Elysian Brewing announced that it will close its Seattle production facility at the end of December after 13 years of operation.
The closure comes after a unit of 30 brewery workers there unionized and spent a year trying to negotiate a first contract with Elysian’s corporate owner, Anheuser-Busch, which bought the craft brewer in 2015.
Teamsters Local 117 calls the closure retaliatory. Workers held a rally Sept. 28 and voted Oct. 12 to authorize a strike, but the closure decision came out of the blue and was not discussed in bargaining.
