Chobani CEO’s family office buys SF’s Anchor Steam Brewery

The family office of Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya has bought the Anchor Steam Brewery in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill with the intent to keep the beer flowing. 

Owner Sapporo Breweries, the Japanese beverage company, sold the brewery, its associated real estate on Mariposa Street and all other assets, a representative for the company announced on Friday. Sapporo liquidated Anchor Steam’s operations last year, due to declining sales and increased competition. No purchase price was disclosed. 

The company had hired CBRE to market the real estate — four parcels including the 110,000-square-foot taproom and brewery at 1705 Mariposa Street — for sale in October.

Sapporo bought Anchor from Griffin Group, run by former Skyy Vodka executives, for $85 million in 2017. About $12 million of that was the real estate, according to records. 

The steam-based beer maker was founded in San Francisco in 1896 and became known as “America’s First Craft Brewery.” The company moved to the Mariposa Street facilities in 1979.

If bids did not pan out to keep the brewery as a beer maker, industrial brokers had theorized the buildings could have been converted into offices or residential uses. 

But Ulukaya, who runs the yogurt maker that did more than $1.25 billion in net sales in the first nine months of last year, has pledged to keep Anchor’s lights on as a brewery. 

“I look forward to doing whatever I can to support this amazing story of revitalization,” Ulukaya said in a release.