Night Shift Brewing announced today that it will cease brewing operations at its flagship Everett location, upending 12 employees on the brewing team in the process. Long a Boston-area stalwart, Night Shift will continue brewing operations on a contract basis at other area breweries, including Jack’s Abby in Framingham, Massachusetts. Night Shift’s founders cited a string of issues dating back several years as grounds for the decision. These included a brewing location in Everett that was not up to the task of producing the amount of beer required by the company as well as impacts of COVID-19 on the new cancelled expansion plans in Philadelphia and a more recent and immediate shortage of CO2.
There is some irony to the brewery’s position as seven years ago it was in the reverse position, helping another local brewery, Idle Hands Craft Ales, continue its brewing operations after it was no longer able to operate in its Everett based brewing space.
Here is the brewery’s statement:
Hey all, sharing some tough news today.
Last week, we learned that our CO2 supply has been cut for the foreseeable future, possibly more than a year until we get more. Breweries depend on CO2 to make beer, so this was pretty awful news to get. Seems like this will be an issue that impacts a lot of local breweries, so we’re probably one of many breweries facing this new threat to our business.
Fortunately, we have contract brewing relationships set up with @jacksabbycraftlagers and @guildri, who have both now offered to brew beer for us and help fill our immediate production gaps. However, there are some other factors at play, and we’ll zoom out for a second to explain the full situation we’re currently facing.
A few years ago, it became clear to us that we’d outgrown our Everett production facility. For a brewery of our size, the space poses many challenges and limitations, including limited storage capacity, short ceiling heights, awkward layouts, and lack of proper loading bays. Our plan was to build a larger facility in Philly, but then COVID-19 hit, and we had to abandon it.
Since then, we made enormous investments in our Everett facility to try and make it more efficient. Despite all the various ways we’ve tried to problem solve it, production in Everett has remained more inefficient than our business can sustain. Our plan had been to continue problem solving, but this latest CO2 issue has basically thrown a huge wrench into any of those plans – threatening even immediate production (e.g. we might not be able to finish canning today).
Given both the immediate and long-term issues at Everett, we’ve made the decision to move the majority of our beer production to Jack’s Abby and IBG. We’re incredibly thankful for these relationships and the support these businesses are showing. On the flip side, what this all means is ultimately one of the most heartbreaking circumstances to ever face our business.
There are a ton of emotions flying around here today. This is a situation both very personal to us and our team, and likely impacting the industry at large in very threatening ways. Just to dispel a few false rumors we’ve already heard circulating:
– We are not closing any of our Taprooms or beer gardens
– We don’t expect any major disruptions to our beer supply, thanks to our relationships with Jack’s Abby and IBG
– We don’t expect any negative impacts to the quality or experience of our beer
– These decisions do not impact the jobs of any employees or departments at our company besides production, who are in a terribly unfortunate position given the situation at hand.
– Nobody on our production team has been fired. Everyone has jobs through at least October 1, some potentially longer. Anyone who ultimately does lose their job will also be given a severance package.
– Long-term, assuming we have CO2, we will continue to brew beer in Everett, just at a smaller scale.
– This is a huge threat to our business, but the business itself is not dissolving. We’ll continue to share updates as they come, and will share news stories that further explain the situation at hand both to us and the brewing community at large. We’ll do our best to answer any questions.
We’ll continue to share updates as they come, and will share news stories that further explain the situation at hand both to us and the brewing community at large. We’ll do our best to answer any questions.