Brewery Suicide




What the heck is going on in west Texas?  In January, I stopped in Alpine, Texas to enjoy a cold fresh beer at the Big Bend Brewery only to find the place shuttered.  Closed until further notice the sign on the door said. The last day of operations was December 31, 2018. I was surprised. I couldn’t believe it; how was this possible?  Big Bend Brewing was not some new fly by night operation; they had been around since 2012, won awards, rebounded from the passing of their head brewer and by all accounts had made their far west Texas brewery a success. 

Even Google didn’t seem to know the place was closed still listing operating hours.  On the brewery's Facebook page, they blamed “challenging macroeconomic conditions affecting investment in the craft beer sector.” So what happened?  Tough competition, too small of a market, too many breweries, high costs? Well, it’s a bit more complicated. 

Alpine’s Big Bend pined for the glamour of the big city and was in the process of building a 3-million dollar production facility in San Antonio, TX.   The company had entered into an agreement with Diversified Metal Engineering (DME) to provide brewhouse equipment and paid DME around 1-million dollars in advance.  Then DME filed bankruptcy.  

To an outsider, this looks like Big Bend’s ownership took a swing for the fences and may have been hoping to hit a home run or maybe a big payday maybe a big beer buyout.  Who knows, but they ran into some terrible bad luck. Big Bend ownership had a relationship with WC IPA that had acquired California’s Green Flash out of bankruptcy. A craft beer powerhouse has not yet emerged in Texas.  There is no Stone, Dogfish Head, or even Abita yet. Maybe Big Bend was angling to be that, but instead, they’re busted flat.

Postscript on the way back to San Antonio I stopped at a Valero convenience store for gas.  Inside in the beer cooler there where several six-packs of Big Bend’s Hefeweizen. I bought them all! Cheers! Thanks for the memories and great beer in the middle of nowhere.



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