Anchor workers offer to buy back brewery

Zeelandt back in full production. A look inside NZ Beer Awards judging. Yellowstone series gets its own beer. Gene edited yeasts can imitate hop flavours. On a search for cheap jugs of beer.

Happy Friday beer fans

And an even happier Friday if you’re a fan of the Football Ferns — and who isn’t after that World Cup opener? The underdog coming up trumps is not a bad segue for the first item this week …

In a move not dissimilar to CEO Sinead Boucher buying Stuff for $1 when the Nine Network in Australia decided they were done with the Kiwi news outlet, Anchor Brewing’s workers are launching an effort to purchase the brewery and run it as a worker co-op after Japanese owner Sapporo announced last week the famed San Francisco craft brewery would shut in 60 days.

A letter from Pedro de Sá of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 6, which represents the brewery’s staff was sent to Sapporo USA present Mike Minami: 

“We are not asking for a handout or charity. All we want is a fair shot at being able to continue to do our jobs, make the beer we love, and keep this historic institution open. We do not want the brewery and brand we love to be sold off before we even had a chance.”

The union is giving Sapporo USA a deadline of tomorrow to respond as to whether it will work with the union on a potential sale.

Union members wrote in a post on Twitter: “Welp. Here ya go. Time to put everyone’s love of this brand to the test. Let’s work this out together and bring back what we’ve almost lost.”

Read the full report here.

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Beer of the Week No 1

I have to tip my hat to the Garage Project team for coming up with a Black version of their superb Beer beer, which I love to bits. Taking a leaf straight out of the Steinlager playbook it’s a simple but effective move and certainly got me ordering some. But this is way more than a clever marketing trick, this beer is everything you want in a dark lager. The chocolate aroma is subtle, light and non-distracting, the roast notes are mellow and even and the hop character really shines through at the end. It’s creamy, smooth and the fruity-spicy kick of the noble hops works a treat.

Provenance matters

In the wake of the Anchor Brewing saga (and there’s more on that below) I got an email riffing off that subject with the focus on DB/Heineken’s ownership of the Monteith’s brand. And we have to call it a brand now rather than a brewery as, you may recall, DB stopped brewing at Greymouth in 2020 because it was too expensive. My correspondent raised the valid question of the brand still featuring “West Coast” on the label, including the tenuous connection to 1868.

Surely the provenance of a beer should be a legal matter, particularly since this is now brewed in Auckland and Timaru, why are they allowed to trade on the West Coast image?

French cheesemakers wouldn't have a bar of this sort of behaviour.

Lion/Kirin-owned Mac’s, for example, doesn’t reference Nelson anymore, apart from noting the brand’s origins in Nelson 40-plus years (note to Lion: update the website as it currently says “30-plus years ago”.)

The problem of provenance and elaborately decorated back-stories is not confined to New Zealand, as Phil Cook notes here:

Fixation: not really Melbourne’s, and not particularly consistent | Beer Diary (philcook.net)