What Happened to All the Southwest Suburb Breweries? (and Which Ones Are Still Open)

by Brian Wittman

You looked it up, it said open, you drove there, and the lights were off.

If that has happened to you in the last couple of years, it was not your fault and you were not being careless. The listing said open because almost nothing on the internet ever gets around to saying otherwise. A brewery closes, the doors lock, the sign comes down, and the profile page sits there for years with hours on it like nothing happened.

There have been a lot of those around here lately. Enough that it stopped looking like a run of bad luck and started looking like a shape.

What happened to the breweries in the southwest suburbs?

The region gained breweries faster than it could keep them, and the correction arrived mostly in the last four years. Around the towns covered here, at least ten have closed or are closing. What is more interesting than the number is that the owners who explained themselves did not all say the same thing. Three pointed at money and costs. One was a retirement after a good run. Two were corporate decisions made somewhere else. Four never said anything publicly at all. Lumping those together as a craft beer bubble would be tidy and would also be wrong. And in three of these buildings the beer either already came back or still might.

Which ones closed, and what did the owners say?

Elder Brewing, Joliet. 218 E. Cass Street, six-plus years, announced on New Year's Day 2024. This is the fullest explanation any of them gave: "Our lives, the world, and the economy have all changed drastically since we began this adventure, and we don't have the resources to continue down the current path." They noted they had used COVID relief and grant programs and were "honestly thankful to have made it this long," and said the decision was to focus on family and careers outside the brewing industry. They also spent half the post trying to find someone to take over the turnkey brewery rather than let it go to waste.

River Hawk Brewing, Channahon. Closed Sunday, September 4, 2022, after five years, and the owners were direct about why: "It is a difficult decision but financially we see it's our only option." They used most of the announcement to thank their staff by name, including brewer Zach Sutton.

Will County Brewing, Shorewood and Channahon. Eight years, closed Saturday, April 18, 2026. The flagship was 1142 West Jefferson Street in Shorewood, and the second location was in Channahon, in the building River Hawk had left. Their reason: "Rising costs, changing industry dynamics and the everyday realities of running a small business have made it increasingly difficult to continue doing what we love in the way we believe it deserves." That Channahon address has now lost two different breweries in a row, which is about as plain a statement of how hard this has been as you will find.

Hickory Creek Brewing, near New Lenox. This one is not a failure, should not be read as one, and is not even finished yet. After eight years the owner is retiring, in their words: "A bittersweet announcement: After 8 years of good times and great beers, the owner is retiring." They have brewed their last batch but still have beer to sell, and Pizza Di Farfalla is taking the space in a deliberate, unhurried handoff rather than a shutdown. As of this writing they are still there, working through the transition alongside the incoming owners, so if you want a last pint from them you have not missed it yet. Worth one piece of precision on the location: the address, 1333 S. Schoolhouse Road, is unincorporated, not inside the Village of New Lenox.

Lock & Mule, Lockport. 1025 S. State Street, closed at the end of July 2026. Tangled Roots, which owned it and brews out in Ottawa, gave no reason beyond calling it a difficult decision, and used the announcement to thank Lockport. They did confirm one thing worth knowing: "this location will soon begin a new chapter under new ownership and a new brand."

MyGrain Brewing, Joliet. The Union Station brewpub closed in August 2023, which means downtown Joliet lost two breweries in about five months. No public explanation. What happened next is the interesting part, and it is below.

Tribes Beer Company, Mokena. Opened 2009, closed at the end of April 2023 after fourteen years, making it the oldest of the group by a wide margin. The announcement said only that the brewery would be closing at the end of the month. No reason was given publicly and the owner did not comment when the local press asked, and that is where it still stands.

350 Brewing, Tinley Park. Closed, with no reason ever stated publicly. The sequel is better than the ending, and it is below.

Steam Hollow Brewing, Manteno. 450 S. Spruce Street. Closed, with no public explanation and no closing date I could source. By early 2025 the building had a gym in it, Unknown Strength, run by Cameron Powell.

