In more sad news, during these ‘dark’ times, we have (even) more unfortunate news. Not quite on the level of the Full Pint Closing or Crystal Ball Closing or Stoudt’s Announced Closing, but Night Shift has announced their canceling their expansion into Philadelphia. This is disappointing news for many; especially Pennsylvanians and Philadelphians.

Back in August 2019, Night Shift Brewing announced they were going to be pushing into Pennsylvania; with a Philadelphia brewery and complex. In August 2019, they posted on Instagram: “2019 has been a wild ride. Thanks to all our thirsty fans, we opened Lovejoy, launched coffee, and today announce our new Philadelphia brewery. With an Everett expansion also in the works, that’s three new brewhouses in 12 months! Hard to believe this all started with a 15 gallon homebrew kettle. Love y’all.”

Sadly though, time has not been kind to Night Shift Brewing. Where 2019 was a wild ride, 2020 has been an even more wild ride, and particularly an unpleasant and nasty one. (For them as well as the industry a whole; and to be honest, for pretty every human on the face of the Earth at this point.) So, unfortunately, the plans for the Night Shift Brewing complex in Philadelphia will be no more.

In a press release this morning, Night Shift announced that they were canceling their expansion into Philadelphia.

“It is with great personal sadness that we at Night Shift Brewing have made the incredibly hard decision to cancel our Philly expansion project. 

For over four years, we worked to find our second “forever home” and plant roots in our hometown. Last year, signing that lease agreement for our space in Roxborough, PA was an absolute high point. We were more excited than ever, and the early welcome we got from Philadelphians exceeded our wildest expectations. We couldn’t open it fast enough.” They announced in their Press Release.

They have cited COVID-19; the novel coronavirus and the pandemic as being the main impetus for this cancellation and halting of their growth into Philadelphia. “It wasn’t meant to be. The COVID-19 pandemic shook our business to the core, and obviously almost everything outside of it. We’re lucky that we’re still in operation and able to see ourselves coming out of this crisis intact. But pushing forward on our Philly project has become too dangerous, threatening a potential collapse of NSB if we don’t pull the plug now. So, hard as it is, that’s what we’re doing.” Stated Night Shift co-founders Rob Burns, Mike O’Mara, and Michael Oxton.

This is disappointing news to be sure, as their production facility was expected to brew roughly 60,000 barrels of beer; bringing their capacity total up to 100,000 over their three different locations. In comparison, in 2018 Lord Hobo brewed 37,800 barrels, Tree House brewed 44,300, and Jack’s Abbey brewed 49,000 barrels. Night Shift is still expected to break the 40K mark this year despite COVID and despite not opening the Philly location.

You can read more about their announcement from their page itself: “Philly News – Night Shift Brewing.”

SOURCES:

(Announcement of Expansion)

• Night Shift Brewing Looking to Expand Into Philly (Boston.com)
• Boston’s Night Shift Brewing coming to Roxborough with 130,000-square foot facility (Philly Voice)

(Announcement of Cancellation)

• Philly News Update (Night Shift Brewing – Press Release)
• Night Shift Brewing Cancels Expansion (Breweries in PA)

For more information on other breweries that have closed in recent months, you can check out our articles on Stoudt’s Brewing, Full Pint Brewing, and Crystal Ball Brewing.

• Stoudt’s Announces Closing
• Full Pint Announces Closing
• Crystal Ball Closes

We have also covered several brewery openings in recent months as well.

• A Sneak Peak at Rubber Soul Brewery Opening in Hummelstown
• A Grand Opening for Hemauer Brewing
• Midwest Coast Brewery Opening
• Rotunda Brew Pub Opening

Thank you for reading everyone. Please check out our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages, and please hit the subscribe and follow buttons on those various platforms as well as here on our blog. Thanks and cheers!

-B. Kline

This is certainly not the blog article I wanted to do today. Yesterday (2.3.20) the news came out while I was at work. In the morning before work, I started writing my next beer review – This Is The Way – by Broken Goblet, but with the news of Stoudts Brewing closing, I’ve pushed that back. Around 1PM or so yesterday, Stoudts Facebook page posted this message:

Predictably, the Craft Beer online community erupted upon the news. Soon after their announcement, PennLive.com and LancasterOnline both ran stories (links provided at the ending in the sources). In Central PA, this is sadly not the first closing news in recent history. On January 25th, Crystal Ball Brewing in York PA closed up permanently. (You can read our coverage of it here: Crystal Ball Closing.)

All day yesterday, and so far today, my Facebook and Twitter feeds, Facebook groups, etc, are all posting the Stoudts message. Accompanied by congratulations to Carol Stoudt for retiring, as well as dismay at the closing of the actual brewery. Even across the country where Stoudts isn’t readily available there is all kinds of talk about its closing. Being one of the oldest craft breweries – at least of the new wave – and closing, its extremely disheartening.

Just to give you some kind of scope and size of Stoudts’ Brewing, look at how they have their own Wikipedia page: Stoudts Brewing Co. Not many craft breweries can claim that, let alone ones in Pennsylvania.

For some background on the Stoudts and their brewery, lets look to their beginning. Carol and Ed Stoudt began brewing and opening their brewery and restaurant in Adamstown, Lancaster County, PA, back in 1987. Carol is credited as being one of the first female brewers since Prohibition. At the time of their startup, there was only 150 active breweries in America, there is currently 8,000 some (at the start of the year).

