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.
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.
Craft beer isn’t new, but it has been building up to this point, especially in the last decade. The number of US breweries has quadrupled in this period and the past couple of years I’ve easily had many of the best and most interesting beers I’ve ever had in my life, often from local Bay Area breweries. That’s all very new, and the “classic” couldn’t compete when there’s better, or let’s say at least more interesting choices available. A more likely story for declining sales than “distribution and marketing issues” for a brand which is far more well-known than almost any other SFBA beer with the backing of a global megabrewer.
There’s too many IPAs though on that we can agree.
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 :(
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.
Craft beer isn’t new, but it has been building up to this point, especially in the last decade. The number of US breweries has quadrupled in this period and the past couple of years I’ve easily had many of the best and most interesting beers I’ve ever had in my life, often from local Bay Area breweries. That’s all very new, and the “classic” couldn’t compete when there’s better, or let’s say at least more interesting choices available. A more likely story for declining sales than “distribution and marketing issues” for a brand which is far more well-known than almost any other SFBA beer with the backing of a global megabrewer.
There’s too many IPAs though on that we can agree.
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 :(