A landmark company in San Francisco has turned off its taps. Anchor Brewing Co. officials announced early Wednesday that it will cease operations and liquidate the business.
Yeah, fair enough any business running for over a 100 years has done something right. However, the amount of (craft) beer competition in the last century just wasn’t even close to the level it is today. In 1978 there were only 89 breweries nationwide. There’s more than that in the Bay alone now. Considering how many really great local breweries and beers are now available, yeah I don’t think their products were good enough to stand out. Then again this is a problem a lot of breweries are having, they are not unique. I never said their beer sucked btw.
Craft beer isn’t new though. It’s been booming for decades. We could say that they didn’t ride the IPA wave and maybe that marketing failure was just enough to sink them. Their distribution was also lousy. I never saw their taps out of state. After visiting them, my sense was that they were just a small-minded, small-scale business. And small businesses have a harder time surviving the ups and downs of the marketplace. They made a bad deal with Sapporo. They went under. None of this besmirches their core product, which is a classic and loved by millions.
Well I just saw the other comment with the vinepair article, and while I think competition from the explosion of craft beers is a part of it, the stories of mismanagement hurt to read :(
Yeah, fair enough any business running for over a 100 years has done something right. However, the amount of (craft) beer competition in the last century just wasn’t even close to the level it is today. In 1978 there were only 89 breweries nationwide. There’s more than that in the Bay alone now. Considering how many really great local breweries and beers are now available, yeah I don’t think their products were good enough to stand out. Then again this is a problem a lot of breweries are having, they are not unique. I never said their beer sucked btw.
Craft beer isn’t new though. It’s been booming for decades. We could say that they didn’t ride the IPA wave and maybe that marketing failure was just enough to sink them. Their distribution was also lousy. I never saw their taps out of state. After visiting them, my sense was that they were just a small-minded, small-scale business. And small businesses have a harder time surviving the ups and downs of the marketplace. They made a bad deal with Sapporo. They went under. None of this besmirches their core product, which is a classic and loved by millions.
Well I just saw the other comment with the vinepair article, and while I think competition from the explosion of craft beers is a part of it, the stories of mismanagement hurt to read :(
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