Beloved Bushwick brewery, Braven Brewing Company, ceased its operations after a short six months of opening their first physical location, and put up their brewpub for sale in early March. Now, Newport Craft Brewing & Distilling Company from Rhode Island has agreed to purchase the intellectual property assets of the company.
Brendan O’Donnell, CEO and owner, along with co-owners, Derek Luke and Brent Ryan, recognized the popularity and future success of the Brooklyn brand and pursued the deal.
Newport Craft will continue producing the Braven beers under their original name. The distillery will not continue Braven’s overall operations or assume any of Braven’s liabilities. The current space will not be taken over by Newport Craft, either. Its future remains currently unknown.
“For the time being we will be making the beer in Newport,” said CEO O’Donnell. “Our goal down the road is to it bring back to Brooklyn and carry on their legacy.”
O’Donnell mentioned that Braven’s founders will be involved with the first steps of moving the production of the beers, during the transition.
Braven Brewing Company was founded by Marshall Thompson and Eric Feldman in August of 2013, a dream of two homebrewers, who launched a Kickstarter campaign that helped the company off the ground. However, the crowdfunded money wasn’t enough to build out a full brewery.
They collected enough to bring the project to life and keep the company running. In January 2015 they launched their first style, a White IPA, across the bars of New York City, eventually opening its own brick-and-mortar brewery in Bushwick in 2018. Braven soon shuttered in the spring of 2019 due to “personal and financial reasons.”
Newport Craft will have Braven’s intellectual property, beer recipes, and customer lists, among other assets.
“I began my hospitality career owning and operating a bar in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, so I was already familiar with the quality of the beers Braven was brewing,” said O’Donnell in a press release. “Acquiring the Braven intellectual property assets gives us the opportunity to continue Braven’s well-established brand and community connection while creating a new outlet for Newport Craft in New York City.”
Newport Craft Brewing & Distilling is a craft brewing and distilling operation, founded in 1999 in Rhode Island. Newport Craft boasts over 100 styles of beer and seven types of spirits.
Editor’s Note: Updated at 3:08 p.m., with quotes from interview.
Cover image courtesy of Braven Brewing Company.
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