The beer business has confronted financial misery during the last two years, with general U.S. beer manufacturing and imports down 1% in 2024 and craft brewer quantity gross sales declining 4% in 2024 and about 5% in 2025, in keeping with a Brewers Affiliation report.
Home beer shipments additionally declined 5.9% in 2025, for a lack of over 8.68 million barrels of beer, in keeping with the Beer Institute as Beerbound reported.
Shipments in 2025 reached 139 million barrels, a decine from 147.7 million barrels in 2024.
Declining demand and consumption
Key causes for this downturn embody a drop in shopper demand and declining alcohol consumption charges from youthful generations, the Brewers Affiliation reported.
Brewers have cited a number of different causes for his or her financial points together with elevated product and labor prices pushed by inflation and rising lease charges.
Rising materials prices detrimental
“Raw material costs have emerged as a significant constraint in the North American craft beer market, with substantial increases in the prices of essential ingredients, such as malted barley and hops, alongside packaging materials like aluminum cans,” in keeping with a 2026 North American Craft Beer Market Report by Mordor Intelligence.
“The impact of these cost increases has been particularly severe on production economics, forcing breweries to revise their pricing strategies and operational models,” the report stated.
The downturn within the beer business during the last two years has led brewers throughout the nation to shut their breweries to the frustration of customers who love their brew.
Anheuser-Busch closes its 50-year-old Fairfield, Calif., brewery on Feb. 22.
Brewer sells crops
Anheuser-Busch, which in December 2025 introduced the closing of three of its breweries throughout the nation, will shut its Fairfield, Calif., brewery on Feb. 22, after promoting its Newark, N.J., plant in December and shutting its Merrimack, N.H., facility by the top of January.
The brewer plans to promote its 170-acre Fairfield property, as industrial actual property dealer Cushman & Wakefield has been employed to market the positioning on the market, in keeping with San Francisco Enterprise Instances, as reported by SFGate.
“We will be shifting production from these three facilities to our other U.S. facilities and these changes will enable use to invest even more in our remaining operations and in our portfolio of growing, industry-leading brands,” Anheuser-Busch stated in an electronic mail to the Fairfield Every day Republic in December.
Brewery employee layoffs
The Fairfield brewery within the San Francisco Bay Space will lay off 238 staff when it closes, in keeping with the corporate’s Dec. 12 Employee Adjustment and Retraining Notification discover.
“We will support the approximately 475 full-time employees currently working at these three facilities by offering them a full-time role elsewhere in our U.S. operations,” Anheuser-Busch stated in December.
Extra closings:
- Bankrupt restaurant chains completely shut in style places
- Main retail chain closes 35 shops nationwide, no chapter
- One other main retail chain closes warehouse operations
Town of Fairfield estimated it will lose $1.2 million a 12 months in water income and as much as $559,000 in property taxes, relying on what occurs with the unsecured property on the property, the December report stated.
The closure is anticipated to value town $10.7 million yearly, in addition to about $8.9 million in annual state taxes and $3.3 million in annual federal taxes, in keeping with the report.
Anheuser-Busch closed one other San Francisco Bay Space facility in 2022 when it shut down its Oakland distribution middle and 142 staff had been laid off, SFGate stated.
Anheuser-Busch brewery closings
- Newark, N.J.
- Merrimack, N.H.
- Fairfield, Calif.
Associated: One other award-winning beer model closes down its brewery endlessly
