Fritz Maytag to get Beard Award

A recent news item made note that Fritz Maytag, head of San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing Co., will receive a 2008 lifetime achievement award this June from the James Beard Society.

After its recent problems, it is now quite an impressive organization. What makes the award even more interesting is that Fritz Maytag is not only a brewer, he also launched Anchor Distilling Co. and has been in charge of the families dairy farms in Iowa since the 1960s.

The first time I ever met Fritz Maytag was, I believe, in 1992. It was at a beer presentation event held at the Windows on the World. The wine steward there was very excited about beer and here was a chance to show some off.

One of the people present was Fritz Maytag. He and I were discussing what they call their Anchor Special Ale, which is released once a year between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I had just posited the following question, “Would you say that this year’s Special Ale was more of a Bordeaux or a Burgundy?”  As Maytag paused for a moment to consider the question one of the other journalists piped up.  “We’re here to talk about beer, not wine.”  At that Maytag took the measure of the man looking, him up and down, and calmly remarked, “We’re all friends and fermentation.”

For more information on the award in Fritz Maytag, you may click on the following link:

http://www.napavalleyregister.com/articles/2008/04/01/food/doc47f16b61dc735223100859.txt

Cheers!

Peter LaFrance