481 U.S. Breweries Closed in 2025. The Empty Real Estate Is Proving Hard To Fill

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.

Faced with rising costs, changing consumer habits and geopolitical turbulence, only the strongest microbreweries and brewpubs are surviving, leaving property owners and their agents grappling with how to market, lease and sell the niche spaces left behind in the craft beer boom's decline.

“A lot of these former brewing operations are sitting shuttered right now,” said Matt Gacioch, staff economist for the Brewers Association. “It definitely puts the property owners in a tough spot right now if they don't have someone who's coming and knocking on their door.”

The craft brewery industry hit its stride in the mid-2010s, becoming a $23.5B industry by the end of 2016. More than 1,000 new locations opened that year, compared to a hair over 100 that went dark.

The craft craze sparked local economies across the country, creating jobs and encouraging community revitalization, with breweries often opening in previously abandoned or neglected properties like former firehouses, vacant banks and empty warehouses. 

But following a period of meteoric highs, the onset of the pandemic brought the craft beer industry back to earth, although the pace of openings had already started to slow.

“It was just pretty explosive growth, and we in the industry knew that that kind of growth is not sustainable forever,” Gacioch said. “There’s a limit there.”

The Perfect Storm

O’Connor Brewery in Norfolk, Virginia, closed the doors on its 30K SF former industrial taproom and production facility in 2023 after 13 years, pivoting to focus on its wholesale distribution business. While another brewery moved into the space rather quickly, it lasted just over a year. Since its closure in March 2025, the property has sat vacant.

S.L. Nusbaum partner and Senior Vice President Chris Zarpas, one of the listing agents for the former brewery, said he and his partner initially marketed the space as a brewery. When they didn’t see the traction they hoped for, they pivoted the search to alternative beverage companies. Now, they are offering up the property simply as industrial space. 

“We marketed this property more exhaustively than any I think my partner and I have marketed before,” Zarpas said.

Neal Bowman, a senior broker with Indiana-based Sturges Property Group, has also encountered similar challenges in leasing a former industrial property in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that once housed Junk Ditch Brewery. A limited tenant pool and the building’s mixed warehouse and taproom functionality have made it challenging to find a fit. 

“The capital requirement to open to the public and stay relevant is the biggest challenge even if landlords are willing to participate,” Bowman said in an email. 

Major stalwarts of the industry have shut their doors over the last few years. In November 2025, Oregon’s Rogue Ales & Spirits closed its 47K SF production facility along with its three remaining pubs after 37 years. That same month, the Bay Area’s 21st Amendment Brewery closed its San Leandro production facility and San Francisco brewpub after 25 years in business. 

Surviving breweries are also competing for a piece of a steadily shrinking pie as consumer drinking habits have fallen to historic lows in recent years. The percentage of U.S. adults who say they consume alcohol dropped to 54% in 2025, according to Gallup, the lowest in the nearly 90-year history of the survey.

For the first time, a majority of Americans now also believe that moderate alcohol consumption is bad for their health. 

“If that social reinforcement isn’t present, the beverage may not have the same appeal. … Young people today may not be drinking as much, in part because those social factors aren’t shaping the taste experience the way they used to,” Dr. Donald Katz, professor of behavioral neuroscience and head of Katz Lab, told Brandeis University.

Rising material costs have also weighed on the industry’s profitability. 

Aluminum can prices have jumped 25% or more since tariffs on the material took hold, with the Trump administration doubling the tariff on aluminum imports from 25% to 50% in June. Aluminum cans account for roughly 78% of all packaged craft beer sold in the U.S., meaning many brewers have limited options to avoid the increased costs.

The price of grain, the key ingredient in creating beer, surged more than 30% between 2021 and 2023, and processed malt costs were still up between 5% and 7% in 2025 compared to 2024. 

Gacioch said the industry’s growth rate was already slowing prior to the pandemic, but when it hit, it amplified the slowdown.

“We saw it catalyze some of the changes that were already starting,” he said. “Over the past few years, it has been a challenging environment for brewers.”

Only The Strong Survive

Owners of former brewery space are offering concessions such as free rent periods and owner financing for qualified buyers, but even these are rarely moving the needle, Zarpas said. Now, many are forced to rethink their marketing strategies, offering the properties as mixed-use, industrial or retail. 

“It's the process of natural selection,” Zarpas said. “In natural selection, only the strong survive.”

One of the facets that makes many surviving breweries sustainable is a focus on food. Many have opted for kitchens instead of partnering with food trucks. For many potential tenants, facilitating more consistent food offerings is a priority.

Brewpubs and taprooms, concepts that center on their own on-site components, saw production decline 1.7% and 3.9% year-over-year, respectively. That performance outpaces other brewery types in regional breweries and microbreweries with distribution models, down 5.9% and 8.9% over the same period.

Maine Beer Co., a local brewery in Freeport, has seen success but isn’t immune to financial challenges. The brewery announced plans to construct a second brewhouse on its property, tripling its capacity. However, the keg machine it ordered came from overseas and was subject to significant tariffs. Colleen Croteau, the company’s chief operating officer, described this as the cost of doing business right now.

Consumers are looking to get the most bang for their buck when they choose to go out, Gacioch said. 

“So having something like a more full food menu, like what brewpubs offer, can be enticing to bring more people,” he said.

Breweries have also fought to capture a broader share of the demographic by expanding their beverage offerings. Hemp-derived THC beverages have become a more commonplace item, as have hard seltzers and nonalcoholic alternatives. 

Dan Abel, CEO of Chicago-based Pilot Project Brewing, estimated that when the company’s first location opened in 2019, roughly 1 in 15 drinks sold were nonalcoholic, usually to a child. Now, 1 in 3 drinks the company sells in its Chicago tasting rooms don’t contain alcohol. 

“The customer is becoming increasingly fickle,” Abel said. “It's kind of like how when Napster or Spotify hit the music industry, all of a sudden, you had so much choice available to you that you didn't necessarily just have to listen to the Top 40. The same thing is true in the beverage industry.”