The rich history of Anchor Brewing can be traced all the way back to the Gold Rush, when German brewer Gottlieb Brekle arrived in San Francisco with his wife Marie and infant son Frederick. Brekle applied for citizenship in 1854, and his brewing and business acumen would soon lead to his ownership of a little San Francisco brewery, which would one day become known as Anchor. The 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.