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A report Tuesday sent Chicago’s beers fans in anguish, as many wondered about the future of Three Floyds Brewpub in Munster, Indiana. Many Indiana restaurants were eligible to open at 50-percent capacity on May 11, and bars can do so on June 14. But Three Floyds’s brewpub won’t be opening anytime soon, and the Tribune reports it could remain closed for “a year or two.”
On Wednesday, Three Floyds released a statement via Instagram saying they have “no immediate plans” to reopen the brewpub. They’ve also put brewpub expansion plans on hold. Three Floyds’s founder Nick Floyd tells the Tribune that the company furloughed all the brewpub’s staff, confirming an earlier report from Guys Drinking Beer. That report stated that the brewpub would be permanently closed. An investor in the brewpub spoke to Eater Chicago and immediately shot that down as speculation. Floyd tells the Tribune that he was most concerned about safety and the spread of COVID-19 in making a tough choice to close indefinitely.
Brewpub workers tell Eater Chicago they were informed of the furloughs over the weekend. However, they were hopeful they could return to work in 2021. The timing of the furloughs comes on the weekend Three Floyds’s annual Dark Lord Day was to take place. The festival, which serves as a celebration of Three Floyd’s coveted imperial stout, draws thousands to Munster with live bands and plenty of beer.
Floyd tells the Tribune that the brewery and distillery operations continue. Retail beer sales have surged during stay-at-home orders which have closed bars in Illinois and Indiana. That’s helped as draft beer sales have plunged. Three Floyds is immensely popular in Chicago with beers like Zombie Dust, Robert the Bruce, and Alpha King. Floyd had been interested in opening in Chicago, but Indiana beer production laws limit what the brewery could make in other states, thus stifling the prospects of opening in the city.
Three Floyds was in the middle of a campus expansion and unveiled a distillery and cocktail bar last year.
