CHAD WARBINGTON: Update on downtown Albany brewery

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Albany Herald plans to publish regular columns by Albany City Commissioner Chad Warbington in an effort to provide additional information about issues impacting the city. Comments on this column are welcome and may be sent to [email protected].

One of the most common questions I get lately is “What is happening with the downtown brewery?”

While all the local news outlets have reported several key developments within the last year or so, I thought I would try and summarize the entire downtown brewery story and where we are headed today.

Ten years ago, in 2016, the city of Albany and Pretoria Fields Collective broke ground on a $4.4 million project to build the downtown brewery. Dr. Tripp Morgan and Pretoria Fields had a farming operation out in the county and was venturing into the agritourism industry with a possible brewery at their farm. City leaders quickly recruited Morgan to develop the brewery in one of the city’s vacant dilapidated buildings downtown instead of at his farm.

A phenomenal public-private partnership was birthed that soon would become a catalytic downtown project to breathe life into Albany’s downtown. The city financed $1.2 million of the project, and. Morgan brought his own equity and other private lenders to the table to fund the capital. The city was to be paid back for the loan over time with PILOT (payment in lieu of tax) payments.

In December 2017, the Pretoria Fields brewery opened with a nice tasting room and full brewery production. The brewery was a happening place and a very popular attraction to downtown for many years to come. Other investors and business owners begin developing around the brewery as the spark for downtown economic development.

Fast forward to 2024, seven years later, the brewery had gone through COVID and many other significant market and business changes. For a variety of reasons, the brewery sat in the middle of 2024 with declining business and profitability. Morgan stated publicly that he was infusing significant cash into the business to keep it afloat.

Many “know-it-alls” will speculate and throw stones, but as a business owner myself, I appreciate Morgan’s start-up and run while it lasted, and I understand the turns and ups and downs that all business owners have to navigate. So no stones will be thrown by me.

Something dramatic had to be done in 2024, so Morgan decided to close the downtown brewery and basically walk away. Since then, he has moved the brewery out to his farm, which, ironically, was his intention in the very beginning back in 2016.

Over the last 12 months, the first-position creditor foreclosed on the property, and after an auction on the courthouse steps, became owner of the building and the equipment. The Downtown Development Authority owned a portion of land under the buildings with a ground lease that was assumed by the bank, which stated that the only use of the building was to be a brewery. The city was in second position with its loan, so the city lost most of its collateral, but thankfully, DDA’s ground lease kept the city’s interest alive in the project. Several other lenders in third and fourth positions lost their collateral completely.

It was a complicated legal “mess,” and all the while Albany downtown foot traffic and attendance dropped. The best solution for the city was to purchase the first-position lender’s ownership so the city and DDA would be in full control of all the land, buildings and equipment and then find a new brewery operator. In December 2025, the city finally purchased and obtained 100% control of the brewery. With the initial city loan from 2016 and then the funds used to buy out the first-position lender, the city has approximately $2 million invested in the overall property.

During all the legal activity in 2025, all parties involved agreed to put out a bid to see if there was one or more brewery operators interested in opening up the downtown brewery again. Only one brewery submitted a bid, Socius Beer Collective, which owns multiple downtown breweries in various metro Atlanta locations. Their proposal would add the Albany downtown brewery to their portfolio of breweries.

Socius officials stated that they would start slowly by brewing small amounts of beer in Albany, along with bringing in beer from their other breweries until they built a local brand and market in Albany, and then they would increase production. One other item in their bid was that some type of food service needed to be included so that the brewery is not beer only. They recommended something like a food court idea.

They have stated in one of their meetings with the city that they would be willing to purchase the property from the city, and the city would be made “whole” from its investments. Now that the city is in 100% control of the property, a decision will be made soon whether to award Socius Beer Collective an opportunity to hit the ground running to start the brewery back up immediately.

Another option, led by the mayor, is to put out another round of bids to try and entice more brewery operators to respond, including Morgan, to possibly give him a second chance. Either option could work, but the old saying, “A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush” is where I’m at on this one. The “bird in hand” is Socius Beer Collective, and they could open the brewery immediately. The “two in the bush” would be the risk of letting Socius Beer Collective go in hopes of some other entity or entities bidding.

A new round of bids would set us back probably six months or longer, and we
might even come up empty-handed with no bids. Hopefully, soon, decisions and
progress will be made by the City Commission for the brewery that’s 100% in our control
now.

Chad Warbingto is an Albany businessman who serves as the Ward IV representative on the Albany City Commission.