Necromancer Brewing Co. caused a stir two weeks ago when the business unexpectedly announced it would close. A Feb. 19 Instagram post stated the brewery would shutter its Ross Township taproom after nearly three years in operation and cease renovations at Midnight Whistler Pub, a second location slated to open in the former Hough’s Taproom in Greenfield.
The announcement was immediately met with an outpouring of support for Necromancer’s now-former staff — who have set up a virtual tip jar — sadness at the loss of the brewery and its distinct concept, and lingering questions about the suddenness of the closure, particularly amid expansion efforts.
According to head brewer Lauren Hughes, the closure “kind of caught us out of the blue.” Hughes said employees were mostly notified on the Friday before the Monday announcement.
“We’re all really bummed, and myself, super bummed. I put almost four years of my life into this thing trying to make it work,” she tells Pittsburgh City Paper, noting that many of her coworkers are friends and family. “Necromancer was, I think, built on the staff. The staff was a huge part of what made Necromancer Necromancer.”
Though some uncertainty surrounded the Greenfield location, which had delayed opening, Hughes did not foresee the entire business shutting down, noting “I think a lot of us, we don’t know what the inner workings of business were … at least I didn't, and I would consider myself pretty far up in the tree,” she said. “I don’t know if there’s more to the story or not.”
Necromancer owner Ben Butler contends the story isn’t as strange or sordid as many imagine but, from his perspective, involves a slow financial drain and death by a thousand cuts.
“The closure is this simple: we ran out of money and couldn’t continue,” Butler tells City Paper. He cites a “a perfect storm” of rising costs across the business including utilities, rent, ingredients, raw materials, and even a shrinking market as Americans drink less beer (according to one industry report, last year saw the lowest level of U.S. beer consumption in a generation).
“I would challenge anyone who thinks they can do it better to try it,” he says.
Speaking candidly with several media outlets, including City Paper, Butler says that he’s “tried to be as transparent as possible” about the closure, insisting that “there’s no scoop here.”
In following both the coverage and internet speculation about the closure — including the original Instagram post that garnered 2,000 reactions and a Reddit post with 400 comments — he also expressed surprise at the amount of recent attention paid to him, repeatedly emphasizing his hope that Necromancer fans redirect their energy toward supporting former employees.
“The one thing that I don’t want people to do is give me attention,” he tells CP. “I don't know why people are on this witch hunt right now.”
“A lot of people are like, oh yeah, fuck Ben. He’s an awful person and blah, blah, blah … People should be celebrating and mourning the loss of that talent and the people that made this brand great rather than focusing on me for any particular reason, which is really weird,” Butler says. “[They should] be helping my team, supporting them and the amazing work that they did. Because all of that work is authentic; everything we did was sourced from our staff. It was their mission, [their] vision, their talents.”
The brewery’s path was never conventional. Opened in March 2021, Necromancer, which specialized in brewing old-style beers, was celebrated for both the quality of its craft beers and its inclusivity, staffed largely by members of the LGBTQ community and women. CP recognized it among our People of the Year in Food and Drink in 2022, also writing in a special beer issue that the brewery had “quickly become one of Pittsburgh’s most exciting and unique spots, simultaneously resurrecting beer styles that have been forgotten while ushering in people who have been cast aside in the craft beer industry.” At the time, Hughes was one of only two female head brewers working in Pittsburgh.
In May 2023, shortly after Necromancer’s second anniversary, the brewery responded to controversy over transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney promoting Bud Light by releasing its own light lager called “Even Gayer.”
“Beer is for everybody. No exceptions,” a Necromancer Instagram post read.
Proceeds were donated to nonprofit Gay For Good Pittsburgh, and the beer made national news.
The same month, the brewery announced that Hough’s Taproom in Greenfield had “passed the torch” to Necromancer, which pledged to “put [its] spin on the bar’s very lovely bones.” Seemingly riding a high, Necromancer aimed to open British pub Midnight Whistler on September 1.
Butler says, “The entire plan with Greenfield wasn’t born out of anything other than an expansion.”
However, this is where the brewery’s apparent financial troubles began. Initially, the building at 563 Greenfield Ave. was “pitched as turnkey by building ownership,” according to Butler.
“The building is just absolute dogshit,” he tells CP. “The ownership of Hough’s is the same people who own the building, and the building is just an utter nightmare. It’s a black hole of money. Their assistance was very minimal.”
Butler stated that rather than “need[ing] some love,” as was suggested during a walkthrough, the building required near top-to-bottom renovation including new HVAC and plumbing, upgrading the electrical system, and installing glycol lines — part of the refrigeration system needed to keep draft beer cool. Hughes attests to rebuilding the draft system.
A former employee who did not wish to be identified told CP that the building “also had perhaps the worst walk-in cooler I have ever seen in my decade-plus of industry experience. It was something of a doomed experiment from the start without a total renovation of the refrigeration system, which has not happened.”
Compounding matters, Butler alleges Hough’s had been operating without a valid food safety permit from the Allegheny County Health Department; the same anonymous employee says they were told the former taproom had failed an inspection in May 2023, “but never bothered to fix the issues of noncompliance, knowing they intended to shutter the business in June.”
ACHD records show a consultation at Hough’s on May 19, 2023 for a permit expired Jan. 31 and list it as Priority Code H, applied to facilities that have a scheduled reinspection for critical violations. Hough’s second most recent inspection in 2021 noted several violations including insufficient refrigeration and mouse droppings. Necromancer announced the building’s handover on May 24.
As work on Midnight Whistler continued, Necromancer served beer at neighborhood pop-up events and happy hours, including at nearby Alternate Histories Studio, most recently launching a Greenfield Ghoul ale there in December.
