Ken Lewis, founder of the former Ei8ht Ball Brewing Co. in Newport, Kentucky, doesn’t mince words in his appraisal of how competitive the beer market has become.
“Craft brewing is in the midst of a serious shake out, and there’s blood in the water,” he says.
Lewis founded Ei8ht Ball in 2013 and shuttered the brewery in early 2017. The company was profitable, Lewis says, but would have required a sizeable investment to keep growing the business and keep pace with demand. Lewis ultimately decided that he wasn’t comfortable injecting that kind of capital given the challenges that independent, mid-sized craft breweries face in the retail environment and in the midst of what he considers to be signs of contraction in the craft-beer market.