Duggan's Brewery - Downtown Location - Officially Closed

Duggan's Brewery downtown location (brewery/restaurant) is officially closed, according to their Twitter account, ending two days of speculation and rumours.

A member of Bar Towel was the first to break the news about an eviction notice posted on the boarded up front entrance of Toronto's Duggan's Brewery at 75 Victoria Street. The poster (biegaman) shared the news on Tuesday morning and since then there was a lot speculation surrounding the closure, and a lot of rumours.

There were numerous tweets mentioning that the tied-house would re-open shortly, like the one below -

Mike Duggan says he hopes brewpub will reopen this week. Shut down because “landlord made a mistake. lawyers working right now to fix it.”
-Josh Rubin, Toronto Star beer writer @starbeer on Twitter

and there were tweets about its demise and that the closure is for good -

It's official Duggans is closed for good. There's going to be a lot of good staff looking for work in the city..tweet if you can help
- Ben Shillow @saison81 on Twitter

blogTO, a website dedicated to covering Toronto news, even weighed in on the matter, posting an article in their Deadpool series which including a photograph of the eviction notice on the front door.

There was also a lot of chatter at Queen's Park on Tuesday evening at the Speaker's Tasting that I attended. No one really seemed to know much about it; although some industry members did mention hearing about issues with the landlord.

Until now I felt it better to not put up a post about the news, or the photograph of the notice, without hearing from Michael Duggan himself or one of his General Manager's first. I didn't feel that putting more fuel on the fire without actually speaking to someone involved would benefit anyone, but the Twitter post this afternoon confirmed the worst. What hasn't yet to be confirmed is the real reason behind the closure.

However, while the downtown location closes down, there is  good news for fans of Duggan's No. 9 IPA.

"The production and distribution of Duggan's No. 9 IPA remains unaffected by events at the downtown brewery and we hope to have some very good news regarding a second beer any day now," stated Graham Duncan, a sales rep with Duggan's Brewery.

No. 9 IPA and this second beer are currently contract brewed at Etobicoke's Cool Beer Co.

The closure of the brewery/restaurant really is unfortunate news for the Toronto beer scene. Whether you were a fan of Duggan's Brewery or not, tied-houses don't come along to often here in Ontario and to have one close in the largest city is troublesome to say the least.

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From Duggan's facebook page:
Duggan's Brewery
Duggan's Brewery at 75 Victoria St. will remain closed. Ongoing negotiations with the landlord were halted after the April 19 lockout. Thanks to all our customers and the beer community at large for the all the support. Here's to you. Meanwhile, Duggan's No 9 IPA is alive and well and will continue to be available at select bars, restaurants and local LCBO outlets.