An Inside Look at the Pioneering Days of American Craft Beer
By Tom Acitelli
Published July 2013, Volume 34, Number 3
Fritz Maytag bought a controlling share in Anchor Brewing in 1965, around the time when more than 80 percent of the beer sold in the United States was made by just six breweries. Photo courtesy of Anchor Brewing.
One day in August, 1965, a 27-year-old former graduate student in Japanese studies at Stanford walked into his favorite bar, the Old Spaghetti Factory in San Francisco’s trendy North Beach neighborhood. He ordered his usual: an Anchor Steam. The bar’s owner, a World War II veteran and local eccentric named Fred Kuh, ambled over. “You ever been to the brewery?” Kuh asked the young man (they knew each other).
“No.”
“You ought to see it,” Kuh said. “It’s closing in a day or two, and you ought to see it.”
The next day, the young man walked the mile and a half from his apartment to the Anchor Brewery at Eighth and Brannan streets, and bought a 51 percent stake for what he would later describe as “less than the price of a used car.”
The young man’s name was Fritz Maytag.
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Yesterday’s Breweries Have Become Tomorrow’s
By Don Russell
Published March 2012, Volume 33, Number 1
“Brewing since 1907.”
For an industry that spends millions to emphasize the freshness of its product, there’s still some attention to be paid to dusty, sepia-shaded history.
“Made in San Francisco since 1896.”
It takes some looking, but if you shuffle through the cooler at your local beer store you’ll find labels that proudly boast of traditions that are seriously old.
“Brewing excellence since 1857”
Not just old as in “your father’s beer.”
“Established in Milwaukee 1844.”
We’re talking old enough to be Abe Lincoln’s father’s beer. Read More…
The Evolution of Drinking Vessels
By Rick Lyke
Published November 2011, Volume 32, Number 5
A mug is more than just something to hold a cold brew. The iconic beer stein, for instance, was developed using one part industrial progress and one part public health emergency.
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The German Beer Garden Tradition Experiences A Resurgence
By John Holl
Published September 2011, Volume 32, Number 4
Just out of the subway and trudging through freshly fallen snow, my sights were set on Radegast Hall and Biergarten in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood. Fighting against a bracing wind, I focused on what I thought lay ahead of me: liters of lager brought to tables in bunches by—perhaps—a kind woman in a dirndl, in the corner an oompah band occasionally leading the crowd in song. Smiling as I opened the door with these thoughts, I was met with the sound of jazz. Read More…
Trekking Beer Through Religion
By Matt Stinchfield
Published September 2011, Volume 32, Number 4
Most of us have had a beer so good that drinking it was “like a religious experience.” But when was the last time you were served a bowl of murky grog at church? Early people from Mesopotamia to Mesoamerica celebrated everything with beer—from their daily prayers and good harvests to human sacrifice and their gods.
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Beer Wrapped in the Flag
By Julie Johnson
Published July 2010, Volume 31, Number 3
Brewer. Patriot. That two-word tag line says it all, creating a link between love of beer and love of country. The words appeared on the original label for Samuel Adams Boston Lager, above the image of a young, soft-faced Sam Adams, who stares at the viewer, a foaming tankard in front of him.
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