When Garrett Kelly walked into Anchor’s 83-year-old art deco brewery for the first time, it took his breath away. There they were, the ceiling-high, onion-shaped copper vats as shiny as the day they were made in West Germany nearly 70 years ago. There they were, the unique open fermentation tanks, as foamy as a carwash. This room, and, in fact, this whole neighborhood, is awash in the grainy odor of half-produced beer. It smells perfect.

“It’s just amazing,” Kelly, 31, says with a smile. “When you step into Anchor, you truly do feel like you’re a part of history. It’s like a cathedral.”

That was around four years ago, and, after the de rigueur stint on the bottling line — everybody here starts out at the bottom — he’s now in the fermentation department. His Anchor jacket and blue Dickies pants are discolored with craft beer and industrial lubricants and a mixture of both. He doesn’t care: “I love what I do. I love what I make. I love beer. I never get sick of it.”

Kelly earns $18.35 an hour. That’s $734 a week. That’s $36,700 a year. He recently was forced out of San Francisco; even the illegal in-law off Ocean was getting too expensive. He is now in Oakland, but that’s getting expensive, too. “I feel every penny I spend,” he says. “There are times … READ MORE HERE