Kane Company plans to buy former Redhook and Cisco brewery site

The Kane Company is moving to buy the former Redhook and Cisco brewery site at 35 Corporate Drive, a roughly 26-acre property at Pease International Tradeport that still carries a heavy imprint from Portsmouth’s beer past. The deal would put a local commercial real estate firm in control of one of the most visible parcels at the tradeport, just off a main entrance and still tied to a long ground lease.

Michael Kane said the transaction was raised on June 17, and the property was most recently assessed at $13,573,300. The Pease Development Authority’s June 16 board packet included a consent to lease-and-license assignment for Craft Brew Alliance, the former Redhook Ale Brewery entity, at the address. Reporting on the board vote said the authority approved a lease assignment to a Kane Company-managed LLC, clearing an important step in the change of hands.

What happens next is still open. Kane Company has not announced a specific reuse, which makes the sale less a finished plan than a reset for a high-profile piece of land. That uncertainty matters at Pease, where the former brewery site has already gone through several beer identities and now sits at the intersection of redevelopment, land-use planning and the memory of one of New Hampshire’s best-known brewing addresses.

Redhook built the Portsmouth brewery in 1996 as a sister plant to its Woodinville, Washington operation, making it the first bicoastal craft brewing operation in the United States. Pease materials describe the property as about 23.54 acres under ground lease, with roughly 110,000 square feet of brewery and event space. The lease expires April 13, 2047 and includes two 7-year renewal options, which leaves a long runway for whatever the next owner decides to do.

The site’s brewing role shifted over time. Cisco Brewers opened its Portsmouth pub onsite in 2018 after replacing Redhook’s public-facing presence, then closed the Pease bar on November 30, 2024, six-and-a-half years later. Anheuser-Busch permanently ended beer production at Pease in March 2025, a move that followed wider consolidation across the industry. Paul Brean, the Pease executive director, said the sale reflects those broader changes as companies streamline production and consolidate operations, while also noting Kane’s experience developing and managing commercial properties.

For Portsmouth, this is more than a routine property sale. The Pease Tradeport Economic Revitalization Zone can make redevelopment there especially consequential, and a former brewery anchor near the airport gateway now appears headed for its next chapter. Whether that chapter keeps any beer-adjacent character alive or turns the parcel fully toward commercial redevelopment, the old Redhook site is no longer just dormant industrial space. It is a major piece of Portsmouth’s brewing landscape getting a second life under new ownership.