"The stake through the heart of Anchor was the pandemic," Sam Singer, a spokesman for the company, said by phone on Wednesday, noting that 70 percent of its product had been sold in restaurants and bars. In 2021, Anchor Brewing tried to adapt, rebranding and bottling and canning more of its beers to sell in grocery stores. But those changes "couldn't make up for the significant loss of sales," he added.
In a last-ditch attempt to stay afloat, Anchor limited sales of its beer to California, and stopped producing one of its products, a Christmas ale.
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After Anchor was acquired by Sapporo, workers spoke out about what they described as inadequate pay and unfair working conditions, and voted to unionize in 2019.
they definitely seemed to think they could turn it into something more modern and hip just by tweakign the branding and opening a taproom (edit: I don't know if the taproom was always there but it looked new). Can't have been cheap to have the amount of real estate they did in SF.
If they owned the land for as long as the company had been around, then it was incredibly cheap due to Prop 13.
yeah the main brewery they've owned since the late 70s it sounds like. Not sure about the lot across the street with the taproom but definitely at least prior to 2010