Openings & Closings: Green Flash’s Nebraska brewpub is closed; Fort Point plans to renovate and rebrand its Black Sands pub; Ska Brewing and Peach Street Distillers to take over the former Fate Brewing space; and more closures in Portland, Oregon.

Lompoc Brewing, one of Portland’s oldest craft brewers, announced it will close next week after 23 years in business. “For me, it just felt like this is the right time, and time to back away from the craft brewing scene,” owner Jerry Fechter told Brewbound. Meanwhile, Heineken N.V.-owned Lagunitas Brewing has closed its Portland, Oregon-based… Read more »

Victory Brewing announced today plans to open an innovation brewery and taproom — the Downingtown-based craft brewery’s fourth in Pennsylvania — next year in Philadelphia.

Salem’s Notch Brewing is coming to Boston. The German- and Czech-inspired session beer maker announced today plans to open a second brewery, taproom and beer garden next summer in Boston’s Brighton neighborhood at the historic Charles River Speedway Headquarters.

The New Jersey Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) issued a revised special ruling earlier this week aimed at limiting the number of annual events breweries can host in their taprooms. Under the ruling issued Tuesday, the ABC said the state’s craft breweries can hold up to 25 “special events,” 25 “social affairs,” and 52 “private parties” annually inside their taprooms. Additionally, breweries are now allowed to sell their beer at 12 events a year outside of their taprooms.

Massachusetts’ Wormtown Brewery today announced plans to open a second taproom, adjacent to the New England Patriots’ stadium, before the end of the summer. Speaking to Brewbound, Wormtown managing partner David Fields said the Worcester-based craft brewery took control of a 4,000 sq. ft. space at Patriot Place — a shopping, dining and entertainment center near Gillette Stadium in Foxborough — from Battle Road Brewing Company, which had operated a taproom there during the latter half of 2018.

Texas’ craft brewers and wholesalers have agreed to a compromise in the years-long debate over to-go beer sales at manufacturing breweries. A “stakeholder agreement” announced Wednesday evening by the Texas Craft Brewers Guild, which represents the state’s nearly 300 craft breweries, and the Beer Alliance of Texas, a powerful wholesaler lobbying group, has the potential to finally legalize off-premise sales at the Lone Star State’s manufacturing breweries.

Aiming to establish a deeper connection in one of the key out-of-state markets where it distributes, fast-growing Ohio brewery Platform Beer Co. has announced plans open a brewery and taproom in Pittsburgh later this year.

Craft brewery owners in Pennsylvania are attempting to restructure the collection of a forthcoming sales tax that is slated to begin next July and would increase the cost of beer sold directly to consumers for on- and off-premise consumption at the state’s nearly 300 taprooms, tasting rooms and brewpubs. The point of contention for brewery owners is not the implementation of the tax itself, but rather when it is collected.

The faster beer companies embrace segments that are connecting with consumers, the quicker the overall industry can return to growth, Mike’s Hard Lemonade president Phil Rosse told thousands of wholesalers during the National Beer Wholesalers Association’s (NBWA) annual convention in San Diego. “I think that’s what’s ultimately going to give the industry its best chance to get back to growth,” Rosse said during a panel that also featured D.G. Yuengling & Sons Inc. COO Dave Casinelli and Dogfish Head Craft Brewery co-founder Sam Calagione.

Following the signing of a law allowing Illinois breweries to immediately begin selling beer and cider from outside beer companies in their taprooms, several Chicago restaurant and craft beer bar owners expressed concern that new regulations create additional competition for their businesses. However, a couple of Chicago brewery owners told Brewbound that they don’t anticipate major changes in the way they run their taproom businesses.

The owners of two Texas craft beer companies are encouraging the state’s wholesalers to work with them on modernizing alcoholic beverage laws that bar manufacturing breweries from selling beer to go. During a Brew Talks panel discussion, held last week in conjunction with the National Beer Wholesalers Association Next Generation conference in Austin, Texas, Hops & Grain founder Josh Hare, who also chairs the Texas Craft Brewers Guild, argued that the “marriage” between suppliers and wholesalers should work more like a partnership and less like “a parent-child relationship.”

A bill signed into law last weekend by Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner will allow the state’s breweries to purchase and sell guest beer and cider in their taprooms. Under House Bill 4897, the state will allow licensed Class 1 breweries (producing up to 30,000 barrels annually) and Class 2 breweries (making up to 120,000 barrels a year) to purchase beer and cider from either a wholesaler or a self-distributing brewery.

After being forced to abandon plans for a seasonal beer garden near downtown Boston, Castle Island Brewing today announced it would open a pop-up on Constitution Wharf in the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston. The new 6,000 sq. ft. space — located in a parking lot overlooking Boston Harbor — is situated across from the USS Constitution and slated to open Sunday, August 5.