Carol announced her retirement this year, and with that, the brewing aspects of the business will be shutting down. The Black Angus restaurant – Ed’s original start-up – will continue. At the start, Ed had his Black Angus restaurant and they added the brewing operations to it.

“This was a difficult decision to make, but we’re not moving enough volume to justify the expense of keeping the brewery open. However, we’re not closing the doors to any business opportunities that could help the Stoudts brand live on.” Carol Stoudt stated for the press release posted on their website (and circulated on social media).

Recently, Sly Fox and Stoudts did a collaboration for a new beer – Black Lager.

Similar to Crystal Ball’s closing recently, cited reasons are over-saturation of the market, pressures from giant breweries like In-Bev and CoorsMiller, and economic factors like the new sales tax, aluminum upticks, and other factors. PennLive recently did a write-up (just posted a few days ago) on the over-saturation of the craft beer market: Suds Up. Its a rather weak article, but does go over the talking points that most people have been discussing (in and out of the industry). (This will possibly be a future article here on The Beer Thrillers, where, perhaps myself and J. Doncevic and maybe others will discuss reasons for closings, and preventative measures for breweries in the area.)

Central PA definitely has a large assortment of breweries, and the list is ever growing. In Dauphin county, looking at towns like Hershey – Troegs Independent Craft Brewery and Iron Hill Brewing (with a Rotunda Brew Pub), in Harrisburg – The Millworks, ZeroDay Brewing, Boneshire Brew Works, The Vegetable Hunter, and Pizza Boy’s secondary location at Official BBQ and Burgers, in Middletown with Tattered Flag (as well as their location primarily for their distillery options in Hershey), Elizabethtown has Cox Brewing Company as well as Moo-Duck Brewery, and Hummelstown is set to open Rubber Soul Brewing (tentative date being April / May) and Howling Henry’s Tap Room. And this is just a small sample size. Its not going into other new breweries opening like Hemeaur’s and Wolf Brewing. Or the many other options in the Lebanon, Lancaster, Perry, and other counties close by.

For Stoudts Brewing, the brewery operations will cease in Spring, allowing the brewery to go up for sale. No word on any specifics on the sale or if there is any interested parties yet. The restaurant, and other adjoining and adjacent businesses will remain open for the foreseeable future. No word on exact dates, just the ambiguous ‘spring’ announcement. Most likely to give time to move all product on their floor. And to finish out the tanks and release what has been made.

In 2019 the Brewers of Pennsylvania Association honored Carol Stoudt with their inaugural “Presidents Award”. She was a pioneer and an inspiration for many in the industry, male or female, race or creed, she was an inspiration and a fantastic spirit for the community and industry as a whole. Her retirement is well deserved and hopefully will be blissful and peaceful. At the end of the press release she stated that she’s done her turn and its time for the next generation to take over. That regardless of the brewery’s future, the Stoudts tradition will live on. The Restaurant and Antiques Mall will remain in operation, and hopefully through investors or potential interested parties the brewery itself will be bought and remain brewing.

Sources:

• Stoudts Brewing Official Page
• Owners of Stoudts Brewing to Sell Brewery (PennLive)
• Carol Stoudt Announces Retirement (Lancaster Online)
• Stoudts Brewery (Wikipedia)

Hopefully this will be the last of these closings articles I’ll have to write for a while. This was intended to be a beer review, not a sad closing article. I do have several beer review articles to post, some of which are: Doppelganger by Tree House, Loki (by Karl Larson) of Newfangled Brew Works, This is the Way by Broken Goblet, Anagnorisis by Boneshire Brew Works, and much more.

Sorry for this article only now coming out Wednesday morning, I started it yesterday morning (Tuesday, 2.4.20) and intended to finish it after work, but didn’t get a chance to (kids, life, stopping in at Newfangled Brew Works to try Karl Larson’s first small batch for them – Loki, myriad of things, etc.), but its finished now. I am finishing up a six-day work week today (yay!), but will have off the next three days (unexpected and unplanned three day weekends in the casino industry are basically unheard of, but so very well beloved). Tomorrow I have a funeral for my great Uncle Ed, who passed away on the 1st, on his 90th birthday. Possibly Thursday (tomorrow) night I will be doing the podcast for LOST Seasons 3 and 4, if not Thursday, probably Friday night. Saturday is the big bottle share at Tattered Flag with Breweries in PA. Myself and D. Scott will be attending that. So that should be interesting.

For those new to the blog, please check out some of our recent articles. Like the Tree House series of beer reviews: Sap, Autumn, Julius, and Haze (with Doppelganger forthcoming). Or check out my beer review of Florence by Hill Farmstead. Or you can check out some of our older beer reviews like LazerSnake by Three Floyds, or Baby Genius by Bissell Brothers, or The Veil’s Black & Blue Tastee.

And as always, I’ll recommend checking out our Facebook and Twitter pages (located at the bottom on the icons), and please click to follow us either through WordPress or by signing up with your e-mail so you’ll be alerted as to our next blog’s posting.

Cheers everyone! And maybe I’ll get to see you at the bottle share. Leave a comment here for any of your fondest Stoudts memories or if you’ll be going to the bottle share so we can meet up. Prost!

-B. Kline