by Mark
by mark E. Lasbury for Indiana On Tap
update 9/22/26 – Great Fermentations announced that they are closing their storefront on Sept. 26, but their products will still be available on line for home delivery from the same website.
The homebrewing community has been hit by several corporate moves in the past couple of years, punctuated by the mid-September announced closing of Ss Brewtech. The closings and reorganizations have struck closer to home as well, with the acquisition of Blichmann Engineering by More Flavors in June of this year. Homebrew supply shops have also been affected, although fewer in Indiana have closed or contracted in the last 18 months. Several reasons for these changes exist.
After the 2020 lockdown spike—when chains such as Northern Brewer briefly saw sales jump 40–50 percent—many pandemic starters put the kettle away once taprooms reopened, leaving shops with bulky, low-margin inventory, rising commercial rents, and customers who now buy grain and gear from Amazon or manufacturer sites. The commercial contraction tracks the AHA membership curve. Paid American Homebrewers Association (AHA) membership averaged about 46,000 from 2016 through 2019, was still near 38,000 in 2021 after the COVID bump in kits and Big Brew Day participation, then slid to roughly 30,000 by late 2023 and about 20,000–23,000 by 2025—the level the association itself cited when it left the Brewers Association and incorporated as an independent nonprofit.
Fewer members meant fewer resources for AHA inside the Brewers Association (BA), with BA shifting more attention to commercial brewery survival issues. In January 2025 the AHA filed to become its own nonprofit in an attempt to focus more attention to homebrewing; operations separated July 7, 2025. By January 2026 it had IRS approval as both a 501(c)(6) membership association (Colorado) and a 501(c)(3) (Texas) so it could take grants and donations. In February 2026 the independent AHA also dropped monthly membership (about 3% of members), grandfathering existing monthly payers only through July 31, 2026, and pushing people onto annual plans.
National Homebrew Competition entries fell in step (from more than 5,000 in 2021 to under 3,000 in 2025), Homebrew Con was folded into other events and skipped, and homebrewer-membership revenue inside the BA’s books dropped sharply even before the mid-2025 split. The hobby has not disappeared by any means—surveys still guess more than a million Americans brew at some scale—but organized, dues-paying participation has not recaptured its late-2010s peak, and the association is now trying to rebuild on its own rather than as a shrinking division of a commercial-brewery trade group.
Large homebrew supply companies have had a rough time of it lately. Independent stores from Portland’s century-old F.B. Steinbart to Seattle’s Sound Homebrew and California’s NorCal Brewing Solutions cited exactly that mix: fewer new hobbyists, heavy freight, and suppliers undercutting their own retailers. Homebrew Junction in Canada got rid of their brick and mortars and the U-Brew services, but have maintained an online presence. Northern Brewer and its several brands were acquired by J&P Park in 2024, with Northern Brewer’s catalog contracting in the immediate aftermath, although it has increased to about 2,400 SKUs now, even if some of the brew kits have been discontinued.
In Indiana, less contraction has occurred in the last year, with the closure of Butler Winery Supply in Bloomington in January and Brews and Blooms in Hammond in July. However, there are several stores still open (although fewer than in the late 2010s), including Great Fermentations, and Herrmann Brewthers Bierwerks, in Indianapolis, 3rd Horse Craft Beverage Supply in Elkhart, For You Brewing Supplies in Terre Haute, Wine N Vine in Muncie, and Paterson Do It Best Hardware in New Haven.
On the manufacturing side the same demand slump plus a flooded used-stainless market made volume brands hard to sustain. Amazon and manufacturer-direct sales are undercutting local stores, there is the problem of bulky low-margin inventory plus rising rent, and a secondary market full of used stainless is driving some of the contraction.
Blichmann Engineering was sold to MoreFlavor! in June with the blessing of founder John Blichmann. Selected assets of Blichmann and its sister brand Anvil Brewing have been continued through a MoreFlavor subsidiary called MoreBeer! and uses their website. There is no promise that they will continue as a sales and installation company and the assets purchased do not include warranties or liabilities assumed before the sale. However, it appears that small and larger commercial systems are being restocked on the website.
Other equipment companies that sold homebrew systems that have closed recently include Ss Brewtech in September of 2026, along with its parent company’s (Middleby) other brands of Wild Goose Filling and Deutsche Beverage & Process. SABCO Brew Magic closed in July of 2026 and the malt mill company BC Products in the middle of 2025. Spike Brewing was sold in June of 2026 and moved, although the products can still be purchased online. What remains is consolidation into a few large online retailers and a thinner map of local shops, not a wave of new storefronts.
Finally, the Siebel Institute of Technology moved from Chicago to Montreal in January to be co-located with Lallemand Yeast and to avoid US student visa changes. Their popular Siebel-labeled sensory kits for homebrewer education can still be ordered through MoreBeer.com. Likewise, Omega Yeast has undergone changes, with its purchase by AB Mauri (held now under their AB Biotek arm), and they have discontinued their OYL-400 homebrew packs due to problems with keeping control of the patented, self-replicating/gene-edited thiolized strains from competitors. Other yeast companies are surviving, although there is fierce competition between traditional liquid yeast companies like Imperial Yeast and dry yeast companies like Lallemand and Fermentis. Even Imperial is pivoting a bit to dry yeasts.
In all, what looks like a national shakeout is also a reset: fewer storefronts and fewer mid-tier brands, but the kits, grain, and stainless that people still use did not vanish—they moved into fewer warehouses and a handful of retailers willing to keep making or stocking them. Indiana has been lucky in that bargain. Shops from Indianapolis to Elkhart and Terre Haute are still open, Blichmann and Anvil gear is coming back through MoreBeer! and the stores that buy from them, clubs plus the State Fair competition, and many successful homebrew clubs give brewers a reason to meet in person. The boom years are over; the people who stayed are the ones who wanted to brew anyway, and in this state they still have a place to buy hops, ask a question, and show a beer.
