In a few hours I’ll be attending a memorial for the beer community celebrating the life of fellow beer writer and friend Bill Brand at The Trappist in Oakland. Someone discovered in Bill’s archives, a column in which he discloses Anchor Porter to be his favorite beer, so today’s work of art is the entitled the Anchor Brewery, by British artist Peter French. Sadly, it’s not our Anchor Brewery, but one from England, though I’m not entirely sure which one.
As for which Anchor Brewery this is, perhaps one of my Brit friends knows? There was an Anchor Brewery in Southwark owned by Barclay Perkins, and another, Charrington’s Anchor Brewery on Mile End Road, both in north London. According to the book British Breweries by Lynn F. Pearson, Courage also had one in Horsleydown and Charrington had another one in Tower Hamlets. Then there was Bullard & Sons Anchor Brewery in Norwich and yet another in Hull, by Freeman, Gaskell & Sons. The name Anchor, I suspect, was quite common, s there could have been many more for all I know.
Which makes it all the more infuriating that the artist doesn’t tell us which Anchor Brewery he’s painted. C’est la vie. Still, it’s a nice watercolor and you could even buy yourself a print of it at Art.com, among others.
There’s not much more about the artist, Peter French, and even the biography at his own website is blank, though you can see a number of his other works, most of which are watercolors of buildings. You can also see a number of his architectural drawings, cityscapes and landscapes on the Artist’s Web,