Meet the 92-year-old Bay Area man responsible for 45 years of Anchor beer labels

Jim Stitt has illustrated 44 of the 45 labels for Anchor Christmas Ale, a beloved annual holiday offering from the 123-year-old brewery that features both a new recipe and unique hand drawn tree every year. Jim Stitt has illustrated 44 of the 45 labels for Anchor Christmas Ale, a beloved annual holiday offering from the 123-year-old brewery that features both a new recipe and unique hand drawn tree every year. Photo: Blair Heagerty / SFGate Photo: Blair Heagerty / SFGate Image 1 of / 15 Caption Close Meet the 92-year-old Bay Area man responsible for 45 years of Anchor beer labels 1 / 15 Back to Gallery

Jim Stitt stands in the beer aisle of the grocery store, his russet-colored jacket keeping him just warm enough a couple feet from the icy open fridge.

A 30-something guy standing next to him darts his eyes from beer label to beer label, before spotting what he’s looking for: A cream-colored label with an elegantly drawn Christmas tree on it that simply reads,

Merry Christmas

Happy New Year

Anchor Brewing

Stitt knows it well because he drew the label. In fact, he’s illustrated 44 of the 45 labels for Anchor Christmas Ale, a beloved annual holiday offering from the 123-year-old brewery that features both a new recipe and unique hand drawn tree every year.

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That grocery store scene is one the 92-year-old San Rafael resident has experienced plenty of times over the last 45 years, he recalls while sitting alongside Anchor historian David Burkhart at a large oak table inside of Anchor’s Potrero Hill brewery in San Francisco.

I ask him if he’s ever stopped someone in the grocery store and said something like “hey, I drew that.”

“I never say anything about it. But it’s fun to see. You see a guy carrying out a six-pack of Anchor Christmas Ale — ‘Not a bad beer, huh?’”

Photo: Blair Heagerty / SFGate Jim Stitt has illustrated 44 of the 45 labels for Anchor Christmas...

Stitt thumbs through a dozen of his original illustrations for past Christmas Ale labels as he takes stock of his place in Anchor Brewing lore.

“It’s been an honor,” he says, “first to work with Fritz of course, and then being able to [draw the labels for Anchor]. It’s just been a wonderful honor, that’s really all I can say about it.”

Except it’s not — Stitt ends up having plenty more to say about a job he’s held for almost half his life, later calling it possibly his greatest accomplishment.

“I feel that it’s a piece of history,” he adds, “and it’s still around, and gee, everyone knows about the fact that I’ve been involved in all of the work.”

And when he says “all” he means “all.”

Photo: Blair Heagerty / SFGate Jim Stitt has illustrated 44 of the 45 labels for Anchor Christmas...

Stitt designed Anchor Porter’s iconic artwork in 1974 and proudly wears the label on the front of a worn brown ball cap as he recounts his Anchor resume.

In 1975, he was asked back to do the label for Liberty Ale.

And then came the Christmas Ale the same year. Since then, he’s designed every one of Anchor’s Christmas Ale labels (and all of the lettering, which he does using typefaces he invents) except for the 1976 edition. Owner Fritz Maytag had the wild idea of commissioning a new artist to design the label each year, then abandoned that a year later and returned the honor to Jim.

“He soon realized the folly in that,” Burkhart says with a laugh.

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Every tree over the last 45 years (you can check out all 45 in the gallery below) has a tie to something, and none of them are repeats of the same type of tree (save the 40th anniversary, when Burkhart suggested Stitt re-draw the giant sequoia featured on the one label he wasn’t responsible for).

Anchor Christmas Ale, 1975 Anchor Christmas Ale, 1975 Photo: Blair Heagerty / SFGate Photo: Blair Heagerty / SFGate Image 1 of / 57 Caption Close Anchor Christmas Ale / Beer through the years 1 / 57 Back to Gallery

Two dozen of the trees used on labels were native to Maytag’s ranch in Napa Valley, two trees were pulled from Golden Gate Park (“I drove Jim into the park to go sketch them,” Burkhart says), and one tree that’s around the corner from the brewery that Burkhart found while looking for parking (“that tree sort of spoke to me, I guess”).

There’s also one label with two trees on it — a Douglas Fir and a Redwood — in honor of Maytag’s marriage, and even one commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition with a neck label featuring Meriweather Lewis’ actual drawing of a botanical used in the beer.

A brewer suggested one, a botanist wrote in and suggested another, and Maytag came up with one while on vacation in Hawaii.

Photo: Blair Heagerty / SFGate Jim Stitt has illustrated 44 of the 45 labels for Anchor Christmas...

“We needed a tree and we hadn't heard from (Maytag) and he was on vacation in Hawaii,” Burkhart recounts. “And he said, ‘Well, I don't know what to do. Here's a tree.’ And just literally snapped a picture of a tree while he was poolside. It was a coconut palm tree, which actually ended up being one of my favorites.”

“Mine too,” Stitt says.

Christmas Ale tree discussions have taken place everywhere from the very table we’re all seated at, to Stitt’s classic wooden yacht, to the Spinnaker restaurant on the Sausalito waterfront.

“There were a couple of desperation trees,” Burkhart says. “We never missed a deadline though. Jim was often in those meetings and as Fritz was talking, he was sketching. So there was often a rough label done by the time Fritz finished.”

Stitt continued to work with Maytag until the brewery was sold in 2010 and Maytag retired from the company, and now reports to Burkhart and the rest of the Christmas Ale committee.

“Fritz, he was a very eloquent guy, he would paint a word picture and describe the tree at length, you know, how he felt about that particular tree, if it meant something to him for a particular occasion, and you know, if it brought up certain memories for him,” Stitt says.

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And while the Christmas Ale labels might define Stitt for beer drinkers, he lived an entire life (and then some) before he ever started drawing trees.

Stitt was born and raised in Seattle, served in two different wars and armed forces — the Navy in WWII and the Marines in the Korean War — attended two different art schools on the G.I. Bill (including the prestigious ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena), worked as a technical illustrator for Boeing, and spent 30 years as an art director for an advertising agency in Los Angeles.

“I didn’t care for LA,” he says. “So I came to San Francisco.”

Photo: Blair Heagerty / SFGate Jim Stitt has illustrated 44 of the 45 labels for Anchor Christmas...

Soon after arriving in the 1970s, he was introduced to Maytag, showed him his portfolio, and four months later he got a call.

“He came up, and we talked and he painted a ‘word picture’ of what Anchor Porter was going to be like. And he gave me the assignment,” he says.

And now, almost a half century later, he makes his way through the brewery underneath an array of banners showing off his life’s work.

Just before we part ways, Burkhart recalls the Maytag slogan that forever tied Stitt to the Anchor brand.

“Handmade beers require handmade labels,” Burkhart says.

“Handmade beers require handmade labels,” Stitt repeats.

Grant Marek is the Editorial Director of SFGATE. Email: grant.marek@sfgate.com | Twitter: @grant_marek