Anheuser-Busch is closing 3 plants. What that means for NY’s largest brewery near Baldwinsville
Syracuse, N.Y. – Anheuser-Busch, the world’s largest beer maker, is closing three of its U.S. breweries in a move that is expected to send business and potentially jobs to its brewery near Baldwinsville, which is remaining open.
The company said this week that after a “thorough review” of its operations, it has decided to sell its Newark, New Jersey, brewery to the Goodman Group and close its breweries in Fairfield, California, and Merrimack, New Hampshire, in early 2026. Goodman plans to repurpose the Newark brewery for industrial manufacturing and logistics uses, the company told NJ.com.
The company said it will shift production from the three facilities to its other U.S. facilities. It said the changes will enable the company to invest in its remaining operations and in its portfolio of “growing, industry-leading brands.”
The three breweries slated for closing employ about 475 full-time employees. Anheuser-Busch said all will be offered full-time roles elsewhere in the company’s U.S. operations and will receive relocation stipends and new location skills training.
The company operates 12 breweries in the U.S. The closings will reduce that number to nine.
One of the remaining nine breweries is the company’s facility in the Syracuse suburb of Lysander, outside of Baldwinsville. It is the largest brewery in New York, employing 500 people.
That facility is expected to be one of the breweries that benefit from the shift in business and jobs from the three breweries slated for closing. It is the closest brewery in the Anheuser-Busch network to Merrimack (298 miles) and Newark (262 miles).
Anheuser-Busch said it has invested nearly $2 billion in its 100 breweries, warehouses and other facilities across the U.S. over the last five years to update and modernize them.
Those investments have included $90 million in upgrades to the Baldwinsville brewery, including a $9 million investment announced earlier this year.
The most recent investment in the Syracuse-area plant will, among other things, expand the brewery’s capacity to make “non-beer” products like NÜTRL Vodka Seltzer and Skimmers Vodka Iced Tea, the company said in August.
Such products, a fast-growing sector of the alcohol market, have long been a specialty of the brewery located off Route 31 in the Radisson business park. The brewery launched the company’s Bud Light Hard Seltzer line in 2021 and before that its Lime-A-Rita brand.
InBev, a Belgium-based global beer conglomerate, acquired Anheuser-Busch in 2008 for $52 billion, creating a new company, Anheuser-Busch InBev.
Beer makers like Anheuser-Busch have been cutting costs to boost profits amid a multi-year slump in demand as consumers cut back on their consumption of alcohol.
AB InBev reported a $1.05 billion profit on revenues of $15.13 billion in the third quarter this year, down from a profit of $2.07 billion on revenues of $15.05 billion in the same period last year.
