Lisbon's only craft brewpub plans fall closure after sales slump

Olive Pit Brewing’s closing plan is less a farewell than a ledger of pressure that never eased. Christy Cain said the Lisbon brewpub has been running about 40% down for 15 to 16 months, with March and April the slowest months the business has ever seen, and she is now preparing to shut the doors in the fall after a limited final season.

That makes the loss especially sharp in Lisbon, where Olive Pit has been the town’s only craft brewpub. The brewery will keep operating through September on a reduced schedule, with Wednesday open mic nights, some Saturdays with live bands and the first Sunday of each month reserved for tea dances. Even in winding down, Cain is trying to give regulars a reason to keep coming back while the community still has a place to gather.

The strain fits a broader pattern that many small breweries know too well. The Brewers Association said 2025 is tracking as the second straight year in which brewery closings outpaced openings, with 268 openings and 434 closings counted. The group also said 9,778 small and independent breweries were operating in the U.S. in 2025, while Maine accounted for 157 craft brewers and ranked third nationally in craft beer production per adult at 9.5 gallons. In a state with that much beer density, a single shutdown still lands hard, especially when it removes one of the few local taps in town.

Olive Pit opened at 16 Main St. on New Year’s Eve in 2021, and Cain became the first to open a 100% woman-owned brewery in Maine. She and her wife, Marcy Wittman, moved to Maine from western New York in 2015, and Cain later completed a six-month brewing science and engineering course through the American Brewers Guild in Vermont. Her early beer list reflected the brewery’s approachable identity, with names like Sietz. Bleib., Olive Roo, AmStaff Cherrier Pastry Sour, Wagworthy Fruit Hefeweizen and Hometown Moxie.

The business also had to fight for foot traffic in a downtown that took another hit in 2022, when Lisbon Falls was torn up by a major sewer and water-line project that cut into parking and pedestrian flow on Main Street. Olive Pit was built as a destination on that corridor, but softer sales, economic caution and the reality of a taproom-heavy business model eventually caught up. Its final season will be a measure of how much life a local brewery can still squeeze from a room when the numbers have already turned.