I disagree, despite living in one of the earlier craft brew havens (Seattle). Anchor Steam was already a unique offering when I happened on it ~15 years ago, and its uniqueness has only been more pronounced as the craft(ish) market has consolidated around IPAs. Anchor Porter isn’t nearly so unique a style, but it’s an exceptional one in the category and has consistently been my preference over local porters even when they were more common. Their winter seasonal really is stellar, and has long stood out in a category that’s basically become a mix of mislabeled IPAs and the occasional barleywine-ish heavy ale.
Not passing judgement on the quality of Anchor Steam.
But the OP is absolutely right - there are now good to great breweries pretty much everywhere in the US. It’s hard to be a national beer company if you aren’t humongous.
People aren’t even looking at your stuff. The beer section at the gas station near my house is 50% local and 50% watery stuff. I have no idea if they carry Anchor Steam or not because I don’t look in that section and haven’t for years.
Note that some breweries, like Lagunitas, have effectively become local in multiple places by opening breweries in other states far away.
Yeah I do agree that being a national craft brewery is tough, and I don’t begrudge Anchor leaving the national market. I don’t even begrudge Elysian entering it by selling to AB (though lots of folks here do). My disagreement is only with “no reason” to buy Anchor. There’s a glut of high quality beer on the market, but very little of it is a reasonable substitute for what Anchor brews, and I have gone out of my way when it might be stocked, even though I know that I’m an outlier in even my own competitive local market.
