You can almost see SpongeBob holding his nose as the now leaky ship Anchor sinks into Bikini Bottom’s graveyard.
Ken Carman is a BJCP judge; homebrewer since 1979, club member at Salt City Homebrewers in Syracuse, NY. Former member of Escambia Bay Brewers, Clarksville Carboys and Music City Homebrewers. Ken has been writing on beer-related topics, and interviewing professional brewers all over the east coast, for well over 20 years. Opinions here are not necessarily representative of opinions or education presented by the BJCP or their representatives.
I have had a passion for their Foghorn barleywine for a long time, which has nothing to do with “Leghorn” if I am going to continue with these cartoon metaphors. Foghorn, to me (original recipe), was a TRUE Barleywine. Not the more recent poor attempts by other breweries to turn the barleywine style into just another version of a super hopped, ultra bitter, IPA.
Sometime after Fritz sold the business, I bought a pack of Foghorn. Horrors! I LOATHE that green rubber hose/Band-Aid phenol and this pack had nothing else but that defect in every bottle. It’s almost like watching a Road Runner cartoon and from the start the coyote dies, end of story. Nothing funny about ruining a product because management doesn’t want to do what they should do keep the business afloat. Why it’s almost as if the Japanese concern could have cared less about Anchor and their customers.
So I wrote Anchor and I got my money back. To be fair it CAN happen to almost any brewery, so maybe that’s why I didn’t take note of it as much as I should have. In the past, I have savored many Foghorns. Still a brewery whose reputation was built on a great rendition of Steam beer should not have this problem. In Steam this would have been more noticeable. In any barleywine, even super hopped beyond necessity, not as much unless it’s really bad. There’s enough malt and decent hopping complexity in a barleywine to cover a little phenol.
So we weren’t talking a just a little. So much it was like chewing on liquid green rubber hose, or used Band-Aid. THAT’S IN A BARLEYWINE!
Problem being ONE purchase like that can lose a customer. And after reading the press release (reprinted here at The Professor) I think that may be a part of what happened considering what Sapparo DIDN’T do and DID do. They DIDN’T do necessary updates like replacing lines, improving cleaning, updating equipment, except maybe to brew their rice driven product. They DID decide a brewery famous for a completely different method of brewing (Steam) had to brew their product, while ignoring product that once had their ship sailing the ever expanding the American craft beer scene.
Essentially they metaphorically tried to sail the whole damn concept of brewing at Anchor to Japan and on the way it sank. Just one example of many bad business decisions. Management running a business from afar is often part of the problem: I’ve seen that in preschool chains. Midlevel management often makes it worse, doing anything that might please the big bosses, ignoring that the ship is sinking according to underlings.
Not limited to just beer…
Automobiles: midlevel management at GM cut back on designs, great sales concepts and popular models, the result being problems with the Fiero, Saturn, their first EV and the Corvair. Getting rid of Pontiac? Really? Make the aluminum block mid car engine even cheaper?! (Melts on your back, not in your hand!) Replace a designed for the Saturn engine and great pricing with same old, worse, GM pricing and an inferior regular GM engine. Ford did some of this with the Pinto: white metal handles for doors and windows, solenoids that didn’t work well with the car. (Mine used to have posts that melted.) Credit due: at least they got rid of the first engine.
Cutbacks rarely, if ever, make the product better. They do create temporary increase in profits that temporarily makes midlevel management look good, who blames any sinking on those under them. In beer that works for a while, until the public finds out. A good business reinvests in better product, listens to employees. Business for afar often makes that worse.
The article reprinted here is a classic trip down to a corporate, in this case liquid, graveyard. Instead of updating, improving, innovating, or at least keeping up quality… make less, sell less, focus on one base: or “market.” Cut back distribution when your product has been out there for the whole nation, or even worldwide distribution. Bad decisions multiply. Weigh down the boat and create holes in the… hull… concept of why the business was created to begin with.
Essentially Sapporo tossed the Anchor right down through the hull that was keeping the ship afloat.
Wave hi to Spongebob! Oh, look, he’s holding his nose and saying “EWE!” at the left over beer leaking out.
Excuse me if I don’t cry. All that was left of a once great brewery was bad business practices.
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Brew Biz : Werts and All: a column dedicated to reviewing, discussing, and commenting on beer-related topics. Including, but not limited to, marketing, homebrewing and homebrew/beer related events, how society perceives beer. Also: reviews of, and commentary on, beer related businesses, opinions about trends in the brew business, and discussions regarding all things beer.
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