Give Me Steam
The production of steam beer flourished, and by the end of the nineteenth century there were over a hundred steam beer breweries in California, with others in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and as far east as Wisconsin!* At one time there were 27 steam beer breweries in San Francisco alone; but the number declined as did the popularity of the product, so that by Prohibition (1919) only seven remained.
When Prohibition was repealed in early 1933, only one steam brewery, the Anchor Brewery (founded in 1896), was revived. Anchor was the smallest U.S. post-Prohibition brewery, and it was always lowest in production during those years. Moreover, production continued to drop from around 1500 barrels (46,500-gal; 1760-hl) in the early years, to less than 700 by 1965.
Clearly, the handwriting was on the wall; bankruptcy seemed inevitable for the faltering company. It was only by a twist of fate that young Fritz Maytag heard of the brewery’s plight from Fred Kuhn, owner of San Francisco’s Old Spaghetti Factory.**
Maytag, 27, was just out of Stanford Graduate School (Asian Studies), and not at all enthused about his family’s dairy business in Newton, IA, or in the washing machine branch of the family, for that matter. He did like beer and he had come to enjoy the special qualities of steam beer at the Old Spaghetti Factory. The next morning he went to visit the brewery to offer his condolences to the owners and ended up buying a major interest. It was fortunate that he took control of the brewery, because he proceeded to make small brewing a sound idea.
I suppose the craft brewery movement in North America actually began in California at that time. Maytag reformulated the beer along traditional pre-Prohibition lines with the help of consultant Joseph Owades. At first, no one noticed and success eluded him; but gradually Maytag was able to build his flagship brand Steam Beer into what has since been recognized as a world-class beer. At one point, in 1980, he sued a rival company, California Steam Beer Brewing Co., because he thought they were brewing such bad beer as to ruin the good name of steam beer. At that time he trademarked the name “Steam Beer.”
Anchor Brewery, at 1705 Mariposa in San Francisco, has achieved great national success; an inspiration to craft brewers everywhere. Their production, steady for several years now at under 120,000-bbl/3,720,000-gals, has reached the growth limit that Maytag has held for the brewery, ranking 13th among U.S. craft brewers. Fritz Maytag is clearly the father of the craft brewing movement in the United States.
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*Although some of these so-called “steam” brewers might have labeled themselves “steam” from the fact that they used pasteurization.
** Coincidentally, this was where I first tasted Anchor Steam Beer in 1968. It was unbelievably delicious to my then-uneducated palate. I was just beginning to discover fine quality beer.
