Rogue Announces Sudden Closure

Workers at Rogue Brewery showed up to work on Friday morning, November 14th to find out that the company had closed its operations. The company started in 1988 by Jack Joyce, Rogue’s founder and started out in Ashland, and then relocated their brewery to Newport. Rogue has been behind in their lease payments to the Port of Newport for the last year and owes the Port over $500,000, and is also behind in their property taxes. The port has been working with Rogue management over the last year; however, the company was not able to keep up with the payments.

The community responded to the unexpected news with shock and sadness. Tony Thomas worked for Rogue for nearly 20-years he said "It was a great place to work. I'll miss going there every day, working with friends and packaging the beer." Thomas has performed a variety of jobs over his long tenure at Rogue, including the bottle line, filling growlers, driving hyster, kegging, and then working the can line. "Rogue was truly like a family; they were one of the leaders in the craft beer industry." Rogue was one of the Port of Newport's largest tenants and now they are looking at having to adjust their budget to accommodate a loss of the $444,000 that Rogue paid yearly.