Mmmm…. yogurt-infused beer. OK, maybe that won’t be the case, but it is true that San Francisco’s Anchor Steam has a new owner, and it’s the guy behind Chobani Yogurt.
Hamdi Ulukaya, the billionaire founder and CEO of Chobani, came out on top in a months-long auction process to sell off Anchor, the 127-year-old brewing company that closed last summer due to declining sales and rough economic conditions. The news was shared to San Francisco City Hall on Thursday, and later confirmed by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Ulukaya and his family office bought all of Anchor’s assets, including its Potrero Hill campus and brewing equipment, for an undisclosed price. Ulukaya told the Chronicle he hopes to get the brewery running again as soon as the city allows it, saying: “Wouldn’t it be amazing to get it going in time to make the Christmas ale this year?”
Anchor was one of the first craft-beer brewers in America, and its unique brewing techniques quickly made it an icon far beyond San Francisco. However, a downturn in beer sales across the country — a more-than 3 percent drop in volume in 2022 alone, according to the trade group, the Brewers Association — landed it in a perilous position in recent years.
The brand was sold to the Japanese brewer Sapporo in 2017, which decided to discontinue it last July. When the news broke, it sparked a flurry of hoarding by beer lovers who fanned out across the city to find the last bottles and taverns pouring Anchor.
For a brief period, the union that works at Anchor, Warehouse Union Local 6, tried to raise funds to purchase the brand. It dropped that effort in April “due to the competing bid amounts from other interested parties,” it wrote on Instagram. The union did not respond immediately to a request to comment about Anchor’s new owner.