E-Malt.com News article: USA, IL: Alarmist Brewing to close after nearly eleven years in business

After nearly eleven years in business, Alarmist Brewing will be closing its doors this weekend. It's just the latest blow to the beer business in the Chicago area and part of a national trend.

FOX Chicago’s Dane Placko reports there are a number of reasons craft beer has hit the brakes.

"I put my heart and soul into this place. It's not just a business. I put everything I know into this place," said Gary Gulley, owner of Alarmist. "Yeah it hurts. It hurts bad."

Gulley is a Chicago craft beer pioneer. In 2015, he opened Alarmist on Peterson Avenue and then things really took off when the brewery won a national gold medal for its signature hazy brew, Le Jus.

"That changed everything for us. 2018, 2019 we couldn't make it fast enough. We brought in more fermenters just for that," Gulley said.

But then COVID hit, tastes began to change, and things were never the same.

"We were down anywhere from ten percent to 20 percent at any given moment. And for a small business like us, that's the difference between breaking even or profit or not," Gulley said. "It was very tough. I probably cried more in the last month than I have in a very long time."

He's not alone. Customers say this brewery has become a community.

"I've been coming here since it opened. I've changed diapers here. This is the place I have written my Christmas cards every year," said Shylo Bisnett, Alarmist customer. "I feel like I'm losing my third space. And this came up in therapy this week. I don't think I've fully grappled with the loss of this place."

Customer Gary Johnson said, "These are some of my favorite beers in general. So we love to come down here and we're sad that they're not gonna be around."

Karl Klockars is one of the creators of "Guys Drinking Beer" — a blog that keeps tabs on the Chicago area beer biz.

They also maintain a map and list of Chicago breweries, and the numbers are shrinking.

"Two years ago, we were in the mid 230's in terms of those overall numbers. And now we're down to just over 200-ish places making beer in Chicagoland. And that's something like a 15-percent drop," Klockars said.

In the past 18 months, the victims include Bulldog Brewing, District Brew Yards, Diversey House, Miskatonic, On Tour, Ten Ninety, and Temperance, among others.

So why the industry-wide hangover? People are becoming more health concious and drinking less. More of us are working from home and not going out. Legalized marijuana has become an option. And GLP-1 medications are reducing appetites, including beer consumption.

"Breweries really don't get to be breweries anymore. Breweries have to be beverage companies now. And if you want to open a new brewery you kind of have to be prepared to offer more than just beer," Klockars said.

Offering more is the reason Mike Pallen is expanding his popular Mikerphone Brewing in Elk Grove Village to a second location in Park Ridge, inside an old Boston Market store in a strip mall.

"What we're trying to do here is not just be a brewery or taproom. We want to be an all-encompassing neighborhood spot," Pallen said.

Pallen says the new location will offer coffee in the morning, a place for remote workers, smashburgers and cheese curds for the lunch and dinner crowd, cocktails and seltzers, and yes, beer.

"The entire landscape of any business is always scary, right?" Pallen said. "We're banking on what I called in a meeting the Appleby's of the breweries. Come in after baseball. Come in after your stroll around the neighborhood. Come out here be a part of the community."

Back at Alarmist, Gulley is hoping he can find a buyer for the business that will keep the brewery and brand intact.

Otherwise, he'll be forced to sell these huge steel tanks that hold the final batch of juice for as little as ten cents on the dollar.

"Oh absolutely [there's viable business here]. Absolutely. It just needs someone who can invest a little bit more money, marketing especially," Gulley said.

For now, it's time to say goodbye to his customers as they scoop up the last cases of the beers they've come to love.

"Based on what everyone's telling me, we left a mark, which feels good. But I just wish we could keep going. It kills me," Gulley said.


28 January, 2026