Molson Coors will lay off 90 employees in Chippewa Falls and Milwaukee as it consolidates production of Leinenkugel beers at the Miller Brewing Co. complex on the west side of Milwaukee.
The Chicago-based company announced Wednesday the closure of Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co.’s iconic Chippewa Falls brewery, where the company was founded more than 150 years ago, and its facility on North 10th Street near downtown Milwaukee and I-43.
Of the 90 employees effected, 56 are at the Chippewa Falls facility and 34 are at the Milwaukee facility, according to two WARN notices submitted to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.
Molson Coors chief supply chain officer Brian Erhardt said in a Wednesday statement that the company decided to close the breweries as one of its long-term contract brewing agreements ends and as Molson Coors invests more into its canning line at the Miller Brewery in Milwaukee.
The Miller Brewery in Milwaukee produced more than 4.3 million taxable barrels of beer between January and September, while all of Molson Coors’ other facilities in Wisconsin only produced a combined 59,600 barrels in the same timeframe, according to information from the Department of Revenue. In other words, consolidating all of Molson Coors production at the larger Milwaukee brewery would result in only a 1.4% increase in that facility’s production.
Molson Coors has emphasized in its earnings calls in 2024 that it wants to focus on the premium beers in its portfolio, which the company calls “premiumization.” As a result, in August, the company sold much of its craft beer portfolio to New York-based global packaged goods company Tilray Brands.
On a Thursday morning earnings call, Molson Coors leadership said the company had seen success in its premiumization strategy, particularly in Canada and Europe, and plans to continue it.
“We are committed to building on these successes with premiumization in the U.S.,” Gavin Hattersley, Molson Coors president and CEO, said on the call. “We have taken necessary actions to allow even more focus on scalable premium opportunities, including divesting from underperforming craft breweries.”
The company reported third quarter net income of $199.8 million on sales of $3.04 billion. Molson Coors’ Wisconsin operations or the Leinenkugel’s closing was not directly mentioned in the call.
The Leinie Lodge and adjacent pilot brewery at the Chippewa Falls plant will remain open after the Chippewa Falls brewery closes, which is expected to occur in January.
Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co. was founded in Chippewa Falls in 1867, it was sold to Miller Brewing Co. in 1988 and is now a subsidiary of Molson Coors.
In 1997 Leinenkugel Brewing Co. purchased a facility on North 10th Street near downtown Milwaukee and I-43. The facility because the home of MillerCoors’ Milwaukee-based craft beer division, Tenth and Blake Beer Co., which included the production of Leinenkugel beers. In 2017, the company began a $50 million, 130,000-square-foot expansion project there to add 65 jobs and increase capacity from 25,000 to 250,000 barrels of beer a year.
Molson Coors did not respond to request for further comment for this story.
