USA, TX: Circle Brewing Company to close both its locations after 15 years in business

A North Austin brewery is closing both of its locations after 15 years, CBS Austin reported on September 19.

Circle Brewing Company announced the permanent closure on September 18 on Facebook of its brewery located on West Braker Lane and its new Elgin location next week.

"It is with a heavy heart and the utmost sadness that we must announce the closing of Circle Brewing Company. It is hard for us to believe that we have been at this for almost 15 years, although some of those years certainly went by faster than others," the owners said in the lengthy statement.

Circle Brewing Company said it opened its doors in 2008 with only two draft beers: Blur Texas Hefe and Envy Amber and barely a dozen draft accounts. Ben and Jud, co-owners of the brewery, add it was a different time to run and operate a brewery because of the "real spirit of camaraderie."

"In our first two years of operation, we were so broke that we couldn't even afford to buy yeast. But the Austin brewing community and the real spirit of camaraderie was such that we just had to drive out to Blanco and fill up a few corny kegs from our friends at Real Ale.

After the brewery shifted its model from 100% distribution to a taproom focus, Ben and Jud saw the chance to open a second location in Elgin.

In 2019, they bought 23 acres in the downtown area, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, which caused the project to cost twice as much to complete and extended the opening date to May of 2023.

"Our grand vision was to grow the ingredients to use in the brewing process," Ben and Jud explain. "Be the first brewery to be able to grow everything that goes into our beer right there, on site. A fully sustainable beer grown on our farm, 100% Texan, from seed to glass. And we were on our way to starting to grow test plots of row crops this fall."

"We're sorry we didn't have the time to see it to the end," they add.

Circle Brewing Company will keep its Elgin facility open for another week and host a firesale on all remaining drafts (14 in total), six packs, and merchandise from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. from Tuesday, Sept. 19 through Sunday, Sept. 24.

20 September, 2023