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Anchor Steam Beer Bottle

National Museum of American History

Object Details

Anchor Brewing Co.
Description (Brief)
One (1) beer bottle
Brown bottle with blue cap and yellow label around the neck and center. "Anchor Steam Beer" "Made in San Francisco since 1896". Label on bottom "1st Bottling 1971".
Description
This bottle comes from the first bottling of Anchor Steam Beer at San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing Company, on April 23, 1971. On that day, Anchor brewers bottled two hundred cases of Anchor Steam Beer, at a pace of sixty bottles per minute. The brewery sold cases of bottled Anchor Steam Beer to customers for a retail price of $9.84.
In 1965, Fritz Maytag III had purchased the historic but struggling Steam Beer Brewing Company (later, Anchor Brewing Company). With his entrepreneurial roots and zeal for science, Maytag revitalized the brewery. He perfected the brewery’s recipe for steam beer, an effervescent style that had originated in nineteenth-century San Francisco, and brewed European styles—porter, barleywine, pale ale—then unfamiliar to many Americans. As a self-taught brewer and savvy entrepreneur, Maytag inspired many who dreamed of opening their own small breweries. Historians consider Anchor Brewing Company to have been the first post-Prohibition American microbrewery. Microbreweries, brewpubs, and “craft” breweries proliferated throughout the nation in the 1970s, 1980s, and beyond. In August 2023, Sapporo USA liquidated Anchor Brewing Company.
Location
Currently not on view
Credit Line
Gift of Anchor Brewing Company through Mike Minami
1971
ID Number
2023.0113.07
accession number
2023.0113
catalog number
2023.0113.07
Object Name
bottle, beer
Physical Description
glass (overall material)
Measurements
overall: 7 1/2 in x 2 1/2 in; 19.05 cm x 6.35 cm
place made
United States: California, San Francisco
See more items in
Work and Industry: Food Technology
National Museum of American History
Record ID
nmah_2033240
Metadata Usage (text)
CC0
GUID (Link to Original Record)
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng4b46b7c2f-7740-4142-ab37-b49dc6497f61
There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page .
International media Interoperability Framework
IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more.
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