What should replace BrewDog's massive Beltline-adjacent space?

As retail locations go, it doesn’t get much more beachfront in Atlanta than this. 

But the space is also huge. Cavernous. Bonkers big. 

BrewDog Atlanta sent shockwaves that stretched beyond the city's beer-enthusiast community Monday in announcing it has abruptly shuttered a Beltline-adjacent space that practically spilled over with revelers during temperate weather all year (including this past Saturday) despite its immense size. 

“We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who joined us for a pint, brought friends, celebrated milestones, and made this bar part of the neighborhood,” the Scotland-based brewer announced on social media. “This was not an easy decision, but as we look toward the future of the business, we’re focused on how best to position BrewDog’s brands for the next chapter in the U.S.”

Rewind to October 2022, and BrewDog’s post-COVID expectations at the burgeoning Krog District were sky-high. 

The Inman Park location—BrewDog’s first foray into the South, though it operated more than 100 breweries throughout the U.S. and Europe at the time—was a huge bet: a 12,000-square-foot cornerstone space with 28 taps and another 2,700 square feet in covered outdoor areas, capable of hosting hundreds of customers at a time. Some tables were close enough to the Beltline you could almost reach out the big windows and high-five passersby. 

But intervening years have seen a downtown in the brewery market in Atlanta and other cities. 

The BrewDog brand was rocked with controversy regarding corporate behavior in recent years, hadn’t turned a profit since 2019, and just last month was left with little choice but a liquidation sale, with SweetWater Brewing owners Tilray Brands stepping in to acquire 11 pubs and the company’s brewing operations. 

The sudden closure leaves Atlanta-based real estate firm 26th Street Partners—which bought the 5.7-acre Krog District from Asana Partners in September for a reported $210 million—with a sizable retail hole to fill.

Coincidentally (or not), Creature Comforts Brewing Company cofounder and CEO Adam Beauchamp revealed in a Friday op-ed that his Athens-based company was in talks to lease the space that eventually became BrewDog’s several years ago. 

That deal, according to Beauchamp, eventually fell through because Georgia law requires that local breweries can’t ship more beer into a taproom than it brews there, making “high-rent, high-traffic sites economically unrealistic,” per Beauchamp. As an out-of-state brewer, BrewDog had to grapple with no such restrictions. 

Which all begs the question: What should the next chapter for this marquee, foot-traffic-rich Beltline location—with its interior buildout that could not have been cheap—entail? Any big ideas, dear Atlantans? 

(Small request: Let’s keep the free video games in place.) 

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