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Anchor Brewing shutting down after 127 years (www.nbcbayarea.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

There's a lot of interesting extra context, mostly as hearsay on Reddit SF (if you want to find it) and HN.

Basically it seems like:

Sapporo closed Anchor as a cost cutting measure, as Anchor has been losing money YoY for a while now (which I believe is known at time of acquisition)
Sapporo wanted to use Anchor to brew Sapporo in the US, but found out their brewery was too old to brew Sapporo
Sapporo instead bought Stone Brewing, which now brews Sapporo and Stone

Feels bad, Anchor was definitely one of my go-to basic beer from the grocery. Guess I'm getting more Fort Point now?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can’t understand how they didn’t know the nature of the facility. You could see what a small a craft shop it was just by going on the tour.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

My bad, turns out the breweries being too small was a figment of my imagination. I reread the original Reddit comment, and it only mentioned the facilities were outdated.

It looks like Sapporo was targeting 360,000 barrels by end of 2024, whereas Anchor Brewing's expansion into Pier 48 would've brought the volume to 680,000 barrels. Anchor brewed 135,000 barrels in 2016 and it sadly dropped to only 65,000 barrels in 2023, which meant Anchor would've easily accommodated Sapporo's volume.

I'll edit the original comment.

Given that I can understand why Sapporo took the risk. They bought Anchor for 2.5 times sales at $85 million, when other breweries like Lagunitas was going for $1B. Sapporo likely thought they could've trimmed losses and made the money back in a few years, but sadly COVID happened, and Sapporo themselves are decreasing in value.