saw it on the shelf once that I can recall. So unless they drastically improve distribution in my market, this whole exercise is just academic for me.
Yea I don’t think I have ever had it because I rarely saw it and when I did it was room temperature dust covered bottles.
Being in the Bay Area I used to buy it regularly and loved it, but the quality declined and it just wasn’t what I remembered so I stopped buying it (and started making my own). I will certainly give it a try in its new incarnation and I hope it survives in one form or another.
lol, very true. like if i had to think of any beer brand like that it’d be anchor or it’d be the very weird off brands from canada like molson brador, labatt crystal, OLD VIENNA lmao. the crazy thing is how old vienna has somehow hung on for so long. i used to go into a major beer warehouse here and they had skids of old vienna all the time.
Back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s we used to get Anchor Porter and Liberty IPA here in Alabama. I remember them both being quite delicious. That said, I was never a huge fan of the Steam beer
Ditto, but in Wisconsin.
I found Anchor Steam in Montgomery once. This would’ve been around 2019/2020. I remember it being ok but not exceptional.
i think this does really get to the core of the issue with “reviving” this brewery - no offense but why? the only reason i could imagine, is that it was a regional thing, but i kind of doubt that. if they revive it, i mean they’ll probably have to completely change it conceptually or it wont work anyway. so… ???
Billionaires can do whatever they want. We have zero comprehension of how meaningless money is to a billionaire. Nobody might buy the beer and he doesn’t need to care. At least the Christmas Ale will sell well, wherever it is distributed, hopefully broadly.