Today is the birthday of Lawrence Steese (April 20, 1912-April 19, 1991). Steese is part of the more recent lore of Anchor Brewing. Originally from Mill Valley, in Marin County, he bought Anchor in 1960 when Joe Allen was retiring, though Allen stayed around to teach him how to make Steam Beer. Fifty-one percent of the brewery was then bought by Fritz Maytag, who eventually bought out Steese and assumed full control.
Steese was from Mill Valley, and in the July 14, 1962 edition of the Daily Independent Journal, an article used the headline How a Marinite Rescued Steam Beer, which included the following in its coverage.
SOME THREE years ago the requiem for steam beer was being played, and the sad demise of a California tradition was being mourned. At that time Joe Allen, owner of Anchor Brewery, announced his retirement. There was no one skilled in the exacting art of steam beer brewing to take his place, and no one, it seemed, who cared to take the time and trouble to learn from the old master. No one, that is, until Lawrence Steese decided he’d like to try. Joe Allen was more than willing to teach. And since his official “retirement” these three years past, Allen has spent his days at the brewery as professor of steam beer brewing. The making of steam beer is not like the brewing of other beers. Steam beer is naturally carbonated; neither additives nor preservatives 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.
And this account of Fritz Maytag buying Anchor from Steese is on their website:
By 1965, as America slaked its thirst with lighter, mass-produced, heavily marketed beers, the Old Spaghetti Factory had become one of Anchor’s last remaining accounts. Fred—ever loyal—even loaned the brewery money to help keep San Francisco’s beer afloat. In July 1965, he heard the news that Anchor—then known as the Steam Beer Brewing Company—was about to shut down.
Fred turned to a customer and friend who was living in the City by the Bay, twenty-seven-year-old Fritz Maytag—great-grandson of the founder of a well-known appliance company in Newton, Iowa. Fred knew that if Maytag paid a visit to the brewery, he might just fall in love with it. Sure enough, “it was as if,” Fritz reminisced, “someone said, ‘That’s the last cable car and it’s going out of business tomorrow unless you put up a few thousand dollars.’”
On August 2, Fritz Maytag shook hands with owner/brewmaster Lawrence Steese, purchasing 51% of the brewery (and its debt) and rescuing our brewery from imminent oblivion. Final papers were filed September 24. San Francisco’s iconic beer and “medieval brewery”—as Fritz fondly calls it—were saved!
