/// LAST-CALL: CROSSTOWN BREWING WENT DARK AT 2100 LOCAL LAST NIGHT;
TAPS OFFLINE. SIGNAL LOST. ///
The Crosstown Brewing closing is now official. Crosstown Brewing Co. poured its last pints yesterday, at its taproom next to Crosstown Concourse in Memphis, capping a final day that ran from noon to 9 p.m., according to Action News 5. The timing has a cruel orbital symmetry: tonight, Mastodon plays Satellite Music Hall across the street, the same show Crosstown brewed a hazy IPA to celebrate.
Bureau field staff have watched a lot of taprooms wink out this year. The Crosstown Brewing closing landed one day before its own metal soundtrack.
Why the Crosstown Brewing closing was “a necessity”
Cofounder Will Goodwin told WREG that shutting down was “a necessity.” He pointed to inflation, falling sales and a shift in habits, with many younger people drinking less than the generations before them. Those are not exotic forces. They are the same pressures our sensors keep picking up in taprooms from California to Tennessee.
The brewery’s own farewell, shared by Action News 5, thanked Memphis for every pint raised in the taproom and every six-pack of Traffic carried home, and said the team is proud of both the beer and the community that formed around it.
Nearly a decade on Concourse Avenue
Crosstown ran for nearly a decade. Reports disagree on the exact count: Action News 5 says nine years, while others put it at eight. Hoodline’s roundup lays out the conflict and notes that WREG and the Daily Memphian both date the taproom’s opening to February 2018. Over that stretch, according to Hoodline’s summary of local reporting, the brewery built distribution in Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas and added a full kitchen to the taproom in 2024 to bring in revenue beyond beer.
Hoodline also reports, citing WREG, that most of Crosstown’s roughly 20 employees have already moved on to other jobs.
Can you still drink Crosstown beer now that the taproom is closed?
For a while, yes. A Yahoo report says Crosstown beer will stay on at local bars and restaurants until the supply runs out. With the taproom dark after the Crosstown Brewing closing, the remaining kegs out in the wild are now a countdown clock. If Traffic or another Crosstown pour is your local habit, ask your bartender while it lasts.
The Mastodon problem: one day too early
Mastodon brings the Poisonous Weapons Tour to Satellite Music Hall tonight. Crosstown brewed Poisonous Weapons Hazy IPA with the band, a 7% collaboration whose can label lists the Memphis date and venue. Earlier reporting said cans would be sold at the show. Nobody has confirmed whether those can sales will still happen now that the brewery has closed, and the Bureau will not guess. Check with the venue before you head over tonight. The same Poisonous Weapons Tour hit The Sound at the Del Mar Fairgrounds a week earlier with Deafheaven and Alcest, as SDMETAL previewed in its Mastodon Del Mar coverage.
The upshot of the Crosstown Brewing closing: the taproom shut its doors roughly 24 hours before the concert its own beer was built for. Even by human standards, the timing was rough.
A bad year for taprooms, from Memphis to Vista
Memphis is not alone. Hoodline notes that Memphis Made closed its Edge District taproom earlier this year. In Southern California, Stone Brewing is closing its Escondido Bistro & Gardens, and The Roadies Brewing in Vista pours its final beers today, the same day as the Mastodon show. Not every change is a shutdown: The Lost Abbey is leaving its Vista brewery to “grow down” into a smaller home. For the bigger picture, our look at why fewer craft breweries are opening shows the trend is less about a wave of closures and more about how few new ones are opening.
Taken together, the Crosstown Brewing closing fits a pattern the Bureau has logged all year: rising costs, softer demand and a younger crowd that orders fewer rounds.
How the Crosstown Brewing closing played out
- Last day: Yesterday, noon to 9 p.m.
- Where: Crosstown Brewing’s taproom next to Crosstown Concourse, Memphis
- Where to find the beer now: Crosstown beer at local bars and restaurants until supply runs out, per Yahoo
- Tonight: Mastodon at Satellite Music Hall; Poisonous Weapons can sales unconfirmed
The Crosstown Brewing closing became official at 9 p.m. yesterday, so raise one for the Concourse crew wherever a Crosstown keg is still tapped. The Bureau will keep the frequency open for word on those Mastodon cans before tonight’s show.
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