E-Malt.com News article: USA, NH: AB InBev permanently closing its beer production operation at Pease International Tradeport

Anheuser-Busch, the largest brewer in the world, is permanently closing its beer production operation at Pease International Tradeport in the same building where the recently shuttered Cisco Brewers bar was located, Seacostonline.com reported on March 28.

The company confirmed Thursday it is ending the Craft Brew Alliance production at Pease in the coming months, citing its $1 million pledge to expand Wicked Weed Brewing’s operations in Asheville, North Carolina.

Wicked Weed Brewing is a craft beer company within Anheuser-Busch’s portfolio.

A canning line on-site dedicated to Cisco Brewers’ beer at the Portsmouth site will be repurposed to support other craft beers and will remain operational, according to Anheuser-Busch.

There will be an unspecified number of layoffs at Pease as a result of the end of beer production. Anheuser-Busch stated it intends to provide severance packages to affected employees.

“In line with this (Wicked Weed) investment, operations at the Craft Brew Alliance (CBA) production facility in Portsmouth will cease over the next few months,” the statement reads. “We understand the impact of this announcement on our people in Portsmouth, and we are committed to working with the local union that represents some of the CBA facility employees to provide resources for impacted employees in Portsmouth, such as severance and preferential hiring at other facilities.”

In early November, the international Teamsters union announced 29 Wicked Weed workers employed at the Portsmouth facility voted to join the union. Teamsters shared the unionized members work as brewers, packaging operators, and quality assurance technicians at the Pease facility.

The building is currently owned by Red Hook Brewery Inc., according to city property records, which state its assessed value is just under $13.6 million.

In 1996, the Pease facility was built as Redhook Brewery, constructed as a replica of the original Redhook Brewery in Woodinville, Washington. The Portsmouth building grew to over 104,000 square feet, the majority of which was dedicated toward beer production.

Cisco Brewers closed its bar on-site in Portsmouth on Dec. 1, 2024. The pub opened on Corporate Drive in 2018 to replace the former Redhook Brewery in a joint rebranding move by Craft Brew Alliance and Cisco.

Craft Brew Alliance purchased Cisco Brewers in 2018. Two years later, Craft Brew Alliance was acquired by Anheuser-Busch.

In February 2023, Cisco Brewers unveiled a new $6 million canning line at the Pease production facility. A celebration for the investment was held, attended by representatives from Anheuser-Busch, including the company’s U.S. chief executive officer Brendan Whitworth, in addition to New Hampshire U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan and local elected officials.

Anheuser-Busch announced at the time that the canning line would allow Cisco Brewers to brew and package roughly 29% more beer in 2023, then lead to a 56% production increase in 2024. In 2023, Cisco Brewers stated that the canning line produced 625 cases of beer per hour.


28 March, 2025