• by Danielle Oster , June 2, 2024

After closing its doors last summer, a historic San Francisco brewery will live to see another day. In an echo of the brewery’s history, a businessman from another industry has stepped in to save Anchor Brewing from brand oblivion.

Chobani founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya has acquired the assets of Anchor Brewing, and plans to revive the 128-year-old brand -- according to an announcement from Shepherd Futures, the family office for Ulukaya.

Anchor Brewing closed its doors last July, as parent company Sapporo relinquished Anchor Brewing assets to a third-party liquidator.

Workers of the brewery subsequently stated their intention to acquire Anchor Brewing as a worker-owned collective through their union. A Change.org petition from the group claimed Sapparo refused to share financial information with them as promised, which they said the company had to provided to other prospective buyers. A spokesperson at the time said that the company was “fair and equal in its treatment of all parties interested in purchasing its assets,” and had no flexibility to extend the process.

While the worker-owned collective’s bid for ownership was ultimately unsuccessful, it seems its new owner plans to revive the brand as a working brewery rather than mine its individual brand assets.

“San Francisco is at the heart of Anchor Brewing, and Anchor embodies so much of what makes this city great,” Ulukaya added. “I have learned so much about Anchor and its role in San Francisco’s journey, and I look forward to doing whatever I can to support this amazing story of revitalization.”

Anchor Brewing’s history dates back to the 1896 Gold Rush, and is reportedly the oldest brewery in the country to consistently be considered a craft brewer through varying definitions of the term.

It’s not the first time a buyer from another industry has acquired the brewery and rescued it from potential demise. Anchor Brewing faced imminent bankruptcy in 1965 when Fritz Maytag -- grandson of appliance company Maytag Corporation founder Frederick Maytag -- acquired a 51% stake in the brewer, and ushered in a new era of innovation for the brewery. In 1975, for example, the brewery introduced a Christmas Ale which, until last year, had been the longest-running annual Christmas beer release in the country, according to Beer Street Journal.