An Iconic Beer Brand Closes One Of Its 2 US Breweries

It's a tough time to be in the beer business in the United States. The decline in alcohol sales has become a major trend in the food and beverage industry, with Gallup reporting that only 54% of Americans now say they drink alcohol — the lowest reported number since 1939. That has led to declining beer sales, with the industry reporting recurring drops in annual sales since 2022 — and you know it's bad if Guinness is closing one of its breweries.

The Guinness brewery being closed is in Halethorpe, just outside of Baltimore, Maryland, and was one of Guinness's only breweries in America, along with another in Chicago. It opened just eight years ago and included a taproom and multiple restaurants. In a statement, Diageo, the parent company of Guinness, blamed a change in consumer demands and increasingly high costs of operation, along with larger economic pressures, for the closure. 

The announcement of the shutdown comes amid a larger $1 billion savings and restructuring plan from Diageo, which owns many major alcohol brands. Despite the beer industry's struggles, Guinness as a brand saw growth last year, but Diageo as a whole saw a difficult sales decline of over 8% in 2026. On Instagram, the Guinness Baltimore Brewery said it welcomed more than 2 million visitors over the last eight years and invited the city to visit one last time before it closes at the end of the month.

While it's tough to see Guinness close a brewery as sales rise, the importance of the Baltimore site has declined in recent years. When it opened in 2018, the brewery was founded as both an experimental location for testing new recipes and a production site for the brand's blonde lager. It was the first Guinness brewery to open in the U.S. in 64 years, and while the classic Guinness Draught stout is still brewed in Ireland, the company spent $90 million to model the brewery after its brewery in Dublin — the first Guinness site where customers could try its experimental beers. However, the Maryland location suffered a big hit in 2023, when it closed its Maryland brewery and moved production of Guinness Blonde to New York. This left only the experimental side of the brewery.

In the farewell message on Instagram, the Guinness Baltimore Brewery said it created more than 700 beers, most of which were only sold on site. Unfortunately, that was not enough to keep the brewery open without a larger production operation, as it had reportedly been struggling with foot traffic. 174 employees will reportedly be affected, although Aramark, which partnered with Diageo on the site, told Beer Street Journal that it is "working to identify opportunities in other areas of our organization where possible." Needless to say, it's a tough day for employees and the Baltimore beer drinkers who enjoyed the unique local business. But those are the times the beer business is in right now.