Rock Bottom, Orland Park. On the list but not in the same category as the rest. Rock Bottom is a national chain, and what happened here was a company leaving rather than a local business failing. The retreat was statewide, including an abrupt closure at the River North location downtown, and by the chain's own locations list there is one Rock Bottom left in Illinois, out in Warrenville. The neighborhood still loses the room, but nobody in Orland Park made the decision that closed it.

So it was not one story

Read those together and the pattern is less dramatic and more human than the version people repeat.

Three owners said money, in slightly different registers. River Hawk said finances left no option. Elder said the economy changed underneath them and the resources were not there. Will County Brewing named rising costs and industry dynamics. Those three are the closest thing to a common thread, and even they are not identical.

One was a retirement. Hickory Creek's owner put in eight years and stopped on purpose, with a successor lined up. That belongs in a different column entirely, and calling it part of a contraction would be unfair to somebody who finished what he started.

Two were decisions made by a company rather than a neighborhood. Rock Bottom left Illinois almost entirely. Lock & Mule was a satellite of a brewery ninety minutes away, and satellites are the first thing a parent company cuts.

And four said nothing at all. Tribes, 350, MyGrain and Steam Hollow closed without a public explanation, and I am not going to invent one for them. What somebody heard secondhand is not a reason, and a business owner who chose not to explain themselves does not owe a blog the story.

The part that should bother you more than the closures

Almost every business on that list is still listed as open somewhere.

Tangled Roots' own website still shows Lock & Mule with full hours. That is a company's official site, which is normally the most trustworthy source there is, quietly wrong about its own location. The aggregators are worse and slower. A brewery that closed three years ago can still have a profile with a phone number, a menu, and a little green "Open now" tag on a Friday evening.

None of that is anybody being dishonest. Nobody closes a business and then works through a list of forty directories filing corrections. It just means a search result is a record of what somebody typed once, not a report on what is true today. The only listings that stay accurate are the ones a person keeps checking.

That is the whole argument for reading something a human maintained. It is also why the companion piece, best breweries in the southwest suburbs, was built by confirming every survivor is still pouring rather than by collecting listings, and why the same discipline keeps the late night coffee near me in the southwest suburbs list from sending you to a dark window at eleven at night.

Which towns actually lost something?

Losing a brewery and losing your breweries are very different outcomes.

Tinley Park did not really lose anything, and the reason is a good story. Erik Pizer co-founded 350 Brewing, worked there two years, and left in 2016. When the space came open he came back, and in late July 2022 he reopened the same room at 7144 183rd Street as Flipside Brewing. On what he inherited he said, "I had to put lipstick on the pig. I just had to make it look different." On what 350 had become: "350 was what it set out to be. It kinda turned into a punk rock dive bar." So the taps never really went quiet in that building. Tinley now has four breweries operating, more than the rest of the roster combined, and if you are weighing a move to Tinley Park, IL that is the one category where you are genuinely spoiled compared to every town around you.

Lockport lost one and kept one, and the geography is almost funny. Lock & Mule was at 1025 S. State Street. Nik & Ivy Brewing is at 1026, directly across the street. One digit apart, one closed, one open. Anyone eyeing Lockport, IL should know the survivor is the independent with its own brewhouse, and the one that closed was a satellite of a company headquartered elsewhere.

Mokena traded its oldest for its newest. Tribes ran fourteen years and closed in 2023. Brothership Brewing opened in February 2020, about four weeks before the world shut down, and it is still there. So anyone thinking of moving to Mokena, IL still gets a brewery, just not the one people remember.

Manteno, Channahon, Shorewood and Orland Park are the genuine losses. Each had a brewery and now has none.

What took over the buildings, and where the beer might come back

A gym. A pizza place, once the handoff finishes. A Mexican restaurant. Another brewery, twice over if Lockport's new tenant turns out to be one.

There is something worth sitting with in that list, and it is not a theory about craft beer. A room built out for a brewery is a good room. Drains, heavy power, a big open floor, a bar, parking. When the beer stops, that room does not stay dark long, because the next tenant inherits a space somebody already spent a fortune making usable.

