MILWAUKEE — The new year begins with a pair of closures for Milwaukee’s brewing scene.
Enlightened Brewing Company and City Lights Brewing will close their doors this weekend.
MobCraft closed in November, and Company Brewing closed back in May. That makes four different breweries that have closed in the past eight months.
“MobCraft was the best,” said Cory Forbes, a craft beer drinker.
Forbes enjoyed the brewery not just for its beers but also for the trivia. When asked about the recent brewery closures, he said it’s tough.
Watch: Beer experts, drinkers weigh in on recent wave brewery closures in Milwaukee
“It’s one of the things that I would tell my friends when they visit Milwaukee: they should do a brewery crawl and visit as many breweries as possible, but now there are four less on the menu, right?” said Forbes.
To learn why Brew City is experiencing kegs running dry at these locations, TMJ4 reached out to Andy Gehl.
“I think it's been a long time coming,” said Gehl, the co-founder and president of Third Space Brewing. “It's been a tough market for craft beer over the last few years, since the pandemic.”
He provided some insight on what’s brewing with these closures and what these businesses are dealing with right now.
“There's a lot of breweries out there, right? We're seeing competition from other beverages. There are a lot of choices in the marketplace, and then we're seeing a lot of challenges in our business with rising costs, and with that competition, it's hard to raise your own prices, so some margins are shrinking,” said Gehl.
He also talked about breweries being able to adapt their business models. Third Space opened a second location in Menomonee Falls. They’ve also rolled out hemp-derived beverages, something Gehl never thought they would do.
Young adults are also drinking less in the U.S. than in prior decades and are choosing nonalcoholic beverages.
Russ Klisch of Lakefront Brewery pointed out that many brewery deals were done across the country at the end of the year and often occur at this time for accounting reasons. Deals can be found in Craft Brew News, a national publication that looks into these trends.
It’s not just consumer trends. Gehl said sometimes breweries were trying to do too much.
“A lot of the breweries we're seeing that closed recently had both a taproom and were trying to do distribution across the state, and that's a lot of money tied up in equipment and real estate. If you're not getting the sales in the marketplace, you just can't really support that type of setup,” said Gehl.
Jason Rohloff is a craft beer enthusiast. He spoke with TMJ4 about the impact this will have on the beer scene in Milwaukee.
“You lose variety, you lose choice; there’s a reduction in competition, and that’s never good for any industry,” said Rohloff.
He hopes that new breweries will fill the four voids left behind.
Gehl stated that the good news is that craft beer is here to stay in Milwaukee, with plenty of options out there, and that the market is just maturing.
“Craft beer is not going away, but if you have a favorite brewery out there, I recommend you support it, and hopefully, they can stick around as well,” said Gehl.
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