The Krog Street taproom that survived the punk brewery’s years of controversy didn’t survive the acquisition.
The BrewDog outpost that had planted its Scottish flag on the Atlanta Beltline for the last four years went dark Monday without so much as a 24-hour warning. BrewDog Atlanta permanently closed on March 9, ending its run at the Krog District after nearly four years on the Atlanta Beltline.
The farewell came via Instagram, not a press release. “After several amazing years on the BeltLine, BrewDog Atlanta is closing its doors today. We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who joined us for a pint, brought friends, celebrated milestones, and made this bar part of the neighborhood,” the company posted. No final last-call event.
The timing is not coincidental. As Beer Street Journal reported in our coverage of the Tilray acquisition, BrewDog’s sale to Tilray — which also owns Georgia’s SweetWater and Terrapin — seems to respresent a dramatic reckoning for a brand that bled punk rock and rebellion against corporate overlords. It sold its own fans on the dream of ownership through the Equity for Punks crowdfunding program. That punk ethos cashed out for $44 million, and the bar tabs are now being settled in real time.
BrewDog was reportedly closing 40 bars and cutting 500 jobs as part of the restructuring tied to the sale, with most cuts confined to U.K. locations. The U.S. entity was set to be part of a separate negotiation after the initial deal closed. Atlanta is the first fatality in BrewDog’s American empire — not immune despite the silence around its specific fate. No details have emerged about the future of BrewDog’s remaining U.S. locations.
The closure leaves a massive vacant space along the Beltline’s popular Eastside Trail, suddenly dark, beer still sitting in the draft lines.
As for BrewDog Las Vegas? Seems like business as usual. For now.
Emails to Tilray were not returned at the time of this article.