Which is exactly why the beer can come back. Joliet is the case to watch. The La Sociedad restaurant group, run by brothers Eduardo, Jose and Jorg Vazquez, took the old MyGrain space at Union Station and opened Casa Catrina there in early 2026. They did not rip out the brewhouse. They kept it, and they have been talking with MyGrain's former brewmaster Dan Rosenberg about firing it back up. One of the partners said of Rosenberg, "It seems like there's an emotional attachment for him," and that they "would like that to come to fruition." No timeline has been given, so treat it as a real possibility rather than a plan.

Lockport's old Lock & Mule space has a new owner and a new brand coming, per Tangled Roots, though nobody has said publicly what it will be.

If you live here, that is the reassuring version. These storefronts are not sitting vacant with paper on the windows. They turned into something else, mostly fast. What is gone is a specific kind of neighborhood place, and the people who built them lost something real, which is worth saying plainly and without any cleverness attached.

The Bottom Line

At least ten gone or going, most of them recent, and nearly all of them still findable online as if nothing changed. Check before you drive, especially on a night when being wrong costs you the evening.

The ones still standing are worth your business precisely because this has been a hard few years to run a brewery around here. If you want the current list, the companion piece has every survivor with what was verified and when.

And if you are new to the area and trying to work out which town fits how you actually want to live, the brewery map is a small piece of a much bigger picture, but it is a real one. That is the kind of thing I am happy to talk through with anyone, whether or not there is a house involved.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many breweries have closed in the southwest suburbs?

At least ten, and these are the ones that can be documented individually: Mokena, Joliet twice over, Shorewood, Channahon twice over, Manteno, unincorporated New Lenox, Tinley Park, Lockport and Orland Park. Most closed in the last four years. Joliet lost two in roughly five months, one Channahon address lost two different breweries in a row, and Hickory Creek near New Lenox is still winding down as of this writing.

Why did they close?

There is no single answer, which is the honest finding. Three owners cited money or costs: River Hawk, Elder and Will County Brewing. One was a retirement after eight years, Hickory Creek. Two were corporate decisions rather than local ones, Rock Bottom and Lock & Mule. Four closed without any public explanation.

Is Will County Brewing closed?

Yes. It closed Saturday, April 18, 2026, after eight years, including both the Shorewood flagship at 1142 West Jefferson Street and the Channahon location. The owners cited rising costs and changing industry dynamics.

Is Flipside the same as 350 Brewing?

Not the same business, but not unrelated either. Erik Pizer co-founded 350 Brewing and left in 2016, then came back and opened Flipside in that same Tinley Park room in July 2022. Same building, same founder, different brewery.

Will the Joliet brewhouse reopen?

Possibly. Casa Catrina's owners kept MyGrain's brewing equipment when they took the Union Station space and have been in conversation with the former MyGrain brewmaster about restarting it. No timeline has been announced, so it is a real possibility rather than a scheduled thing.

Why do closed breweries still show up as open online?

Because nobody updates a listing after they lock the door. Closing a business does not come with a process for correcting forty directories, so profiles sit there with old hours indefinitely. Even official company websites get it wrong about their own locations. A listing tells you what somebody typed once, not what is true tonight.

Are there any breweries left in the southwest suburbs?

Yes, and they are worth the trip. Tinley Park has four, and Frankfort, Lemont, Lockport and Mokena each have one. The companion roundup covers every one of them with verified current details.

Last verified: September 2026. Every closure here was confirmed against the business's own announcement, local news, or the operator's own site, and this page gets re-checked on a regular cycle because this category moves faster than any other on the blog.

Know one I missed, or remember a place that closed before these did? Tell me and I will verify it and add it. If you would rather get this stuff as it happens than wait for me to write it up, I am on Facebook and Instagram.

Brian Wittman is a licensed real estate broker (Real Broker LLC), mortgage loan originator (NMLS #2646598, NEXA Mortgage, LLC, Equal Housing Lender), and life insurance producer (Levinson & Associates). For full disclosures, visit https://bluejeanbroker.com/disclosures.