Craft Brewery Slowdown Leaves Behind A Real Estate Hangover

Craft breweries used to drive the transformation of vacant warehouses, storefronts and other repurposed buildings into neighborhood gathering places. Beneath Edison bulbs and exposed beams, people packed into tap and tasting rooms for flights of locally made IPAs, live music, games and trivia nights. 

Now, a growing number of these spaces play host to vacant rooms, empty barrels and silence.

For the past two years, more breweries in the U.S. have closed than opened. In 2025, there were 300 new brewery openings and 481 closures. The number of operating U.S. craft breweries fell to 9,578, a 2.9% net decline from 2024, according to Brewers Association data.

   ...more

RSK: Sad day but the times they are a changing as usual. The key is how do you market a vacant taproom/Brewery.

Ken Notes: From experience --- Do NOT mandate an auction of the equipment, it sells for pennies on the dollar in pieces yielding little back to the investors or banks. Instead see if the entire facility or at least the entire lot of production equipment can be sold to a new or expanding facility.