Oldest brewery in the US closes after 127 years – 07/14/2023 – Market

It survived the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Prohibition, and both world wars. But recent economic pressures have been too much for the company that claims to be America’s oldest craft brewery: After 127 years, Anchor Brewing Co. it’s closing.

In a statement released on Wednesday (12), the company, founded in 1896, said that the impacts of the pandemic, inflation and a highly competitive market left it “with no option but to make the sad decision to end operations”.

Employees were given 60 days’ notice and promised severance packages, the company said. Anchor added that while it had stopped brewing beer, it would continue to package and distribute whatever beverage is available. It will be sold in draft form while supplies last, he said.

The brewery’s sales had been falling since 2016, and in 2017 the company was acquired for around US$85 million (R$408 million) by the Japanese beer giant Sapporo.

“The knife in the heart of Anchor was the pandemic,” Sam Singer, a company spokesman, said by telephone on Wednesday, noting that 70% of its production was sold in restaurants and bars.

In 2021, Anchor Brewing attempted to adapt, rebrand, and bottle and canned more of its beers for retail sale. But those changes “could not make up for the significant loss of sales,” he adds. In a last-ditch attempt to stay afloat, Anchor limited beer sales to California and stopped producing one of its staples, a Christmas beer.

However, expenditures continued to exceed revenues. “The bottom line is that Anchor ran out of money and time,” Singer said.

Anchor, beloved by many Americans and often credited with spurring the craft beer resurgence of the 1960s, is the latest brewery to succumb to the pressures of a highly competitive market. In recent years, several smaller firms in the sector have been absorbed by larger companies. Others have revamped their distribution models or gone out of business.

Regional breweries like Anchor, which are large enough to sell their beers nationally but small enough to be considered artisanal, are the most vulnerable.

They face competition from both local microbreweries and macrobreweries like Coors or Miller, said Jarrett Hart, an agricultural and economics scholar at the University of California, Davis, whose research has focused on craft beer. “They’ve been experiencing year-on-year losses in profits and generally losing market share,” he says.

After Anchor was acquired by Japan’s Sapporo, workers spoke out about what they described as inadequate pay and unfair working conditions and voted to unionize in 2019.

Joanne Marino, executive director of the Association of Bay Area Breweries, said Wednesday that given the crippling economic reality, Anchor’s closure was not a surprise. But she said the news still caused her sadness.

“Whenever a small brewery is bought by a large multinational conglomerate, the calculus for its existence changes a little bit,” said Marino. “It’s not a surprise, but it’s a shock, and a very sad day.”

Anchor Brewing said that despite repeated efforts to find buyers for the brewery and its brands, none had materialized. Singer said the brewery has seen many downturns in its history and hopes there is still a chance for a revival if a buyer comes forward during the liquidation process.

“The San Francisco flag is a phoenix rising from the ashes, and Anchor has had many phoenix moments in its history,” said Singer. “But that’s out of our hands now,” she added. “We can only hope for the best.”

Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves