David Burkhart was an employee at Anchor Brewing in San Francisco for 31 years; half of his life. Like many in the industry, it seems inconceivable to him that Anchor is gone forever, and he envisions an angel, “hovering over the brewery, who sees the value in a small business that makes unique, local, delicious, beautiful products — San Francisco in a glass.”
In a special column for SFGate, Burkart describes the culture that prevailed during the Fritz Maytag ownership. Like most employees who gained a job at Anchor, Burkart started on the bottling line. Maytag wanted everyone who worked there to know the brewery – top to bottom.
Anchor had a unique culture, not seen in many breweries and even more scarce in American. Maytag built a team that understood the importance of “devotion to quality, respect for tradition, unshakable perseverance, boundless optimism, resilience and enthusiasm.”
It is what made Anchor employees icons of the industry, and it is what made Anchor beers world class.
See the full column by David here.