James Beard Awards 2008: Fritz Maytag video

2008 Lifetime Achievement Award: Fritz Maytag

Fritz Maytag
In 1965 Fritz Maytag acquired the Anchor Brewing Company of San Francisco and became a pioneer of American microbrewing. Since then, he has not only preserved the tradition of Anchor Steam Beer, but he has also made Anchor a national brand without ever compromising his high standards. In the 1980s and 1990s, due in part to Maytag's example, more than one thousand small breweries sprouted up all over the country. Today, American microbrewed beers rate among the finest beers in the world, and the return to traditional brewing methods has become a world-wide phenomenon, producing a veritable flood of creative and delicious beers.

In 1993 Maytag launched the Anchor Distilling Company whose Old Potrero Rye Whiskey and Junipero Gin quickly became models for a burgeoning artisanal distilling movement in America and around the world.

In addition to his position as president and brewmaster of Anchor, since the 1960s Maytag has steered his family's Maytag Dairy Farms in Newton, Iowa. Maytag Blue cheese, produced since 1941, was a creation of Fritz's father, and the company has been a leader in the American artisanal cheese renaissance. Sold almost entirely by mail for the first few decades, Maytag Blue has become a familiar sight in fine restaurants and food shops in recent years.

Maytag is also the owner of York Creek Vineyards in the Spring Mountain District above St. Helena, where he grows more than a dozen grape varieties, and last year celebrated his 39th harvest.

In 2003 he won the James Beard Foundation Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional Award. He currently serves on the Foundation's National Advisory Board.

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