David Burkhart - The Anchor Brewing Story: Americas First Craft Brewery & San Franciscos Original Anchor Steam Beer

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Anchor Brewing Story could never have been written without my wife, Deb Shidler, whose love, support, and Youre doin it! faith in me was unwavering right up until her untimely passing in 2021. Our shared passion for history, genealogy, and research led to many discoveries for this book, including Gottlieb Brekles birthplace, birth date, and incredible journey from Ossweil to Valdivia to San Francisco, as well as Gottlieb and Maries secret adoption of his nephew, future brewer Frederick, as their son.

To the entire 8th Street gang, including Fritz Maytag, Gordon MacDermott, Mark Carpenter, Linda Rowe, Chris Solomon, Mike Lee, Phil Canevari, and Dennis Kellett, who were especially helpful.

To the entire Mariposa Street gang, including Bruce Joseph, Tom Riley, Darek Ochtera, Bob Brewer, Kevin West, Andrea DeVries, John Dannerbeck, Keith Greggor, Tony Foglio, Lynn Lackey, Teagan Thompson, Matt Davenport, Scott Ungermann, Dane Volek, Ramon Tamayo, Jen Jordan, Jon Ezell, Wolfgang Salger, Rhys Carvolth, Michelle Muhme, Gideon Bush, Jiro Ohkawa, and Scott Pederson, for all their help and support. To honorary Anchorite Peter Kollnberger, who knows everything about brewing and so graciously helped me decipher old German text. And to my Anchor partners in rock n roll crime, the Hysters, featuring the Old Fog Horns.

To Elizabeth Brekle, Jane Cunningham, and Jacque Turner, my earliest direct connections to the Brekle family. And to Fred and Sue Brekle and all future generations.

To all the amazing artists, illustrators, and graphic designers with whom Ive collaborated, including Jim Stitt, Jack Martin, Richard Elmore, Elaine Kwong, Grace Woo, Susan DeSmet, Eric Sabee, Brian Bisio, David Williams, and Jim Phillips. And to still-local artist Dennis Ziemienski, whose mid-1970s illustration of a bottle and glass of Anchor Steam inspired this books cover art.

To the incredible photographers with whom Ive worked: Andree Abecassis, Kirk Amyx, Erin Conger, Allen D. Johnson, and Terry McCarthy. And to Bill Brach and Norman Seeffwhat a treat to see your photos and hear your stories about Janis and Steve.

To Ken Hepler, Charles Ruble, Frits Kouwenhoven, and all the wonderful printers who taught me so much about their craft.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the fine staffs of these institutions, which both preserve history and bring it to life: the American Philosophical Society; the Art Deco Society of California; The Bancroft Library and Doe Library, UC Berkeley; the Brewers Association; the California Historical Society; the California State Archives; California State Library and Sutro Library; the Chicago History Museum; the Family History Library (Salt Lake City & San Bruno, CA); Landesarchiv Baden-Wrttemberg, Stuttgart; the Library of Congress; the Mechanics Institute Library; the National Archives (Washington, DC & San Bruno, CA); the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution; the San Francisco History Association; the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library; the San Francisco Historical Society; the Shields Library, UC Davis; The Society of California Pioneers; the Truckee-Donner Historical Society; and the Verdi History Center.

A special shoutout to Axel Borg, Susan Goldstein, John Hogan, Patricia Keats, and Susan Snyder, as well as my fellow company historians: Lynn Downey, Historian Emeritus, Levi Strauss & Co.; and Bob Chandler, Historian Emeritus, Wells Fargo.

To Paula Johnson and Theresa McCulla at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, for their unstinting support of craft brewing in America.

To Miguel Civil and Sol Katz (the Ninkasi Project), Marcia Jervis (Anchor Distributing), Myrna Ver Ploeg (Maytag Dairy Farms), Paul Draper (Ridge Vineyards), Peter Albin (Big Brother and the Holding Company), Chet Helms, Tom (The Iceman) Macaulay, Balloonist Deke Sonnichsen, Tom Dalldorf, Lew Bryson, Jay Brooks, Kari Schutty, Sara Ferguson, and the Blowup Labwhat an eclectic joy to work with all of you!

To the Tougas family, for their generous donation of the Oasiss vintage Anchor sign (see ), as well as an Oasis table and benches. To Greg Goss, who rescued August Maritzens original 1906 Anchor blueprints (see The Anchor Brewing Story s endpapers) from a dumpster and graciously gave them to me for the Anchor archive. And to Bob Welch, a true gentleman, for the gift of his vivid memories of the Crystal Palace Market and Anchor Brewing in the 1950s.

To Tom Acitelli, Charlie Bamforth, Bo Burlingham, Natalie and Vinnie Cilurzo, Ken Grossman, and Charlie Papazian for their encouraging words.

Thanks to Emily Timberlake for asking me to write this book. And special thanks to Julie Bennett and her super team at Ten Speed Pressespecially Annie Marino, Betsy Stromberg, and Kimmy Tejasindhuas well as homebrewer/author Emma Christensen and freelance editor Chris Hallfor their invaluable contributions to The Anchor Brewing Story .

Award-winning author and historian David Burkhart is an honors graduate of Yale. In 1991, he joined the small staff of Anchor Brewing Co., where he worked side-by-side with owner and brewmaster Fritz Maytag. In his thirty-plus years at Anchor, Burkhart has done nearly every job at the brewery, adding Anchor brewery historian to his many titles in 2010. His books on the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and mixologist William T. Cocktail Boothby have won numerous awards, including the Benjamin Franklin, Independent Publisher, National Indie Excellence, and USA Best Books Awards in History. Burkhart is also a professional trumpeter; a founding member of the Grammy-nominated Bay Brass; a performer with San Franciscos Symphony, Opera, and Ballet; and a professor at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Fritz Maytag grew up in Newton, Iowa. He graduated from Deerfield Academy in 1955 and Stanford in 1959, where he subsequently studied Japanese. The owner of York Creek Vineyards and chairman emeritus of Maytag Dairy Farms, Anchor Brewing Co., and Anchor Distilling Co., Fritz is the recipient of the James Beard Foundations Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional and Lifetime Achievement Awards.

Appendix

ANCHOR HOMEBREW RECIPES

As a homebrewer you give yourself and the people who you know a choice: not only to brew the kind of beer that you like, but also the opportunity to feel and understand what beer is all about.

Charlie Papazian, The Complete Joy of Home Brewing (1984)

Homebrewer turned Anchor brewer Bruce Joseph believes that homebrewers recognize in Fritz and Anchor a commitment to the product that comes from having integrity. They have great respect for that and for Fritzs role in the evolution of beer. In 1984, a member of the San Andreas Malts, Allan Paul (who would open San Franciscos first brewpub in 1985), approached Fritz about sponsoring a California Homebrew Club of the Year Award. In 1984, the Gold Country Brewers became the first of a long line of clubs to have their names inscribed on the handmade trophy, which is on display at Anchor.

The development of these homebrew recipes began years ago with Mark Carpenter (since 1971) and continued with an ad hoc Anchor homebrew team comprised of Bruce Joseph (since 1980), Andrea DeVries (since 1994), Dane Volek (since 2008), Jen Jordan (since 2014), and me (since 1991), ably assisted by Emma Christensen, author of True Brews and Brew Bette r, and a team of recipe testers. There are both partial mash/extract and all-grain recipes for each beer. Feel freeone of the great joys of homebrewing!to tweak them to match your sensory perception of these classic brews. To paraphrase Charlie Papazian: Relax. Dont worry. Have a homebrewor have an Anchor and repurpose the empties!