Seeing some of the comments on my post on Barrique closing, I felt some context might be useful to those who do not live here and may have heard rumors about what is going on. Here is the scoop on those who have been bought out and those who have changed. Buckle up, as this will be a long one.

The Nashville Market

First, you have to realize the size of the brewery market in Nashville. There are currently 23 breweries in Nashville that have taprooms. There are 29 taprooms. Tailgate has the most in Davidson County, with 5 in Nashville proper, 2 more in the MSA (metropolitan statistical area) and one in Chattanooga. Both Southern Grist and Living Waters have 2. For taproms, there is also 1 cidery (2 earlier in the year, but Diskins is distro only now) and 1 meadery. Of the fermentoriums, 2 breweries are HQed outside of Nashville: Yee-Haw and Monday Night.

In the past year, give or take, we watched Hi-Wire shut down their location here (more about this later), Diskins shutdown, and Bearded Iris closed their Sylvan Supply location. Black Dynasty Ramen, who had partnered with them, wanted to open there, but the owner of the property felt having a bar that also had food was superior to a restaurant that also had alcohol (largely due to the demise of Red Perch, Otaku, etc.). Black Dynasty now slings ramen out of Mitchell's Deli at night, but will have their own place across Gallatin from Chopper some time in 2026. Enough of that aside.

A hint of bad tidings to come

In mid-2025, I was a festival and talked to a brewer/owner in the Nashville area who told me one of our top breweries was going away. He would not mention the name, nor did I press. As a moderator of the local beer sub, I find it is better to work with brewers on releasing news than try to play a shock reporter and scoop it. But it did lead to speculation. The following names were floated.

• Bearded Iris - We already knew of the trouble with Scofflaw and IndieBrew (more on this), so it made sense they might be the one. But checking out the distribution, it did not make sense. Switching to another collective or contract brewer made more sense.

• Southern Grist - while they are very well respected in the local scene, the idea of an upscale, chef-run restaurant in a brewery did not pan out as well as hoped and the Nations location was often dead during the week.

• Marble Fox - Hi-Wire had closed down around the corner and investors had tried to buy Arnold's Country Kitchen a block away. On top of this, taxes on real estate in Nashville has gone up over 60% in the past 5 years, making it an expensive spot for owners. It seemed like a matter of time. But did Marble Fox count as a "big brewery"?

• Yazoo - This was more about seeing shifts in the local market and Yazoo being pretty far outside of the scene up in Madison. Plus some posts seemed a bit cryptic and they shut down their separate funkatorium, moving it internal. This led to speculation of whether or not they accidentally infected a huge number of barrels of one of their flagships, affecting distribution. But this was a long shot.

We did not entertain Tailgate, which is huge. First, Wes owns most of his land, so rent prices are not a huge factor. Second, he still has crowds almost every night in most of his locations, even out of season. Third, his marketing and customer service, along with pizza, and 1/2 price specials, really made him financially in shape. The only potential was giving away so much beer on the last Tuesday of the month, but heavy rotation of beers is one of his strong points and he had adjusted pours up (now $6.50, $7.50, $8.50, and $9) to compensate for the giveaways and it did not hurt his business.

Breweries with Changes

Alphabetical, not chronological order:

Bearded Iris: Bearded Iris had a success problem in 2021. They were getting more and more orders from distribution, and it was clear they needed more capacity soon. They could not completely retool their equipment to be more efficient due to price and they had no room to expand. The solution came when Scofflaw started the collective: IndieBrew. The idea was simple. Get a bunch of independent craft breweries together and get buying power (see Hi-Wire later for more info). The problem is the beer was not the same after and it took BI, locally, from top tier to somewhere in the middle. This was a huge hit from number one on many lists to out of the top 10.

This year, it was clear they needed another partner to brew their beer. Not sure exactly how it came about, but either BI or Wiseacre felt acquisition was a better path and Wiseacre set out to buy BI. This caused a ruckus in the Nashville beer geek scene, but as one manager pointed out to me, the beer geeks were not the majority of their business.

The acquisition makes sense. Wiseacre has state of the art equipment, and a small number of people can produce their beer, plus others, while it was taking 6 on the equipment BI had. In addition, Homestyle was the number one seller in TN and very attractive in sales in AL, KY, and MS. Wiseacre had a 22 state footprint and could expand BI's beers and recoup a good portion of the money.

