Press Clips: Trillium to Consolidate Canton Operations, Offer 1st Brewery As Turnkey; Catawba to Move Production, Lays off 10 Workers

Trillium to Move Production to Flagship Canton Campus, Purchases Spencer Brewery Equipment

Boston-based Trillium Brewing Company is consolidating its production in Massachusetts and offering its original Canton facility as a turnkey operation.

Trillium is moving its brewing operations to its "flagship campus," part of the former-Reebok campus at 100 Royall Street, the brewery announced today. The company has been renovating the larger location to become its "forever home" since it was acquired in 2019, according to a blog post.

To support the Royall Street expansion, Trillium has acquired the 60-hectoliter (about 50 barrels) brewhouse and "associated infrastructure" of Spencer Brewery.

Spencer, a Trappist brewery operated by monks of St. Joseph's Abbey, announced it would be ceasing operations in May.

"Commissioning this new system allows us to maintain current beer production during our transition, and this best-in-class equipment means our team can achieve even greater control, creative freedom, and precision," Trillium co-founder JC Tetreault said in the release. "Having the entire production and quality staff together with the rest of our team greatly improves culture and increases idea sharing, creativity, and the speed at which we can problem solve together."

Trillium's Canton location at 110 Shawmut Road has been the brewery's main production headquarters since December 2015, when the company moved from its original, smaller brewery on Congress Street in Boston. Since then, Trillium has opened an additional Boston taproom near Fenway, a seasonal beer garden on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, a restaurant in the Fort Point district and a farm in North Stonington, Connecticut.

The 25,000 sq. ft. facility has been listed as a turnkey sale, with a 25,000 barrel annual capacity. The location includes a 30-barrel brewhouse, two large warehouses, three cold storage rooms, two 80,000 lb capacity grain silos, canning and bottling lines, a flash pasteurize, a dedicated lagering cellar, and more, according to the blog post. The facility also has an attached taproom, beer garden and retail space, which can accomodate more than 200 patrons.

Catawba Brewing Lays Off 10 Full-Time Workers as it Moves Production Out of Morganton

Catawba Brewing will lay off 10 full-time employees in the coming months from its Morganton, North Carolina, taproom as the company transitions production away from the location.

Catawba's parent company, Made by the Water (MBTW), is "deconstructing" the Morganton facility as it hasn't been able to "keep up with demand" of Catawba and other MBTW brands, CEO Alexi Sekmakas told Brewbound. MBTW, a portfolio company which acquired Catawba in 2021, is also the parent company of Apalachicola, Florida-based Oyster City and Charleston, South Carolina-based Palmetto Brewing.

"A lot" of the production volume from the Morganton facility will be moved to MBTW's operations in Charleston, as well as its new production operations in New Orleans, following the company's merger with New Orleans-based Faubourg Brewing Company (announced in September). Catawba's locations in Charlotte, Asheville and Wilmington, North Carolina will also see "an increase in volume," Sekmakas said.

"We knew we had to do something," Sekmakas said. "We’ve been seeing short stocks, and we weren't able to keep up with orders, so this has been a top priority."

Each of the full-time employees received exit packages that included "substantial severance and payout reflective of their time with the company and their current wage structure," according to Sekmakas. Several employees have also been offered relocation packages.

The Morganton taproom will remain open "for at least the next month." Sekmakas said the brewery is aiming to "maintain a taproom footprint within that city."

"We’re fortunate we sell a tremendous amount of beer within North Carolina, we’re heavily invested in North Carolina," Sekmakas said. "And this is just giving us the flexibility to make more investments in North Carolina.

"We should see more breweries get put up within the state; we should see further expansions," he continued. "It was just unfortunately, the way that Morgaton in particular was established was unable to make the quantities efficiently, and we couldn't scale it any further than what it was."

A Change.org petition has been created to support the Morganton taproom remaining open, which has now garnered more than 1,100 signatures.

"To those of us that live in Morganton, this brewery has become a staple and a large part of our community and the ‘at-home’ feel that everyone loves when they visit," Nicole Fernandez, who started the petition, wrote on the petition page. "The decision to shut down ‘Burke County's Number One Brewery’ is being made by a bunch of corporate executives in a different state that are looking only at the bottom line and NOT what closing our beloved meeting place will do to this town.

"For those of you that love our brewery as much as my family and me do, please sign this petition to see if we can get these impersonal corporate executives to look at more than just the bottom line and start caring a little about the damage they are about to do to our amazing community," she continued.

New Realm Closes Savannah Taproom

Atlanta-based New Realm Brewing Company has closed its Savannah Taproom and distillery, just over a year after the location opened.

The company announced the closure on Facebook last week, but the post has since been deleted. The location's Google listing is now labeled as "permanently closed."

New Realm opened the 12,000 sq. ft. facility in Savannah's Historic District in the spring of 2021. The three-story location included a restaurant, tasting room, rooftop patio and private event spaces, along with the brewery and distillery operations, according to the company's initial location announcement.

New Realm credited a change in brewery traffic in the area – which has not recovered to pre-COVID-19 levels – for the decision to close. Despite the closure of the distillery, New Realm's distilling operations will not be impacted, Craft Business Daily reported.

The Savannah location was New Realm's third location, alongside its brewery and restaurant in Atlanta and its production brewery and restaurant in Virginia Beach, Virginia. A fourth location in Charleston, South Carolina, was added shortly after, announced in April 2021.

New Realm produced 26,050 barrels of beer in 2021, a +29% increase year-over-year (YoY) versus 2020 (20,133 barrels), according to the Brewers Association (BA), which does not track spirits, canned cocktails or non-traditional beer production.

Asbury Park Moves All Offerings to 16 oz. Cans

New Jersey's Asbury Park Brewery will transition all of its packaged beer offerings into 16 oz. can 4-packs, the brewery announced on its social channels last week.

"Due to escalating raw material, shipping and packaging costs, we at the Asbury Park Brewery have made a decision to switch our entire package line to 16 oz. cans," the company wrote. "In doing this, we can ensure that our customers get handcrafted, delicious beers at a great price! We believe great beer shouldn't be a burden and this will ensure that happens."

The transition will happen over the next couple months, according to the post.

Asbury Park has kept its taproom closed since the start of the pandemic, according to the brewery's website. As a result, it has relied heavily on packaged offerings. A new tasting room location in Asbury Park is expected to open next spring, according to a comment by the brewery on Facebook.

The new packs will be priced an average of $1-$2 less than Asbury Park's 12 oz. can 6-packs, depending on style and store.

"6-pk cans are actually more expensive because big breweries buy the inventory and jack up the can price," the brewery continued in a Facebook comment. "Makes it harder to not have yearly increases when they do that."

Asbury Park produced an estimated 3,800 barrels in 2021, an increase of 200 barrels YoY, according to the BA. Asbury Park co-founder and CEO Jeff Plate sold his share in the company in March.