Anheuser-Busch announced that it has sold its iconic Newark brewery location and will be closing it down.

“After conducting a thorough review, we have decided to sell our Newark, NJ facility to the Goodman Group and to close our facilities in Fairfield, CA and Merrimack, NH in early 2026,” a company spokesperson told News 12. “We will be shifting production from these three facilities to our other U.S. facilities and these changes will enable us to invest even more in our remaining operations.”

The spokesperson said that the approximately 475 full-time employees who work at these three facilities will have the opportunity to have roles elsewhere in the Anheuser-Busch organization or receive a severance.

Some former employees told News 12 he'd already seen the writing on the wall for years.

"The sign hasn't been lit since Hurricane Sandy," said Michael Bissel, who worked at Anheuser-Busch for over 30 years before retiring in 2021. "With all the steam that we were using to brew the beer and ship the materials in, it became cheaper to manufacture and brew the product in other locations and ship it to the New Jersey market."

The Teamsters Union, which represents workers at the Newark location, said, “Due to the strong contract the Teamsters negotiated and ratified in 2024, there are job protections for all members at Anheuser-Busch facilities nationwide...The agreement ensures that even if breweries close, employment, wages, and seniority are protected for all of our members."

Anheuser-Busch says the Goodman Group “plans to repurpose” the Newark site “for industrial manufacturing and logistics uses.”

"Hopefully, the city of Newark does something to find a place to put the eagle and have some sort of memory of Anheuser-Busch and what they did for the community," Bissel said. "I don't know what else I could look at. A hotel, a warehouse, an Amazon warehouse? What's it going to be? I don't know, but it's not going to be the same."

The company says that over the last five years, it has “taken steps to update and modernize our U.S. manufacturing operations, investing nearly $2 billion in our 100 facilities across the country.”