USA, OR: Newport Brewing Company for sale once again

Three-year-old Newport Brewing Company is for sale once again. The brewpub is one of only three breweries in the Oregon Coast’s third largest city of Newport, offerring a full service brewpub with fresh fish kitchen and a full liquor bar. Homebrewer turned pro, Brodie Becksted is the founder who in his day job as a real estate developer pieced together a prime area just above the downtown Newport shopping/tourism strip with a view to the bay, the New School Beer reported on January 31.

When they opened in summer of 2019, Newport Brewing Company brought award-winning brewer Sam Zermeño to Oregon as their head brewer who put his stamp on many of the initial recipes before departing for Great Notion Brewing and his side project Brujos Brewing. Partially fueled by pandemic angst and disruption from the service industry and going without a full-time brewer, Brodie Becksted put the business and the property up for sale in April 2021. The New School article covering the Newport Brewing sale listing garnered Becksted and the business so much attention that he instead decided to pull it from the market because so many of their customers were querying the staff and new investors were lining up.

Nearly one year later Becksted claims their business is up 41% year to year in on-premise in-house sales, and up 60% off-premise sales in distribution, with an increase in production from 400 barrels in 2020 up to 1k barrels in 2022 with plans to expand distribution to Portland and Washington in 2023. Despite the apparent success, Becksted has decided to put Newport Brewing Company and all of its assets and land back up for sale again.

“We have decided to live a more stress-free life,” Becksted tells the New School. “We love the business but as our kids grow, we are ready to move on to a less hectic lifestyle. We have a grandkid now and one left in high school, so we feel this is a good time. I have come to love the art of brewing and the business, but not love some of the day to day and challenges of growing during such a crazy time since the pandemic. I think it took a little wind out of our sail.”

Newport Brewing Company, the land, equipment, trademarks, etc. are being priced at a hefty $3,695,000, which reflects the increased value of the property and according to Becksted a bargain based on inflation costs of starting something similar today.

The real estate appraisal finished this week values the land at $2,250,000, and that includes the 5,000 sq. ft. building on a 23,522 sq. ft. lot with 21 parking spaces. The cost of their 15bbl brewhouse is up $210k from when they purchased it from Portland Kettle Works, with all the additional brewing equipment like tanks, fermenters, chiller etc. the value comes to $692,000, and then an extra $150k for inventory and supply included in the sale.

The custom built, brand new building and restaurant designed from the ground up to be Newport Brewing no doubt does has a lot of value to someone trying to get in without first building up, or an already successful brewery looking to expand. However, Becksted is not interested in selling at the cost of killing the Newport Brewing brand.

“I don't think it would be financially viable for somebody just to buy the hard assets and not the business too,” says Becksted. “We have been approached by other breweries but didn't think that was the best fit, the business means a lot to us just to see it shut down. I don't think we would let that happen. For us, this is just a lifestyle change as a decision. It's a love hate relationship.”

If the business does not find a buyer, Becksted says they will be looking to expand further rather than turning back. He says that could be opening a second location somewhere else on the coast, “Again, here I go thinking expansion while wanting to also slow down.”

01 February, 2023