The dust has settled after last week’s purchase of historic Anchor Brewing Company to brewing giant Sapporo.  Here are some thoughts on why this isn’t the end of the world.

• Admittedly, this one hits close to home.  One could argue that Fritz Maytag and Anchor both started the American craft brewing revival and saved the IPA style from extinction.  Or at least started the movement of American breweries toward making hop-forward beers.  He’s the godfather.
• But Anchor was already a little Crafty anyway.  Maytag sold Anchor to the Griffin Group in 2010.  For that he gets a pass in my book, given his stature in the brewing industry and the length of his brewing career (was he supposed to keep brewing craft beer into his 80’s?).  And the Griffin Group isn’t remotely AB InBev.
• Ok, Anchor under Griffin was actually more than a little Crafty.  They did engage in some decidedly un-craft-like behavior, like trademarking the once common (in CA anyway) style of steam beer, and forbidding other breweries from using it.  Now we’re stuck with calling non-Anchor steam beers “California Common.”
• Sapporo isn’t Craft, but they’re not AB InBev either.  They don’t engage in the same sorts of anti-competitive practices that AB InBev and MillerCoors do, if only because of Sapporo doesn’t have the massive presence in the U.S. distribution market that the other bigs have.  Their holdings in the western hemisphere are much more selective: basically just Unibroue, and their beers are pretty ok.
• This sale is more about liquor than about beer.  Anchor Distilling has been growing, while Anchor Brewing sales have been declining for years.  Griffin wants to focus on their distilling business, and the brewery has been a drag on that.
• San Francisco is the immediate loser in the deal.  Anchor had been planning to work with the Giants to restore historic Pier 48.  That deal is pretty much dead now.  Quoting Griffin’s Keith Greggor to Brewbound:

We have to work on things that we can control ourselves. It is becoming more and more apparent that refurbishing these piers to meet the seismic codes is difficult. And the cost of doing that is beyond us. We will maintain an open mind about it, but we can’t make it our mission to fall on our sword trying to revive a pier.

So this one really is about more than just beer.

It feels bad to have one of craft brewing’s early icons fall.  But it won’t be the last, and one can already sense a bit of outrage fatigue setting in about these issues.  Best to save our anger for when one of the giants does something truly horrible (like buy up an entire country’s hop output).   In the meantime, I’ll still find room to toast Fritz Maytag with a Liberty Ale every once in a while, and maybe I’ll continue to buy a bottle or two of Anchor’s Christmas Ale every winter.  That beer is still really good.

Craft on.