The closure will effectively end Stone Brewing's two-decade presence as a major brewing and production operation in Escondido, the North County city that became synonymous with the company as it grew from a scrappy local craft brewery into one of the most recognizable beer brands in the country.
A Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filed this week states that Stone Brewing anticipates approximately 220 employees will ultimately be terminated as a result of closing its Escondido locations. The first 58 employees are scheduled to lose their jobs on October 19, with additional rounds of layoffs expected to follow. The initial cuts affect workers at Stone facilities at 1999 Citracado Parkway, 2865 Executive Place and 2005 Harmony Grove Road and include brewers, packaging employees, warehouse and logistics workers, quality assurance personnel and other production-related positions.
"This week's WARN notice filings relate solely to the Escondido, California brewery and bistro operations, which are being wound down by Sapporo USA," Sapporo USA CEO Zach Keeling told the San Diego Union-Tribune. "The affected team members are Sapporo USA employees and have no connection to Stone Brewing's ongoing business under Firestone Walker or Duvel USA's ownership."
The distinction is the result of an unusual breakup of Stone's operations following its second sale in four years. Japan-based Sapporo purchased Stone Brewing for approximately $165 million in 2022. Earlier this year, Sapporo agreed to sell the Stone brand, its beer portfolio and several hospitality operations to Firestone Walker Brewing Company and parent company Duvel USA. The transaction included Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens at Liberty Station, along with taprooms in downtown San Diego, Oceanside and Pasadena.
But Stone's enormous Escondido brewery, packaging operations and Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens - Escondido were not included in the sale and remained with Sapporo. At the time the transaction was announced in April, Sapporo said it was seeking another operator for the Escondido facilities and hoped a deal could preserve roughly 300 jobs.
"We're in talks right now, continuing talks, trying to find an alternative of somebody to come in and take over the operations in Escondido," Keeling said at the time.
Four months later, those efforts apparently have not produced a buyer capable of preserving the operation. According to San Diego Beer News, Sapporo has now begun the first of several planned rounds of layoffs, with additional WARN notices expected next month and non-hospitality operations anticipated to cease by mid-November. The publication reports that Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens - Escondido is expected to remain open through the holiday season before permanently closing.
The shutdown represents a dramatic conclusion to Stone's history in Escondido. Stone was founded by Greg Koch and Steve Wagner in San Marcos in 1996, but its identity became closely intertwined with Escondido after the company moved there a decade later. In 2006, Stone opened an enormous 57,000-square-foot brewery and headquarters along Citracado Parkway featuring two 120-barrel brewhouses, production and packaging operations and a sprawling restaurant surrounded by an elaborate one-acre beer garden.
At the time, the facility represented a level of ambition virtually unprecedented among San Diego craft breweries. Stone eventually grew into the space and then kept expanding.
The company later constructed a roughly 65,000-square-foot packaging facility next door while maintaining additional administrative, distribution, warehouse and brewing operations around Escondido. Stone became one of the city's most recognizable businesses and helped transform San Diego County's rapidly growing craft beer industry into an international attraction. At one point, Stone even promised to build an ambitious hotel project adjacent to the Escondido facility.
Its aggressive expansion also mirrored the extraordinary growth of American craft beer during the 2000s and 2010s. Stone became nationally known for intensely hopped beers including Stone IPA and Arrogant Bastard Ale, while co-founder Koch cultivated an outspoken anti-corporate identity centered on independence from multinational brewing companies.
That history made Stone's 2022 sale to Sapporo particularly notable. The Japanese brewer acquired Stone in a deal valued at approximately $165 million and began using Stone's production infrastructure to increase domestic production of Sapporo beer. Employees in Escondido spent years adapting the facility to manufacture the Japanese company's flagship products. Sapporo's strategy subsequently shifted toward concentrating U.S. production at Stone's larger brewery in Richmond, Virginia, while Stone itself was sold again.
Under the new ownership structure, production of Stone-branded beers is moving largely to Firestone Walker's facilities in Paso Robles and Duvel's operations in Kansas City. Stone will retain a physical brewing and hospitality presence in San Diego through its Liberty Station location, but the company's days as a major San Diego County production brewery are ending.
The closures arrive during an extraordinarily difficult period for an industry Stone helped propel into the mainstream. U.S. craft beer volumes have declined as consumers increasingly gravitate toward cocktails, spirits, canned mixed drinks, nonalcoholic beverages and other alternatives, while breweries contend with higher labor, ingredient, insurance and operating costs. For San Diego, those pressures have manifested in a steady stream of brewery closures, consolidations and retrenchments after years in which the region's brewery count seemed to move in only one direction.
Stone itself has weathered significant workforce reductions before. California employment records show the company reported 51 permanent layoffs in Escondido in 2016. During the pandemic, another WARN filing reported 306 permanent layoffs in Escondido in April 2020, followed later that year by another 75. The latest cuts are different in one important respect: they are tied not simply to downsizing but to the dismantling of Stone's remaining Escondido operations. California's WARN law generally requires covered employers to provide advance notification in connection with qualifying mass layoffs, relocations and facility closures.
The loss of approximately 220 positions will be significant on its own, but the closure also carries considerable symbolic weight for San Diego's beer community. Stone was neither San Diego's first craft brewery nor its only nationally influential one, but few companies were more closely associated with the region's emergence as an American craft beer capital. Its success helped establish the aggressive, hop-forward brewing style that became identified with San Diego, and its Escondido campus demonstrated how far a local craft brewery could scale during the industry's boom years.
Now the campus that once embodied that growth is preparing to go dark. Stone Brewing will continue. Its beers will remain on shelves, its name will survive under Firestone Walker and Duvel USA, and its Liberty Station operation will preserve a tangible connection to San Diego. But Stone Brewing as generations of San Diegans knew it - a locally headquartered production powerhouse built around its sprawling Escondido brewery - is nearing its end.
The first 58 layoffs are scheduled for October 19. Additional reductions are expected in the months that follow, with approximately 220 jobs ultimately slated for elimination as the Escondido facilities close. Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens - Escondido is currently expected to remain open later into the year before also permanently shutting its doors in November.
For more information, visit stonebrewing.com.
Originally published on August 21, 2026.