Alternate Histories owner Matthew Buchholz told CP that Necromancer’s closure was “definitely a surprise to me.”
“They were really great partners to work with, and I hope [their work] shows that the neighborhood is really eager for something to go into that space,” Buchholz says.
Greenhouse Co-op, a plant shop and cidery opened in January, also expressed surprise. The Co-op, located at at 557 Greenfield Ave., shares a building with the now-closed pub.
“Having a neighbor that serves beer, it was kind of a match made in heaven [for us],” co-owner Tammy Lee tells CP. “We were really excited to have a neighbor like Necromancer because they’re such an inclusive space and they’ve got a really fun brand.”
Of the building, Lee says, “We did a fair amount of renovation work on our side … I know they were doing a lot of repair work. But no hint that it was just going to close entirely. I thought, at the worst, maybe Midnight Whistler was just going to take a lot longer than expected.”
Over nearly nine months of renovation, Butler says, the investment needed to make the building operational became too “sizable.” Though there was no single tipping point, “core equipment just continued to break on a daily basis.”
“The burden for resolving these issues was primarily on us, and eventually became too much,” he says.
Behind the scenes, employees and neighborhood residents alike began to have concerns about the business’s future. The aforementioned unnamed employee tells CP that “by last few months of 2023, plans on the Midnight Whistler stagnated. I started to doubt whether it would open at all.”
Notably, the employee says, they “had trouble getting paid at first.” The issue was resolved quickly when brought up with payroll, but “in retrospect, I suspect that the $900 or whatever they owed me was an actual strain on the business’s finances, but that’s obviously speculation.” They also reported "snapping at any opportunity to pick up shifts" at the Ross taproom or off-site events as work at the Greenfield location dwindled.
An Instagram comment on a Nov. 29 Necromancer post referring to “unexpected challenges” at the Midnight Whistler read, “Many of us are hearing rumors (mostly on Reddit) saying the Greenfield location is not going to work out. I don’t think it would be hyperbolic to say that this would be devastating for the residents of Greenfield…” The account gave only one other update before the February closure.
CP reached out to several employees with knowledge of the Midnight Whistler. One former employee declined to comment, citing a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). Hughes stated that she signed an NDA as part of a standard employment contract, which are not “uncommon” in the industry and protect intellectual property like beer recipes.
Butler initially denied that Necromancer employees were asked to sign NDAs, clarifying that salaried employees sign confidentiality agreements upon hire, but that these were not related to the closure.
A final bellwether arrived when Necromancer’s liquor license expired in December, as shown in the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board’s license data system.
“I think we were all shocked about the liquor license and having to close down,” Hughes recalls.
Butler claims Necromancer filed their license renewal paperwork on time and the expiration also came as a shock to ownership.
“We thought everything was hunky-dory until a state trooper walked in and said things weren't hunky-dory,” he tells CP.
Butler suggests license renewal might be a larger problem, pointing to recent cases of businesses unexpectedly losing their liquor licenses, including Butler Brew Works, which posted about a licensing “delay” on Facebook Feb. 15.
As Butler sees it, the beer business is facing steep challenges, including tightening profit margins, industry-wide.
“Unfortunately, I predict more breweries will be shuttering as the cost of things just keep going up,” he tells CP. “Rising costs have especially hurt [smaller] brewers of our size where we don’t have the fortune of economies of scale, long-standing contracts, and/or endlessly deep pockets.”
Operating at smaller scale, the most profitable ventures involve “selling out your front door rather than relying on distribution,” Butler says, one of aims of the Midnight Whistler expansion.
Butler believes while the pub’s failure to open wasn’t Necromancer’s “death blow,” it meant the business “couldn’t produce more beer, make more money, sell food. If we could have gotten it open, I think we would be in a completely different scenario, because I have no doubt that would have been a very, very successful location that would have caused us to have to up production.”
As for the future of the brand, Butler recently mentioned to NEXTpittsburgh that the Necromancer name might not be dead and still change hands.
“We’re in discussions with several prospects about the future of the [Greenfield] space and/or [the] Necromancer brand,” he tells CP, adding there is no frontrunner or set timeline.
At the same time, a Necromancer Brewing 2 LLC with an address in the North Hills appears in Pennsylvania’s Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations database, with an initial filing date of Feb. 7, only 12 days before the closure.
“Necromancer is permanently closed,” Butler said in response, speculating the business’s withdrawn and surrendered licenses may not have been updated online. “There are no secured buyers for the brand, so no one new is forming an LLC for a transition at this time.”
Butler’s LinkedIn page also lists him as Chief Marketing Officer for a cannabis competition, Best in Grass, as of January; he denies any connection to the Necromancer closure.
“As you can see from my LinkedIn, throughout my entire career I've consistently [and] concurrently held multiple roles across multiple companies, so that’s nothing new,” he tells CP. Butler also owns the Franktuary food truck, Top Hat public relations agency, and Jet’s Barbershop in Wexford.
As it stands, Necromancer, unable to legally serve alcohol, gave away its last cases of beer at an unofficial “funeral” at its Ross location the week of the closure — causing a run on the taproom and a traffic jam on Babcock Blvd. But beyond free beer, Butler and staff believe it speaks to the love for the Necromancer brand and what it represented, the spirit of which they and community members hope to see continued by Hughes and others in new ventures.
“We’ll figure it out one way or another,” Hughes says. “We're a good group of bandits.”
Owen Gabbey contributed additional reporting to this story.
Necromancer Brewing Co. is dead. Could the brand and its ill-fated Greenfield outpost be resurrected?
