Anchor Brewing can be traced all the way back to the Gold Rush, when German brewer Gottlieb Brekle arrived in San Francisco and applied for citizenship. Brekle owned a little San Francisco brewery on Pacific, between Larkin and Hyde streets that would become known as the Anchor. Every Anchor Steam Beer label says, Made in San Francisco since 1896, because that is the year the old brewery on Pacific (the first of six locations around San Francisco) was named Anchor. No one knows why the name Anchor was chosen, except for its allusion to the great Port of San Francisco. Anchor Brewery inherited a long tradition of brewing what had come to be known as steam beer, one of the quaint old nicknames for beer brewed along the West Coast under primitive conditions and without ice. Today steam is a trademark of Anchor Brewing and its beer among the most popular. The brewing facility is located in the Portrero Hill area of San Francisco.