People wait for a bus outside of Anchor Brewing Company along Mariposa Street in April. A recent Chronicle probe suggets that Anchor’s comeback is underway.
Sage Russell/For the S.F. Chronicle
Earlier this week, Chronicle readers finally got a long-awaited update on what’s brewing over at Anchor — and I finally took a significant step forward on what’s been an almost three-year reporting journey.
In July 2023, my editors called me into a meeting to discuss a top-secret story. The Chronicle had received word that Anchor Brewing was shutting down, and they wanted my help breaking the news. As a Bay Area transplant, I received a crash course in what Anchor means to San Francisco: everything.
In the following weeks, I wrote about San Francisco residents who had ambitions of being the brewery’s next stewards. The Chronicle Food + Wine team closely followed the Assignments for the Benefit of Creditors (ABC) process, an alternative to bankruptcy in which Anchor’s assets would be sold off as quickly as possible to pay back creditors. But almost a year went by before a buyer was announced, and it wasn’t someone anyone expected: Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya. When I first heard that a billionaire yogurt mogul, not another brewery, bought Anchor and was promising to revive it, I was admittedly skeptical. Beyond his knowledge of fermentation science, what were Uukaya’s qualifications to run San Francisco’s most historic brewery? Had he ever even drunk a pint of steam beer?
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But after conversations with former Anchor employees and members of the Bay Area beer community, I could see how the acquisition might be a win for Anchor and San Francisco. Restoring Anchor would likely be a very expensive endeavor, and Ulukaya has a successful business empire — valued at $20 billion, according to the New York Times — in a booming industry. (Chobani posted nearly 30% year-over-year sales growth last year, amounting to $3.8 billion.) Craft beer, on the other hand, is flailing. If Sapporo, which took over Anchor in 2017, couldn’t make Anchor profitable, who’s to say another brewery would do better? An outsider might just be what Anchor needs.
On the day the sale was announced, Ulukaya, standing inside the former taproom and wearing a blue Anchor baseball cap, posted a heartfelt video message to Instagram about his plans to bring the brewery, which he described as “the grand jewel,” back to life.
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He seemed eager to get started. “I don’t want to sit around,” he told the Chronicle. “Wouldn’t it be amazing to get it going in time to make the Christmas ale this year? That would be awesome.”
When Christmas ale didn’t arrive that December, it was disappointing, but not surprising. A former Anchor brewmaster told me that Christmas ale production typically takes place over the summer, which wouldn’t have given Ulukaya much time to get things going. Securing the necessary city approvals to restart operations alone could take months. Maybe next year, I thought.
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But then months turned into years. No city building permits had been pulled, and my optimism started to fizzle. Ever since that video was posted, Anchor and Ulukaya had been tight-lipped about their plans and progress. Doubts crept in: Is reviving Anchor simply too challenging or expensive? Did Ukukaya change his mind? Is it possible he’d turn around and sell Anchor for parts? Chronicle readers seemed to have similar fears. We frequently received emails asking us for an update, and it was frustrating not to have answers.
In January 2025, I thought I was finally close to getting some information. I connected with the president of Shepherd Futures, Ulukaya’s family office, and they proposed scheduling a call for mid-February. But, despite my availability and several follow-ups, a call was never scheduled, and the president’s responses to my emails became increasingly intermittent. The last time I received a response was on Oct. 1, 2025. It read: “Thanks for reaching out. Will be sure to reconnect when we have updates to share.”
In April, with the second anniversary of the sale fast approaching, and still no word from Anchor, it felt like it was time for a more serious probe. The outlook was immediately promising, with multiple sources reporting seeing workers at the brewery. Four people in the beer industry told me Anchor was working with 21st Amendment co-founder and brewer Shaun O’Sullivan, a 30-year veteran who was fresh on the job market after shuttering the much-loved craft brewery in November.
We sent a photographer to the brewery one afternoon in late April, and they reported seeing at least five workers wearing safety vests and helmets, and hearing active construction. The photos they captured contained some helpful clues. Zooming in on one of the images, I could clearly make out the Barnum Mechanical logo on a worker’s safety vest, and a quick internet search revealed that Barnum is the go-to engineering company for Bay Area breweries. Two work trucks had logos that read “Kemper.” That search took longer (it wasn’t the insurance company), but I eventually matched the logo to Kemper International, an industrial refrigeration company based in Idaho. I felt a rush of adrenaline when I discovered that both Barnum and Kemper list Chobani as a client on their websites.
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There were a few other tips I received that I wasn’t able to verify before publication, but if true, they also signal progress. (Email me if you have any.) Ulukaya’s family office did not respond to my request for comment on that story, and I still can’t offer readers many concrete answers. I don’t know when Anchor beer will return to San Francisco — and I’d wager that there won’t be Christmas ale this year — but I await the day that I can sip a pint of Anchor Steam at Oracle Park, whilst cheering on my visiting Red Sox.