(San Francisco, CA) – It has already been three weeks since the company announced plans to open a new brewery next to AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. BeerPulse recently caught up with Anchor Brewing CEO and Co-Owner, Keith Greggor, to discuss the company’s plans for the new brewery at Pier 48 and what’s new at the existing Potrero Hill facility.
NEW BREWERY:
Greggor says the whole plan will total $80 million in investment upon completion. The new brewhouse is already in storage at a nearby facility so at least that part is taken care of. On opening day, capacity will jump to 680k barrels from the current 180k barrels at Potrero Hil. Once Pier 48 is online, says Greggor, “We don’t see ourselves running out of beer for at least ten years.”
But why not do what Sierra Nevada, New Belgium and others have done in building East? “We believe that Anchor beers belong coming from San Francisco. We have a huge amount of heritage there. We think there is a bit of magic that comes in brewing in San Francisco and that is something that we will maintain.” Greggor points out that going East at this stage would be somewhat of a leap where they only did 117,000 barrels last year (versus Sierra Nevada and New Belgium who each brewed closer to 800,000).
PRODUCTION:
117,000, in itself, is an achievement for the brewery and its highest output on record (admittedly, we don’t have pre-Fritz Maytag numbers). Greggor and Co-Owner, Tony Foglio, have turned things around in short order since taking over for Maytag. Sales declined by 8% in 2010 before increasing 15% in 2011 and 13% in 2012. This year, the company projects to brew 140,000 barrels.
“We are making more efforts in building relationships with our wholesalers and retailers and basically, increasing our visibility in the industry. The demand for our beers is out there but, in recent years, the company had been quiet relative to the noise that others were making out there.”
MARKETS:
About half of the company’s business comes in California and Greggor says that the home state is outpacing other U.S. markets. The fastest growth markets are international.
They’ll continue honing in on California. As for others, they’ve identified their customer as being urban in markets like New York, Chicago, Dallas and Miami. You might be wondering… “Miami?” Greggor says they’ve been there for quite a while and found that craft brewers have “lowballed the pricing” there. They added someone in the Orlando area to bring some energy to what they’re doing in South Beach and “the results have been nothing short of spectacular.”
CONTRACTING:
Anchor doesn’t plan to do any contracting though that isn’t to say that the brewery will turn down special opportunities as they arise. The company contracted for Lagunitas for a short stint recently.
Greggor and Foglio also bought a minority stake in BrewDog in late 2009. BrewDog’s brand-new facility in Scotland changes the game for them being able to supply international markets, including the U.S. where they’ve been hard to find for the last couple years. “As we look at the economics of the keg business in particular, we could see ourselves brewing something like Punk IPA in the future.”
BRAND GROWTH:
Every core brand grew in 2012, says Greggor. Anchor Steam is the company’s flagship and accounts for about 70% of the business. They have only “scratched the surface” on their Summer Ale and a lot of people are still only discovering it for the first time. They had their biggest Christmas Ale sales season ever.
ANOTHER IPA VS OTHER STYLES:
The chat came on the heels of the Symphony IRI year-end review in which IPAs took center-stage. So we asked whether the company that pioneered Liberty Ale would ever consider a beer more overt to the consumer as an “IPA.” But Greggor says no and recounted the history of Liberty Ale as a trailblazer…Cascade hops…dry hopping. They like that beer and it is still growing for them. “Our belief is to focus on our own history of innovation rather than running around trying to copy other people.”
Greggor makes note of California Lager among the other “interesting things” that they would rather spend time on than “the 64th IPA in Safeway.” The beer is an alum of the Zymaster Series and is now a year-round beer only available in California. It rates in the 96th percentile among “premium lagers” on RateBeer. The company recently released Flying Cloud San Francisco Stout in the Zymaster Series and approval just came in for No. 4 and No. 5, Fort Ross Farmhouse Ale and Harvest One American Pale Ale.
NO ON CANS:
Greggor acknowledges that they have a “practical use” but that it’s not something they feel they need to do.
CARPENTER’S SO-CALLED SEMI-RETIREMENT:
The Brewing Network did a whole episode on Mark Carpenter and his semi-retirement in January though Greggor downplayed it, saying he has plenty to do at the brewery on a day-to-day basis. He is still the brewmaster. Carpenter is spending more time in recipe development, quality control and getting out in front of people more. Jason Mckibben, who carries the title of “Production Director” has taken over for some of Carpenter’s prior duties.