Seven Brides Brewing and Two Kilts Brewing are Latest Oregon Brewery Closures

Silverton, Oregon's Seven Brides Brewing has closed its public facing retail operations, including its brewpub in downtown Silverton, and Sherwood's GABF gold medal-winning Two Kilts Brewing appears to be closed for good as well. Just yesterday, Alameda Brewing announced the impedning closure of its pub, and we learned that the production brewery is for sale, too. Last year we tracked the 2017 Oregon-area brewery closures and predicted more to come, but until recently it seemed there would be few breweries to close in 2018.With competition at an all-time high--6,266 breweries in the United States and over 200 in Oregon alone--craft breweries may be reaching a natural plateau (at least for now). Two Kilts Brewing was once a successful, multi-award winning Sherwood brewery with a big expansion and relocation to Hillsboro in the works, but those dreams were dashed in 2015. Since then, we haven't seen a lot of the company's beers. The brewery won a Silver medal at GABF in 2016 and a Gold at World Beer Cup in 2014 for its Scottish Ale. Two Kilts has not shared anything about the closure; in fact, the brewery hasn't even shared anything since July. The business phone line is disconnected and both Yelp and Google list it as permanently closed.Seven Brides Brewing was a major operation in 2010-2012 after moving into a 12,000 sq. ft. production space and taproom and beginning to bottle its beers. That's also around the time the major brewery boom was just beginning, and we were seeing breweries like Breakside Brewery get off to auspicious starts. While demand for Seven Brides beers shrank, the company began contract brewing others beers from the likes of Benedictine Brewery and Awesome Ales. Seven Brides threw in the towel on facebook, announcing the closure of the pub and retail operations, but with no word on weather the brewery will continue to be operational. Also of note is that Seven Brides owners purchased N. Portland's Bottles NW taproom and bottleshop last summer. No word on if/whether Bottles will be involved.