Two of Chicago's Most Popular Breweries Merge as the Craft Beer Industry Shrinks

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As the craft beer scene continues to shrink, Half Acre Beer Co. and Maplewood Brewery & Distillery, two of Chicago’s biggest and most popular breweries, have announced that they are merging. Four Chicago breweries – Alarmist, Casa Humilde, Illuminated Brew Works, and Whiner – have announced closures since the beginning of the year, a trend not unique to Chicago. But Half Acre and Maplewood say that the decision to merge comes from a place of strength. 

“Neither of us had to do this,” says Maplewood founder and co-owner Adam Cieslak. “It just made a lot of sense.”

“We come at it both strong, individual, profitable companies, and we see this as an accelerator to gaining crucial tools for the road ahead,” says Half Acre co-founder and owner Gabriel Magliaro. “The world has changed so dramatically.”

The owners of both breweries say that the merger will not affect either brand outwardly. Maplewood’s standard-bearing Son of Juice IPA and Half Acre’s flagship Daisy Cutter pale ale won’t change. Half Acre’s taproom in its large brewing space on Balmoral Avenue in Bowmanville will stay open, as will Maplewood’s taproom in Logan Square; Maplewood is even opening a new brewpub in west suburban Glen Ellyn as early as April.

“Unless you pay attention to the wheeling and dealing of craft beers, you might not notice” the merger, says Ciselak.

The merger allows the two breweries to take advantage of each other’s assets. Maplewood, which currently contracts out much of its production given its small Logan Square space, can move all of its brewing in-house by using Half Acre’s extensive, well-equipped Balmoral space. 

“We didn’t have any problems with our contract brewer, they’re great,” emphasizes Cieslak. “But this offers us more control.”

Maplewood has expertise in other areas of beverage, for instance THC seltzers. “We certainly hope to gain additional understanding there,” says Magliaro. Maplewood also has a distilled spirits program, which has the additional benefit of offering barrels for aging beers.

“They do a lot of stuff. They’re pretty quick to move, and that is a credit to them,” says Magliaro of Maplewood. “I’m excited for us both to pull on one another’s energy and see how that shows up.” 

Cieslak says that Maplewood may be trying out even more new things at the upcoming space in Glen Ellyn, such as barrel-aging of beers and possibly some horizontal-tank lagering. Food there will be overseen by Joanna Janczurewicz, who has been winning attention for the Polish and Eastern European food she introduced at Maplewood’s Avondale taproom last year. 

The merger also allows for some behind-the-scenes integration, such as consolidating distribution, having combined buying power for ingredients, and leveraging existing relationships and contracts. 

“We just want to be able to utilize a collective resource to move [our beers] through the market and support them,” says Magliaro. 

Half Acre is one of Chicago’s oldest and largest breweries, moving into a space on Lincoln Avenue in Logan Square in 2008 after a year of brewing. They expanded to the former factory on Balmoral and then left the Lincoln space to Hop Butcher For the World in 2021.

Maplewood started in 2014, opening its own taproom in 2017. It was a boom time for craft beer, not just in Chicago but across the country. 

“You can rewind to 2014, ’15: there was just an exploratory nature to the craft beer world, there was a lot of uptake in interest, and it was such a high time for craft beer,” says Magliaro. “Fast forward to 2020 with the pandemic, and that exploratory nature definitely down-shifted in a huge way, and a lot of what’s going on now is we exist in a world that looks a lot more traditional.”

Craft breweries have been hit from both sides by rising costs, as consumers cut back on spending and the price of aluminum – used in cans – and other ingredients soared due to supply chain disruptions and tariffs, all while labor costs also rose. Younger generations are drinking less, and seltzers have eaten a share of the craft beer market. As of last October, there were more brewery closings than openings over the preceding 18 months for the first time in 20 years, according to the New York Times.

But Half Acre and Maplewood say that their merger is about looking to the future, proactive rather than reactive. “We need certain critical things in order to blast through the point that we are now,” says Magliaro. “Together, we can do that more effectively than we can individually.”