{Anchor Brewing on Potrero Hill in San Francisco: Courtesy Anchor Brewing)

After 128 years of calling San Francisco home, Anchor Brewing—the brewery that helped launch America’s craft beer revolution—will be leaving the city where it all began.

And It’s a sobering moment that feels both historic and oddly inevitable.

Once the pride of Potrero Hill, Anchor has long been a symbol of San Francisco’s scrappy artisan creativity. Its signature steam beer (one of America’s only home-grown beer styles) was born out of necessity in the days before refrigeration.

And its survival through earthquakes, Prohibition, near bankruptcy, and the fickle tides of beer trends has always felt like a testament to the city’s resilience.

But that run has come to an end.

The Final Pour

The decision to relocate comes in the wake of prolonged financial struggles, rising operational costs, and changing consumer preferences. San Francisco’s notoriously high real estate and labor expenses pushed Anchor to the edge. Craft beer competition has exploded nationwide, and Anchor—once a pioneer—struggled to keep pace with modern branding and market dynamics.

When Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya acquired the brand earlier this year, he publicly expressed his intention to restore Anchor’s production facility and return brewing to the city where it began in 1896. But hopes of a local revival faded fast.

According to recent comments made by Ulukaya’s team to The San Francisco Standard, they have no intention of reopening the original brewery or reestablishing a physical taproom in the city — at least for now. Instead, Anchor beer will be brewed by a contract partner outside San Francisco.

So while the brand may technically live on, its deep roots, it’s original roots — the ones that connected Anchor to its birthplace and to the very foundation of the American craft beer movement are done , at least for now.

A Legacy That Built Modern Craft Brewing

Anchor Brewing isn’t just another local brewery. It was the spark that ignited the modern American craft beer movement.

• In 1965, Fritz Maytag bought the struggling brewery for a few thousand dollars, cleaned it up, and reinvented what beer could be.
• In 1975, Anchor released Liberty Ale, widely credited as the first modern American IPA.
• Its small-batch, tradition-focused approach inspired the founders of Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, Boston Beer Company, and countless others.

Anchor didn’t just make beer—it set the stage for the craft beer renaissance that followed.

The company’s future remains uncertain. While production will move forward with a contract partner, there’s no timeline—or commitment—for bringing brewing operations back to San Francisco. Ulukaya hasn’t ruled it out entirely, but for now, the barrels, the fog, and the legacy no longer share the same ZIP code.

Bottom Line

Anchor Brewing leaving San Francisco may have been a business decision, but it remains an unshakable cultural loss. The memory of clinking bottles in foggy backyards, brewery tours steeped in history, and  craft beer resurgence started there has now ended

And we can’t help but be sad about that…

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