The Sylvan Supply location was shut down rather quickly in August, with the owner giving them an easier out. He wanted a bar in the location after the failures of Red Perch and Otaku, so Black Dynasty was out (now in Mitchell's Deli, soon to be in their own spot on Gallatin Road in East Nashville). And they have produced their first beer since summer (the last being Final Offer as a tongue-in-cheek nod to the sale). The beer is Peacemaker. Brewed in Memphis and served in both Nashville and Memphis (have not gone down to Memphis to see if it is labeled Bearded Iris Peacemaker, set up as a collab, or duel branded). This location is becoming a bar concept version of Pinky Ring Pizza and will open in 2026.

Czanns: Czanns is the brainchild of Ken Rebman, who is a classical brewer. It was clear Ken was not doing well when I visited in mid-November on a Wednesday. Ken was obviously down. I remarked about the crowd that had just vacated and he told me they only come in on Wednesdays when it is half-price beer. The final day was Sunday, November 24, 2024. I see Ken from time to time and need to get down to Etowah and do some brewsploring with him. I feel this demise was more about people not appreciating a brewery that only does classical "beer flavored beer" unless they are so much above the pack in these styles they really stand out. Living Waters has the location now and has teamed with Bad Luck Burgers, which also has a truck in front of Honeytree Meadery, as a permanent popup.

HI-Wire: Asheville based Hi-Wire entered the Nashville market in August 2023 in the Gulch. It closed a year and 4 months later in December 2024. The demise was a variety of factors.

1. Hi-Wire sales never took off in Nashville and the locations was very expensive real estate
2. Helene flooded their primary locations in Asheville

Reorganizing, they shut down Nashville in December 2024, and Louisville and Birmingham in October this year. They have also shifted strategy to contract brewing in a collective manner like IndieBrew, offering prices low enough that, even with their profit, they can brew for about the same price as smaller breweries. And they have hired a director to keep the equipment busy, which appears to be working out. Due to secrecy, I am not sure which breweries are utilizing their services, but it appears to be working. Similar strategy to Wiseacre, without the acquisition angle.

Marble Fox: The writing is on the wall the Fox is out. This was the old Jackalope location years ago, who opened a second location in WeHo and later shut this down. The old *Yazoo location used to be around the corner and a much larger hi-rise sits there now. The first real clue they would shut down eventually was hearing a Courtyard location is going on the spot. It was ultimately revealed by John they were looking for another spot. Apparently, the owner always had a provision to have an equitable deal for the spot when he sold the land and he gave Marble a great deal for their remaining time. I estimated some time in spring will be the last day at this location, with my reasoning being the time needed to build a hotel that opens fall of 2027. The date March 2026 is floating around a lot. They are now in distro, so beers will be available. Still no news on a new taproom.

Southern Grist: Southern Grist began as a humble location around Porter Heights in East Nashville. When they outgrew that space, they found another taproom location with a warehouse area next door for brewing and barrel aging. They opened their new East Nashville location in in 2021 and touted an upscale, chef run restaurant, Lauter. This worked very well until the shiny wore off and it became less attractive. In addition, it was evident the Nations taproom was not filling up most of the week. In addition, there was news Jaime was planning to leave.

In comes Xul. While this has been a bit of a shock to many, it is not as jarring as Wiseacre taking over BI. Xul has a very similar model to SG and talking to people in both Nashville and Knoxville, Xul is dedicated to keeping some of the SG lines around after the acquisition is completed, which should be any day now. The lines staying are Batch 1 Theory and Hill, plus beers that have done well in distro. The taprooms will close temporarily to fit Xul's decorating guidelines: First the Nation and then East. Lauter will be replaced by Abridged Burgers, which has had a food truck outside of the first Xul location for a long time. This should be an easier transition than Bad Luck Burger as the kitchen should much more easily pass inspection, as the current kitchen already does burgers and has the proper equipment.

Unlike BI, which fired off their brewers (I know of one at TennFold and one at Smith & Lentz), Xul has worked hard to keep the staff, even helping some employees shift their employment if part or all of their jobs are going away.