Several Georgia breweries have closed this year, including Savannah’s Moon River Brewing, Dry County Brewery in Kennesaw, Liquid Nation Brewing in Gainesville and Eventide Brewing in Grant Park.
That’s on the heels of a crushing 2023 that saw the end of Anderby Brewing, Candler Rail Brewery, Orpheus Brewing and the Tucker location of Pontoon Brewing, among others.
Most recently, Sam and Sara Kazmer announced they’re closing both locations of Elsewhere Brewing — in Grant Park and west Midtown — in late October.
“It’s been years of winter and clawing to see light at the end of the tunnel,” Sara Kazmer said. “People come during our events, and we do have a lot of them. But outside of the events, it can be very, very quiet here. You have to have bingo and trivia and music, and that’s how it is in Atlanta.”
In its short run, the location on West Marietta Street, known as the Greenhouse, helped Elsewhere survive, she said, adding that the Grant Park location would not have been open this year without it. The Greenhouse location “is small and we could run that for next to nothing.”
But, Sam Kazmer said, “we were making about half of what we needed to make over there.”
Joseph Cortes, executive director of the Georgia Craft Brewers Guild, sees the current situation as a maturing of the industry. “For over 20 years, the craft beer industry saw a really high ratio of openings to virtually no closings,” he said. But that has changed over the past year, although “we still have several breweries that are planning on opening. I don’t know what the leveling out is in terms of the rate of openings to closures here in Georgia yet.”
The state Legislature and the Brewers Guild can’t do much to fix large market shifts and economic pressures, either. “I think it’s pretty easy to say that small breweries in Georgia operate in a highly restrictive system,” Cortes said. “In fact, it still remains one of most restrictive systems of regulation nationwide.”
But Cortes said the Guild can fight for small breweries to have more freedom in how they operate their businesses in Georgia. Meanwhile, other impediments include steep leases and terms that are untenable for most small breweries.
Some breweries, like Elsewhere, that have located in new developments are not getting foot traffic, he said, because “a lot of these developments are still undergoing development. They’re not settled areas where they’ve gained a foothold yet.”
Cortes noted that “it’s really, really tough to get loans for small breweries right now.”
Changing drinking habits and preferences also factor into the shifting brewery landscape. “Gen Z is drinking less and they are drinking different things, so there’s a lot more competition,” Cortes said.
On a more positive note, he said that in some communities across the state “people are doing really well in taprooms.”
“Beer isn’t going anywhere,” Cortes said. “Craft isn’t going anywhere. And we’re going to try to make it easier to invest and open and stay open.”
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