Salem, Massachusetts-headquartered Notch Brewing kicked off 2025 in a somewhat unexpected way: by shutting down its main taproom for at least two weeks.
As many drinkers take a break from craft beer and other alcoholic beverages in January, craft breweries such as Notch are using the month and its lighter traffic to close taprooms temporarily as they undertake renovation projects.
“The business does not support the company for that month, so we all take a loss, and it’s just mitigating that loss, and what can you do to come out on the other end in good financial shape,” Notch founder Chris Lohring told Brewbound.
Notch – which also operates a brewery and taproom in Boston’s Brighton neighborhood – has undertaken a long-awaited construction project at its Salem location. Work includes demolishing a wall that was built to satisfy municipal zoning requirements that dictated a taproom take up no more than 35% of a brewery’s footprint. The wall and the separate room it created are now obsolete due to a change in the city’s policy.
“We’ve been wanting to do this renovation in the taproom for a few years,” Lohring said. “The pandemic set that back quite a bit, and we’re finally in a position where we can do that. January just made the most sense. Those first two full weeks coming out of the holidays – it’s just the two slowest weeks of the year.”
Lohring attributed the decline in traffic to a few factors: typically dreary New England weather, a post-holiday spending hangover and an uptick in patrons practicing temporary abstinence from drinking.
“All those stories we hear about why business gets slow in January – I think a lot of them are true,” Lohring said. “A lot of folks want to take a break in January as well, because they just came through the holidays and put pedals to the metal, and now they’re trying to reset. We talk to our customers all the time, and a lot of them are saying ‘Yeah, we’re taking January off,’ or ‘We’re doing a damp January,’ which I’m hearing a lot of.”
Notch launched two non-alcoholic offerings – a hazy IPA and a pils – in 2022, but sales of NA beers can’t “come close to replacing the business we lose” during January, Lohring said. [Hear Lohring discuss Notch’s NA portfolio in a Brewbound Podcast episode.]
Notch expects to reopen in the second half of the month.
About 100 miles south, Exeter, Rhode Island-based Tilted Barn Brewing closed for most of January to refresh public-facing spaces and give its hard-working team a break.
“Nothing groundbreaking, but just some maintenance on stuff that’s hard to do when you’re open five of the seven days a week,” Tilted Barn owner and brewer Matt Richardson told Brewbound. “We do have some fun projects, like sprucing up the building a bit with some decorations.”
After a decade in business, Tilted Barn started to see its January business fall off.
“We’ve noticed over the years, the slowdown in January is just inevitable lately,” Richardson said. “We’re in our 10th year now, and we did not see that the first five years. It was like we didn’t miss a beat. That didn’t happen.”
When the New Year slide first reared its head, Tilted Barn attempted to host Dry January-friendly events, being mindful that some customers weren’t imbibing for the month.
“Initially, we would start to do things like have some bottle releases in January, stuff that you could intentionally purchase in January, but then save and sit on,” Richardson said, adding that these beers included “some of our mixed fermentation stuff, or some barrel-aged stouts that will do better with time.”
Tilted Barn tried these special releases for a few years “with limited success,” Richardson said.
“Those aren’t huge movers anyway, relatively speaking, to the rest of our beer,” he added.
Both Tilted Barn and Notch allowed part-time hourly employees to collect unemployment insurance during their shutdowns while holding their jobs for them. Salaried employees continued to work reduced hours at their regular pay.
In Aberdeen, Washington, Steam Donkey Brewing has made its January pause a near-annual tradition since it opened almost 10 years ago, co-owner and head brewer Jon Bennett told Brewbound in an email.
“We have always viewed the first couple weeks as time to deep clean our space and reset for the year,” he wrote. “We also tend to have a marathon to the end of the year with events and the holidays, so this also gives our staff time to breathe and reset themselves after the fun of the previous weeks.”
This year, Steam Donkey renovated its interior to divide the production area and taproom into distinct spaces. The brewery reopened on January 15, according to a Facebook post.
“Our goal is to make our taproom fit what we feel the market is moving towards,” Bennett said. “While I still feel the industrial aspect of breweries has its place, an elegant or more put-together taproom experience is something we feel our customers are looking for.”
Steam Donkey typically sees a -10% to -15% decline in taproom traffic in January.
“Nothing dire, but it does factor into our decision to close,” Bennett added.
In Buffalo, New York, Big Ditch Brewing planned to shut down for a week in January and two days in February to undertake a brewery floor project.
