Anchor Steam 1962. Already sincere.

Anchor Steam, 1962

You might recall that six weeks ago Joe Stange suggested we consider the concept of postmodern (and post-postmodern) beer and wrote about “a return to sincerity.”

It seems that Anchor Steam beat us to the punch.

This from a July 14, 1962 story in the San Rafael Daily Independent Journal (three years before Fritz Maytag bought Anchor Brewing):

Steam Beer is naturally carbonated; neither additives nor presevatives become it. “The Sincere Beer,” it is called by some.

It is truly a “health food,” its devotees assert, containing more malt and hops than other beers, and without corn or rice to lighten it.

Of course the story also explains that steam beer might have been called steam beer because a “‘Doctor Steam’ (whose first name has been given variously as Frank, Heintz, or Charles) invented the process.”

6 thoughts on “Anchor Steam 1962. Already sincere.”

  1. Did that really say it was all-malt in ’62? I always thought it wasn’t and Maytag replaced an adjunct recipe with all-malt. Very interesting. I believe the brewer pictured is Lawrence Steese, whom owned Anchor before Maytag bought a partial and later, the full interest.

    Good article by Stange, I think really we have almost lost regional identity for beer, and that’s fine. It will turn out to have been a stage, determined by technological and social/political factors. This happened to cooking a while ago, it’s the same thing. I don’t need to go to Strasbourg to make a choucroute garnie, or to Milan to make a veal Milanese, etc. It’s down now to each brewer’s skill, anywhere, of what he chooses to make – the sincerity is inherent, or not, in that, following whether the knock-off so to speak is indifferent or studied. The irony of the process is, a foreign “parvenu” may end by establishing a new standard, possibly this will happen with APA in England. It did happen certainly with Guinness which set the world standard including in England for stout albeit England invented the style and original versions tasted rather different than modern Guinness.

    It’s all good.

    Gary Gillman

    Gary

    • Glad you like the piece, Gary. But is “studied” enough to make a beer sincere, when the water is still rebuilt and the ingredients are all imported and the yeast is carefully picked from a fetishistic catalog? A brewer can study and be honest about what she’s doing, but I think “sincerity” also implies simplicity.

      On the other hand, I am making this up as I go along.

      Meanwhile, I’m personally annoyed that Anchor Steam’s 1960s marketeers — dressed like Mad Men and chain-smoking, no doubt — traveled back in time and stole my “sincere beer” idea. Later I wrote that I would have to flesh this thing out “before some marketing whiz swipes it and runs with it and makes a gazillion dollars” but I did not think it would happen so early. I’d say 1962 is pretty early.

      • Joe, although your tongue might be planted well in cheek, the early use of words such and sincere and authentic is curious, eh? In 1959, when Joe Allen – owner-brewer at Anchor since it reopened following Prohibition – announced he was selling to Steese and a silent partner, he said:

        “The reams of publicity on my decision to quit brought innumerable potential buyers. But I turned down all of the Ivy League briefcase boys because they didn’t look like they like they would be the type to carry on the old Anchor steam beer tradition.” He said Steese impressed him as a sincere type who would carry on the tradition “as it should be done.”

    • Joe, thanks. I guess I’d argue that even when Jackson portrayed the styles, they were never watertight, purely original things, therefore sincerity is always a moving or at least relative concept (but still useful). Recent historical work has explicated that Pilsner Urquell may have been inspired by English pale ale. Belgian Trappist Ale, which Jackson romanticized and practically created from whole cloth, seems to be a 20th century creation and probably a tribute to strong English and Scots ales more than anything else. Before that some monasteries had an old brewing tradition and sometimes a reputation for beer, but it was a vague thing and in period catalogues of Belgian beer types of the 19th century, I’ve never seen “Trappist” listed. Added to this beer ingredients have always been shipped and stocked, the terror factor has never been the same as for wine and it’s changing even for wine too, as evidenced by “mondo vino” and so forth. Steam beer seems a hallowed old local thing by the 60’s albeit in the minds of a tiny handful, but its origins are rough and ready and a patchwork of ideas from elsewhere (part Germanic lager, part ale, etc.).

      But I still think the sincerity argument is a good one. There’s a difference between a loving tribute that ends up conflating with the real thing and a slapdash emulation, e.g. I recall in the early days of craft brewing I had some pretty dire emulations of Belgian styles and German wheat beers for example – in fact Anchor’s wheat beer never impressed that much come to them.

      As for marketers, well, they pick up on everything ultimately but they don’t really change the fundamentals. Poets, including those who work with malt and hops, are still the unacknowledged legislators.

      Gary Gillman

  2. Gary – Yes, that is Steese. And the story claims the beer is all malt. When I talked to Mark Carpenter, who has been an Anchor since 1971, he said it was his understanding that before Fritz bought in that the brewery may have used sugar from time to time but not other adjuncts. But there’s there’s little doubt that many pre-pro steam beer producers used a significant amount of adjuncts.

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