Reactions to Japanese beer giant Sapporo’s decision to cease operations at Anchor Brewing and liquidate the business continue to roll in.
The voice of the San Francisco craft brewery’s workforce is just beginning to be heard. Anchor’s union workers released the following statement via Twitter yesterday:
“Statement will come out soon, we’re sad, we’re defeated, we want to be left alone. SF Chronicle dropping the news before most of us knew didn’t help. We see that. We’ll talk when we’re ready.”
The International Longshore & Warehouse Union Local 6, which Anchor’s workers belong to, released a statement Wednesday calling it “a sad day for the workers of Anchor Steam and the City of San Francisco.”
“This is the tragic consequence of a multi-billion dollar, transnational corporation, headquartered across the Pacific Ocean, taking over a local institution and failing to understand how to market, sell, and distribute a great product that has been loved for generations,” the union wrote. “To Sapporo, Anchor Steam was just another line item in the budget of their multi-billion dollar corporation and an asset to be cut up and sold but it is the workers and the City of San Francisco that suffer the consequences.”
David Burkhart, Anchor Brewing’s historian of 31 years, also penned a farewell (for now) to the brewery in San Francisco Gate. Burkhart wrote with reverence of Fritz Maytag’s leadership in reviving the brewery, noting that some of the team that Maytag built still worked at the brewery:
“It’s not conceivable that Anchor has used up the last of its nine lives. It’s a survivor. Surely there must be another angel, hovering over the brewery, who sees the value in a small business that makes unique, local, delicious, beautiful products – San Francisco in a glass. So I won’t say goodbye to Anchor Steam, but rather au revoir – goodbye for now.”
On the day Sapporo announced brewing had stopped at the nation’s oldest craft brewery, SFGate editor Grant Marek took a photo of Anchor Brewing’s building on Wednesday, where the company’s flag was flying upside down, a sign of distress.
after i heard they were ceasing all operations this morning, rode my bike by anchor brewing on the way to work. the flag is flying upside down.
dark, dark day for san francisco beer drinkers. pic.twitter.com/0UL5xyAWHT
— Grant Marek (@Grant_Marek) July 12, 2023