Portland Brewpub Stalwart, Lompoc Brewing, Closing After 23 Years
Yet another venerable Portland brewery announced it was closing up shop. This email came out about an hour ago:
It is with great sadness that we announce that Lompoc Brewing is closing up shop after 23 years in business. The closure includes the brewery and its two pubs on North Williams Avenue: 5th Quadrant and Sidebar. The final day of business will be Tuesday, Oct. 29. That means this weekend is the last weekend, next Monday is the last Wing Night, and next Tuesday is the last Tightwad Tuesday. It truly is The Last Waltz with Lompoc Brewing.
Founded by Jerry Fechter back in 1996 as the Old Lompoc, the brewery grew slowly over time to become a mini-chain with five locations. There were recent signs of trouble, however. In 2017, the Hedge House closed on Division (becoming the future site for Little Beast), and in 2018 the original 23rd Avenue pub closed to make way for new apartments.
On the brewery’s website.
It’s just the latest in a string of Portland closures: BridgePort, Burnside, Alameda, and Columbia River all went out of business, and Widmer, Laurelwood, and Portland Brewing have recently closed pub locations. Production at Lompoc peaked at around 2,800 barrels in 2014 and was down to just under 2,000 last year.
My guess is that few people will be shocked by this news. Partly that’s because of the recent pub closures, but more centrally, it’s because the beers, branding, and pub vibe felt dated. Proletariat Red, C-Note IPA, and Lompoc Special Draft all date back to the 90s and remain a part of the core lineup. In a market fueled by novelty, Lompoc was proudly old-school.
Portland is becoming a real test case for where the market is headed. The beer market here is the most vibrant in the country, with craft beer consumption far outpacing any other city. Women make up half the consumer base. New breweries have found a lot of success appealing to younger drinkers and evolving with the market. But, because it was a mature beer city so early—really by the time Lompoc was founded—it means there are, or were, a disproportionate number of older breweries around. In this very competitive marketplace, those that haven’t figured out how to reinvent themselves for a new generation have seen volumes collapse.
I’ve had a number of people ask, “What’s going on in Portland?”—thinking that there’s a major problem with beer here. There isn’t—it’s as popular as it’s ever been. But it does stand as a test case for what happens in a 40-year-old industry when all the attention is turning to newer breweries and new styles. Nothing unhealthy is happening—this is what a mature market looks like.
RIP, Lompoc Brewing. You had a great run—