Night Shift Brewing moves to contract brewing due to CO2 shortage

Night Shift Brewing is moving entirely to contract brewing after a CO2 shortage forced the decision to leave its Everett, Massachusetts site.

According to the brewer, an inability to secure CO2 has led to the situation and from hereon all of its beer production will occur at Jack’s Abby and Isle Brewers Guild, with whom they already have contract brewing relationship.

Night Shift revealed that “none of its taprooms or beer gardens will close, and the contract brewing relationships should mean that there won’t be major disruptions to the beer supply”.

The popular American craft brewer revealed its plans to make the shift, calling the revelation “tough news” and stating that its “CO2 supply has been cut for the foreseeable future” hinting that it could be “possibly more than a year until we get more”.

Fortunately, Jack’s Abby and Isle Brewers, both offered to brew beer for Night Shift to help fill its immediate production gaps.

The Massachusetts brewer did, however hint that there was more to the story, noting how “there are some other factors at play” and described how a few years ago, it had became clear the business has outgrown its Everett production facility. As such, Night Shift had put plans in place to build a larger facility in Philadelphia but due to the pandemic the plans had to be abandoned.

Since then, Night Shift made big investments into its Everett facility to heighten efficiency, but the latest CO2 issue has, according to the brewer “basically thrown a huge wrench into any of those plans – threatening even immediate production”.

This week, the brewery met with its production team of twelve people to share the “heartbreaking” news and the implications and admitted that from 1 October, it is unlikely the brewer will have jobs for many of its team.

Everett brewing has stated that it will continue, but more as an R&D facility with a smaller crew and has guaranteed that everyone on its production team will get paid through to the 1 October regardless of whether there’s work or no work.

After 1 October, Night Shift has outlined that the employees who no longer have jobs will be given a severance package that accounts for both their seniority and tenure with the business.

“We will do our best to find roles internally or externally for anyone whose job has been cut because of this situation,” the brewer said in a statement, adding: “It was an awful, terrible conversation to have with a really wonderful group of people, many of whom have been with us since the beginning. It’s hard to describe both how thankful we are for them, and how terrible we feel now about what they’re facing”.