Boston Brewery Sells Building for $10M, Transitions To Lease

It’s not time to pour one out for Dorchester Brewing, but change is bubbling at the neighborhood institution.

The company co-founder sold the brewery and taproom at 1250 Massachusetts Avenue in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood for $10.2 million, the Boston Business Journal reported. The buyer was Plumbers & Gasfitters UA Local 12, a plumbers union with a property next door.

While the sale is sure to concern craft brewery aficionados, there’s not an immediate reason to cry over spilled suds, as Dorchester Brewing is leasing the property back from the plumbers union on a year-to-year lease.

It opened in 2016, a year after an affiliate of co-founder Travis Lee’s real estate firm purchased the site for $3.3 million.

Fellow brewery co-founder Matt Malloy told the outlet that funds from the sale will go towards paying down the company’s debt, which partially stems from U.S. Small Business Administration loans taken out to purchase equipment; those loans are variable rate, so the rise in interest rates hurt.

The brewery hasn’t been hopping since the pandemic, when visits fell and have yet to recover. Last month, it announced it was winding down its contact-brewing operations by the beginning of next year. It also announced a merger with Aeronaut Brewing in Somerville, though the entities remain separate.

Dorchester Brewing, Massachusetts’ 11th-largest brewery, still plans to invest in the space, which includes a greenroom and rooftop deck. Malloy said something “really fricking cool” is coming to the property, without divulging more.

For the plumbers union, the purchase — financed by a $6.2 million loan provided by Salem Five — is a long-term play. Business manager Timothy Fandel said the space could ultimately serve as a training facility. The union doesn’t appear to be any rush to spill the brewery out of its doors.

— Holden Walter-Warner