After eight years in business, the Guinness Open Gate Brewery in Halethorpe, Maryland, will be shutting down on Nov. 1.
In a social media post Thursday, the brewery said it served over 2 million visitors and “to everyone who walked through our gates, raised a glass, shared a meal, celebrated a milestone or simply made the brewery part of your life: thank you.”
Guinness parent company Diageo said in a statement that the closure comes after a “careful review of our operations and long-term business priorities,” according to Baltimore’s WBAL-TV.
People were interested in these podcasts
A spokesperson for the British company told WBAL that “we are deeply grateful to the Baltimore community, which welcomed us. … This was not a decision we made lightly.”
Operating costs, changes in consumer demand and tastes, and broader economic pressure made staying in business unsustainable, a source familiar with the decision told Baltimore’s WMAR-TV.
At the time it opened in 2018, the Halethorpe facility was the first brewery opened by Guinness on U.S. soil since the 1950s, according to the Baltimore Sun.
Around 174 of the workers who will be laid off when the brewery closes are employed by the site’s “hospitality partner” Aramark, which told Beer Street Journal that it’s “working to identify opportunities in other areas of our organization where possible.”
The brewery’s impending closure comes three years after Diageo laid off around 100 workers at the site and shut down most commercial brewing operations, leaving the taproom, restaurant, beer garden and experimental brewery open, according to Beer Street Journal.
In 2025, Diageo sold off 63 acres of land next to the brewery, according to the Sun.
Local industry leaders are concerned the closure could be a harbinger of closures and difficulties for other breweries.
“This isn’t just a Guinness story. Breweries of every size are navigating the rising costs, changing consumer behavior and an increasingly difficult marketplace. I am very worried that we are going to hear of many more in the next 12 months, and these are ones who don’t have the resources of a multinational corporation behind them,” Kelly Dudeck, president of the nonprofit trade group the Brewers Association of Maryland, told the Banner.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.