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Closing a business that you put your heart and soul into for more than six years is bound to be hurt at any time of year. But for Liz and Curtis Chism, the married duo behind Council Brewing, announcing that your company will be going out of business as the holiday season approaches, has to be especially painful.
Council Brewing’s Curtis and Liz Chism
Last week, Curtis took to the brewery’s Facebook page to announce that on December 15th Council Brewing would be closing both its brewery locations in what has been seen as an exceptionally healthy craft beer city, San Diego.
San Diego and its adjoining region is for many a craft beer mecca and it has garnered a reputation as the ‘Capital of Craft’ for good reason…
As of July 22, 2018, San Diego County was reportedly home to 157 breweries, 35 tasting rooms and 14 brewpubs (including majors like Stone and Ballast Point) and a craft-savvy populace that according to the San Diego Brewers Guild was more than willing to support them.
Even as craft beer’s double-digit growth slowed to 5% in 2017, the guild released a study showing that local craft beer sales as a whole continue to rise in the San Diego region.
In fact, overall brewery income exceeded $900 million in 2017 and provided a local economic impact of well over a billion dollars, a larger sum than the San Diego Padres generated in the same year.
But thinking that even a craft beer destination like San Diego is immune to the economic realities that have led to an upsurge in brewery closings in different parts of the country is at best naïve and some would suggest it’s borderline denial.
And as passionate as Liz (the brewer) and Curtis (finances and management) were about Council Brewing, they were far from naïve. They entered 2018 realistically knowing it would be “a make or break year.
The husband and wife team had just opened a second brewery and tasting room location that they had high hopes for. But they were blindsided by rising freight, labor, rent, and utilities expenses that diminished expectations and lower taproom and distribution sales which they explain as a direct result of “over-saturation of the brewery market.”
Unfortunately Council Brewing’s closing announcement is just the latest in a region less accustomed to breweries failing…
As the San Diego Reader points out, the city has seen a number of breweries fail this year (some of them having just expanded), including Intergalactic Brewing, ChuckAlek Independent Brewers, and Toolbox Brewing.
