Neither the two world wars, nor Prohibition, nor the great 1906 earthquake in San Francisco managed to destroy Anchor Steam, the small cult beer in the Californian city, and the oldest craft beer in the United States. But instead it has now succumbed to the pandemic, inflation, competition from big brands and changing consumer tastes.
Its acquisition in 2017 by the Japanese Sapporo already made its many fans, concentrated mainly west of the Rocky Mountains, fear the worst. Workers began to complain about low wages and unfair working conditions. First, the new owners abandoned draft sales in bars and restaurants, focusing exclusively on bottled products. Then, to cut costs, they limited the Anchor Steam to California. But nothing worked. The numbers did not come out.
With the gold rush of the mid-19th century, the Germans and the Czechs brought European-style beer to the American West and a different process that involves fermenting lager yeast at higher than normal temperatures. It is what in Bavaria is called dampfbier (and in English steam beer, or steam beer). In the absence of barley, which was in short supply, the original producers resorted to cheap cereals, and the combination of all this results in a drink with a dark color and a slightly bittersweet aftertaste, very particular.
Legend has it that beer barrels were cooled by the Pacific breeze on the rooftops of San Francisco buildings, and that a kind of steam emanated from them, hence the name steam beer (although the German translation sounds like a misnomer). less romantic and more scientific theory). Founded in 1896, the company is not without its tragic stories, as two of its first owners died prematurely, one of them falling from one of the city's trams.
Improvements in preservatives and refrigeration techniques in the 1960s, coupled with the vast national highway network in the United States, led to the easy and rapid distribution across the country of beers from large companies such as Coors, Miller, and Anheuser. Busch, which made life difficult for the handcrafted ones. However, they reemerged like the phoenix from the eighties, with the trend of microbreweries, which currently number almost ten thousand in the United States and contribute 90,000 million euros to the national economy (the trend has spread to Europe, and in Great Britain there are more than 1,700). In exchange, the State helps them with subsidies and significant tax discounts.
Like everything in life, they have their followers and detractors. The most puritanical residents complain about the alcoholization of their neighborhoods and the noise and racket that they bring with them, but on the other hand they attract cool tourism, give use to abandoned garages and industrial buildings, revitalize run-down neighborhoods and raise the value of of the surrounding houses and apartments.
After several decades of boom, tastes have changed, and beer (of all kinds) is giving way to wine and cocktails. The only way out of the sector is to broaden its traditional consumer base (white men of a certain age), and to attract women and ethnic minorities. An Albuquerque, New Mexico microbrewery targets its product to Indians and uses traditional native ingredients, another from San Diego, to Mexicans. There are many who have jumped on the cultural bandwagon of diversity and inclusiveness.
But if a recovery occurs, for Anchor Steam it will be too late. It has stopped producing, and its fans have bought the last cases of bottles directly from the warehouse of a brand that is part of the history of California, which had its origins in the gold rush of two centuries ago and developed a unique type of beer. , distinct from lager, pilsner, and ale. And whose steam, if the legend is true, rose from the roofs of the buildings, spread through the city, and enveloped the Golden Gate, just as the fog does now.