“We are busy enough throughout the year that it would be difficult to shut down at other times,” president and co-founder Matt Kahn told Brewbound via email. “January and February are the months we really try to get big projects done, so we are ready for the busy months in the summer.”
As one of the country’s snowiest cities according to the Weather Channel, Buffalo’s winter weather likely had a hand in a -25% decline in guest headcount and -50% in revenue from December 2023 to January 2024, Kahn shared.
Earlier this month, Big Ditch launched NA Burner, a non-alc version of its popular Hayburner hazy IPA. The brewery is promoting its new offering with an NA beer pong tournament on January 30.
Neither Tilted Barn, Notch, Big Ditch nor Steam Donkey are alone in dealing with a decline in at-the-brewery sales during the first month of the year.
January accounts for the plurality of the month with the fewest tabs, with 30% of responding breweries selecting it between January 2021 and December 2023, according to data the Brewers Association (BA) parsed from point-of-sale firm Arryved. February and November are the second most common, with about 12% to 13% of respondents selecting them as the month with the fewest tabs.
As both Richardson and Lohring noted, Dry January isn’t the only reason customers skip the taproom to start the year, but it’s certainly a big one. About one-third of bev-alc consumers plan to participate in the sober month, and another quarter are considering it, according to consumer insights firm Numerator, which surveyed 450 households who had recently purchased alcoholic beverages.
Since 2022, alcohol’s share of total beverage sales in January has declined -1% each year, dipping to 43% in January 2023, according to Numerator.
“Dry January participants stand out from general alcohol buyers in a few key ways,” Numerator wrote. “Overall, participants tend to have a higher likelihood of being Gen X, white, and part of a larger household with children. Interestingly, they are also more likely to be heavy alcohol beverage buyers compared to the overall market – 60% more likely.”
“Heavy buyers” account for 20% overall bev-alc shoppers, but 32% of Dry January participants, Numerator found. Participants cite a variety of drivers for going dry, including “kicking off the year on a healthier note (41%), accomplishing a personal challenge (23%) and curiosity about potential mental and physical health benefits (21%).”
Nearly half of respondents told Numerator they “are undecided about whether they’ll return to their habits,” and 20% said they “intend to reduce or adjust their social activities” during the month.
January depresses craft beer sales beyond the taproom, according to NIQ data shared by the BA.
“January is consistently the month with [the] lowest share of annual sales,” BA staff economist Matt Gacioch wrote. “Excluding data from 2020 (which was an unusual off-premise sales year with the pandemic), between 2021-2024, January makes up between 6.3% to 6.7% of total sales in those years. This amounts to between 37% and 40% less sales than the highest sales month and 20% and 24% less than the average sales month.”
This year, the BA developed the “Pour Love into Local” marketing campaign to help members drive traffic in January. The campaign stresses “the importance of the social brewery experience during the typically slower winter months and encouraging everyone to continue to gather at and support their local breweries to kick off the New Year and beyond,” according to a press release.
“It’s no longer necessary for Dry January participants to give up their weekends and social lives when local breweries serve as community hubs for gathering with innovative alcohol-free alternatives available for all,” the BA wrote.
At Big Ditch, those NA offerings include mocktails such as the Designated Donkey, a blueberry-infused, mule-inspired libration, and other craft sodas. The brewery is “actively exploring expanding our NA portfolio,” though NA Burner is currently its only packaged NA product, Khan said.
However, as Notch’s Lohring noted, NA sales may not be enough to sustain a business through a downturn.
Both Lohring and Tilted Barn’s Richardson underscored their support for taproom customers looking to cut back on alcohol consumption. Both Dry January and drinking less as a New Year’s resolution are things Tilted Barn “fully support[s],” Richardson said.
“As a business that is trying to sell beer, you have to adjust to that,” he added.
In recent years, craft beer discourse online has included a steady drumbeat against Dry January under the auspices that struggling craft brewers deserve consumers’ support, which Lohring said he finds distasteful.
“It’s really bad form for breweries to shame their customers because they want to take January off,” he said. “We should understand it, and live with them, and meet them someplace in the middle. It’s bad form. It’s not a good look for us. Are we pushers now? That’s concerning. I would never want to do that. I respect everyone’s decision.
“Alcohol has effects on folks that aren’t always positive, and so if they choose a lifestyle change, great, good for you,” he continued. “But we’re here when you want us to be here, and we’re here for NA, if you want NA too.”