Anchor Brewing's Sale to Chobani CEO 'Good News for Everybody,' Co-Op Leader Says

Updated 12:30 p.m. Friday

The billionaire founder and CEO of the Chobani yogurt brand has purchased Anchor Brewing Co., setting up the 127-year-old San Francisco craft brewery for a return after it closed last fall.

Hamdi Ulukaya announced Friday that he had acquired all of the historic beer brand’s recipes, warehouses and facilities — including the company’s Potrero Hill brewery and tap room — for an undisclosed price.

“San Francisco is at the heart of Anchor Brewing, and Anchor embodies so much of what makes this city great,” Ulukaya said in a statement. “I believe brands born in places like this are incredibly special and must be treasured, respected and loved.”

Anchor was shut down last July by Japanese beer giant Sapporo, which had bought the brewery in 2017. As beer sales declined in 2016, Anchor started facing financial challenges, and in 2019, its workers organized to become the first unionized craft brewing company in the state.

The new owner comes after multiple interested buyers were looking into swooping up Anchor’s assets, including venture capitalist Mike Walsh and the brewery’s own workers, who formed a cooperative to explore a collective ownership model and raised more than $115,000 for the effort.

“We are glad it’s not another corporation coming in and buying it up. We want this to be positive; this is good news for everybody,” said Patrick Costello, board chair for Anchor’s five-member worker cooperative.

It’s too early to know how many of Anchor’s 61 workers could return once the company starts brewing again, Costello said. Most, including Costello himself, have taken new jobs in the months since the brewery closed, but he said he’s hopeful that many will want to return soon.

“Some people have either moved out of the Bay Area or decided to go in a different direction, but once we have more concrete details with this guy and what the plan is, I’m pretty optimistic that half, if not two-thirds, of the people, will want to come back,” Costello said.

Some plans for the business’ next chapter are already in the works. Anchor plans to revive its beloved old logos and will refocus on selling its beer in local San Francisco establishments.

Many fans of Anchor’s storied history in San Francisco and as one of the country’s first craft breweries had mourned the loss of Anchor’s classic hand-drawn steam beer labels when the company modernized its brand in 2021.

After learning the brewery would close last summer, Anchor lovers flocked to the taproom to stock up on drinks and merchandise, and bars in San Francisco touted their final kegs of the classic Anchor Steam beer.

“Our primary focus will be on trying to get our kegs back into most if not all, the bars in the city and hit the ground running as quickly as possible with the workers we still have contacts with, who are excited about the news,” Costello said.

Ulukaya, who was born in Turkey, grew up on a Kurdish dairy farm and founded Chobani in 2005 in New York, has not yet reached out to the worker cooperative, Costello said. But text messages among the brewery’s former workers felt positive, he said.

“There’s kind of a parallel between this and when Fritz bought it back in the ‘60s. He was a big dairy farm guy and saw something he loved and bought it,” Costello said, referring to former Anchor owner Frederick Louis “Fritz” Maytag, who bought the brewery in 1965. “We don’t know what’s going to happen down the line, but the buyer seems like a good fit.”