One big question lingering since the closure of Anchor Brewing Company is where the intellectual property rights to Anchor Brewing and Anchor Steam beer would land. That is still unknown, but the bidding for both the IP and the brewery may be around the corner.
Sapporo, which shut Anchor down this summer six years after acquiring the brewery in 2017, has hired the services of Hilco Global to sell the assets of Anchor Brewing Company via auction.
Meanwhile, a group of five former employees is still actively raising money in an attempt to obtain either the IP rights – or even the entire brewery back. The group founded the Anchor SF Cooperative, which started both a WeFunder and Gofundme campaign to raise funds.
The board chair of Anchor SF Cooperative, Patrick Machel, who brings over six years of experience at Anchor Brewing said in a press release, “We’re thrilled to invite our whole community – everyone who loves Anchor and believes in its future in San Francisco – to invest. We are former and future workers of Anchor Brewery. We are brewers, production workers, managers, bartenders, and others. Nobody knows more about how to brew, market, and sell Anchor Steam than the workers who have been doing this work with pride, dedication, and love for Anchor beer.”
Although its easy to root for former employees to take over the historic brewery, Hilco will be bound to sell the assets to the highest bidder, erasing the emotional interest of selling it to a group of past employees. According to an article at KQED, it is still uncertain when the bidding process will take place for both the brewery building and the IP, but discussions on how best to proceed could run into next year, giving an auction for the assets possible by late winter or early spring 2024.
Given the value of the building in the sky-high real estate of San Francisco and the potential interest in owning the rights to “steam beer,” the bidding process for both will likely be robust. Whether or not the grassroots effort of Anchor SF Cooperative can prevail is a long shot. But so was Brock Purdy.