“Now we face a lot of the challenges a lot of hospitality groups face with supply chain issues and staffing – keeping staff on board, being able to run at capacity, ” he said. This brewery is turning into a park to help people socially distance Greg Abbott’s Covid-19 measures, said Charles Vallhonrat, executive director of the Texas Craft Brewers Guild. Texas brewers faced some unique challenges early on in the pandemic because they were initially classified as bars, which were targeted for shutdowns as part of Gov. “Poor sales led to the accumulation of expenses and debt and although government assistance helped keep us afloat, we were unable to fully recover,” Armadillo Brewing Company officials said in a Facebook post on March 27. In North Texas, the Lone Star State has seen popular breweries close their doors in recent weeks, including Legal Draft Beer and Armadillo Ale Works, the Dallas Morning News and Denton Record-Chronicle first reported. That could mean an increase in consolidation and in brewers paring down, rethinking or shuttering operations, he said. However, the current economic outlook – and the war in Ukraine, which has played havoc with crucial commodities like wheat and barley – “could accelerate that,” he said. “We were already moving toward a more mature place.” “We may see increased closings, but it’s not going to be a huge bubble burst,” Watson said of this year’s projections. The craft beer business was already experiencing some choppiness before the pandemic: In 2019, there were a record 300-plus closures, a reckoning after thousands of breweries had opened up in just a few short years. “The are going to have to stand on their own. “We still had the government raining down helicopter money ,” Watson told CNN Business, referring to the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, a federal pandemic relief program offering aid to struggling restaurants, bars, breweries, wineries and similar businesses. But this year, the outlook has grown hazier. That still leaves some 9,100 breweries in operation, but more closures are expected.Īfter being hit hard in 2020, the US craft beer industry started bouncing back last year. ![]() “2022 is going to be a make-or-break year for many breweries,” he said earlier this month while delivering the results of the association’s state-of-the-industry report.ĭuring the first three months of 2022, at least 53 craft breweries shut their doors, up from 42 closures in the first quarter of last year. The pandemic and its ongoing effects, as well as the war in Ukraine, continue to drag down smaller brewers, who are battling climbing costs, rising rents, and seemingly interminable supply chain challenges, Watson said. ![]() For many of the nation’s small and independent brewers, this year will prove to be a true test of their staying power.Įarly data for 2022 shows that brewery closures are on the rise and some sales have been spotty, said Bart Watson, senior economist for the Brewers Association, craft beer’s largest trade organization.
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