Object Details
- Description (Brief)
- One (1) painting of St. Nicholas
- Wooden shutter painted over with an image of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of brewers, wearing a red robe. The painting was done by a former Anchor Brewing Company employee, and hung in the brewhouse.
- Description
- This painting, titled Brewers’ Icon, was painted by Dave Lyon, an employee of San Francisco, California’s Anchor Brewing Company, in the 1960s. St. Nicholas, the patron saint of brewers, is depicted with a hop cluster in his hand. The painting hung on the wall of the brewhouse, overseeing every beer brewed, from the 1960s until July 2023.
- In 1965, Fritz Maytag III had purchased the historic but struggling Steam Beer Brewing Company (later, Anchor Brewing Company). With his entrepreneurial roots and zeal for science, Maytag revitalized the brewery. He perfected the brewery’s recipe for steam beer, an effervescent style that had originated in nineteenth-century San Francisco, and brewed European styles—porter, barleywine, pale ale—then unfamiliar to many Americans. As a self-taught brewer and savvy entrepreneur, Maytag inspired many who dreamed of opening their own small breweries. Historians consider Anchor Brewing Company to have been the first post-Prohibition American microbrewery. Microbreweries, brewpubs, and “craft” breweries proliferated throughout the nation in the 1970s, 1980s, and beyond. In August 2023, Sapporo USA liquidated Anchor Brewing Company.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Credit Line
- Gift of Anchor Brewing Company through Mike Minami
- around 1965
- ID Number
- 2023.0113.04
- accession number
- 2023.0113
- catalog number
- 2023.0113.04
- Object Name
- painting
- Physical Description
- wood (overall material)
- Measurements
- overall: 47 1/2 in x 22 1/4 in x 1 1/4 in; 120.65 cm x 56.515 cm x 3.175 cm
- place made
- United States: California, San Francisco
- See more items in
- Work and Industry: Food Technology
- National Museum of American History
- Record ID
- nmah_2033232
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng4459e6d66-39b6-45e0-b0b8-0d8f4a44d617
