Last week, while doing a little research on the California Common style of beer for a Beer Wise Session, I read for the first time that Anchor Brewing Company had been purchased by Japanese company Sapporo Holdings, Limited back in August.  The fact that this news broke without my noticing over three months ago isn’t really a surprise; I haven’t had an Anchor Steam in almost fifteen years.  Even my usual beer information channels didn’t seem to pay it much attention, and there’s a reason for this: the California Common style, called a “Steam Beer” if it happens to have been brewed by newly-acquired Anchor Brewing Company, isn’t a popular style in the United States, arguably the most competitive beer market in the world right now.  So what happens if, when a brewery that is really only known for a somewhat obscure and unpopular style, is bought by Big Beer and no longer considered “craft”?  As the brewery’s few remaining craft beer fans dwindle, will the style die with its primary producer’s credibility?

You may be wondering what a California Common is and why it’s not popular.  This beer originated on the West Coast around the time of the Gold Rush in the mid-1800’s.  German-American brewers headed to California, Oregon and Washington and with them came their exceptional lager brewing skills and the cold-loving yeast strains that made them.  This was an issue in their new brewing environment, however, as the weather was much warmer than the Mid-West and New England climates in which these yeast strains thrive, and at the time ice was too expensive and refrigeration non-existent.  But the beer must flow, and so these inventive and persistent brewers began using their clean-fermenting lager yeasts in the warmer temperatures, fashioning large, shallow wooden boxes called “cool ships” in which to cool their boiled wort and ferment the beer without the luxury of traditional lagering (to “lager” a beer is to store it at cool-to-cold temperatures, allowing the yeast to finish and clear the beer over longer periods of times than typical ale fermentation).  These beers went into wooden barrels and developed a high level of carbonation, and when opened for serving would emit a steam-like hiss.  That, along with their steaming appearance when initially put into the cool ships, brought on the off-hand name “steam beer”.

The Steam Beer was immensely popular for a short time in the San Francisco area; it was clean and clear with a sharp hop bitterness.  Even today, the style is similar to an amber ale, with a cleaner nose and more straightforward hop and malt profiles.  It’s good for washing down Cali-Mex and Asian-American cuisine and doesn’t have a big waistline, so it’s easy to drink more than one.  Once refrigeration technology emerged, the Steam Beer style began to suffer and lose footing to traditional lagers.  Anchor Brewing Company, who claims to have started in one way or another all the way back in 1849, struggled through earthquakes, fires and Prohibition, reopening in 1933 and stubbornly continuing to make a market by producing the Steam Beer style.  In the 1960’s Fritz Maytag purchased Anchor Brewing and used his money and influence to prevent other breweries from using the Steam Beer name, and the California Common was born.

In the 1990s, when I actually started paying attention to the beer aisle at the grocery store, Anchor Steam was a beer that was on every shelf.  The term “craft beer” wasn’t really bandied about in my part of the world back then, but if it had been, Anchor Steam certainly would have been considered one of the pillars of the craft beer market.  I watched people grab six-packs of Anchor Steam and say things like “Oh man, it’s time for Anchor; this stuff is good” on their way to the lake or a July 4^th cookout, reserving its purchase for special events that required “serious beer drinking.”  Fast-forward to 2017, and even in our burgeoning beer market in which brewers are happily and frantically making just about any style they come across, the California Common has less than 600 examples on the commercial market.  Believe me, that isn’t very many.

 

Now let’s get to the real issue here.  In the Big Beer strategy of “If you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em,” craft beer drinkers have watched some of their favorite larger breweries being bought by some of the largest beer companies in the world.  It seems that once you can get a beer you really like outside of your vacation spot or business trip region, the brewery garners enough attention to have millions (or even a BILLION) thrown at it and now their product is no longer considered “craft”.  We’ve all watched Ballast Point, Lagunitas, Goose Island, Wicked Weed and Funky Buddha among others get gobbled up by Big Beer, and from my point of view, one of three things typically occurs:

• Mediocre beers are heavily distributed and bullied onto draft lines all over the country, inundating beer drinkers with lackluster brews that make savvy drinkers wonder why they see this stuff in every bar that claims to have good beer.
• The brewery takes a solid, even great product that has a successful flavor variant and begins churning out massive amounts of that beer with every conceivable fruit flavor integrated into it via a squeeze bottle, making you ask WHAT HAPPENED TO BALLAST POINT SCULPIN?!?
• A much-anticipated seasonal release is reduced to a profit-maximizing donkey punch for the consumer by ignoring overall enjoyment through the use of adjuncts and flavor extracts, taking any tradition, pride and soul out of the product. Oh yeah, then they jack up the price an obscene amount.

When we see this happen to the products we love, the discerning beer drinker will shake our head, mutter “Another one bites the dust” and write them off.  Why patronize a brewery that is now owned by a gigantic corporation that will go on national television and make fun of a beer, while having bought the company that made the beer before airing the commercial?  Or who will bankrupt small, peripheral American craft beer businesses by buying brewing resources such as malt or hop farms overseas?  As a craft beer lover, I’d rather do my part to support small breweries who are making great beer, personally.

So back to the big question:  If a brewery that has made its bones by steadfastly producing a mostly obscure and largely unpopular style and that was considered a Father of Craft Beer sells out to Big Beer, what happens to that style?  On the whole, people don’t drink California Commons.  It’s hard to find.  I had to have a beer buyer scour the earth for one case of Anchor Steam for my beer class, and outside of tourists hitting the Anchor Brewing taproom when on vacation in San Francisco, I don’t see anyone even asking for it.  Anchor Steam Beer is the only California Common that can (or could) be purchased coast to coast here in the United States.  Now that it’s no longer considered “craft”, what will happen to the style when die-hard fans, lager purists and hipster obscurists are turned off by the Big Beer label?  Will its market share plummet, or will it be crammed down our throats until the general public drinks it out of pure saturation?

Anchor Brewing Company, you have often referred to yourself with impressive monikers such as “leader of the craft beer revolution.” You’ve killed this identity off by selling to a foreign corporation.  Will the beer style upon which you built your foundation die, as well?