Wichita breweries partnering up after one decides to close production facility
Wichita Brewing Company is about to make a big change, but it likely won’t be a big deal to consumers, its co-founder said.
“For all intents and purposes, consumers in Wichita and our outside markets probably won’t even know that this happened but for the news in the paper,” said Jeremy Horn, who co-founded Wichita Brewing Company in 2011.
Horn and Greg Gifford have decided to shut down the big production facility that they opened in 2016 in a warehouse at 727 E. Osie and where they brew and can beer for regional distribution.
Their beer will still be available, though: It will just be produced elsewhere.
They’ve struck a deal with El Dorado’s Walnut River Brewing Company, which has its own production facility at 111 W. Locust in El Dorado. Starting next month, Horn said, Walnut River will begin brewing and canning all of WBC’s beers, minus what is made onsite at WBC’s three Wichita restaurants.
Horn and Gifford, meanwhile, plan to sell their warehouse and any equipment that Walnut River doesn’t want.
The move just makes sense, Horn said, noting that inflation and declining sales in the craft beer industry have affected the bottom line in recent years.
“Just keeping that place open, it’s been challenging, particularly since probably 2022 when inflation took off,” he said. “Our input costs went through the roof on everything from aluminum to grain. Transportation costs went up a lot. Interest rates went up. And at the same time, consumers were getting hit with inflation, so sales were going down.”
And although cost increases have slowed this year, he said, sales trends haven’t yet reversed.
“It’s just kind of to a point where it just financially doesn’t make sense to keep the place open, especially with the ability to partner with Walnut,” he said.
Walnut River will begin making all of WBC’s beers, and although details are still being finalized, Horn said that production of two brands WBC had been brewing — now-defunct Tallgrass Brewing Company and Kelsey Grammer’s Faith American — also will move to El Dorado.
The three Wichita Brewing Company restaurants won’t be affected, Horn said.
WBC’s brewing facility has three full-time employees: two brewers and one sales representative. Horn and Walnut River co-owner B.J. Hunt said that those employees were still having conversations with Walnut River.
The two breweries have always had a friendly relationship. Walnut River’s production facility opened a few years before WBC’s, and in retrospect, Horn said, they probably should have partnered on production from the beginning.
“There was probably a little bit of overconfidence bias somewhere in there,” Horn said.
Two breweries, one plant
Horn and Gifford were avid home brewers when they co-founded Wichita Brewing Company in 2011. They built their first brew pub in an old Play It Again Sports location at 13th and Tyler, and though their focus was on their beer, they also decided they’d serve pizza. They added an east-side restaurant at 535 N. Woodlawn in 2015, the production facility in 2016 and an east-side event venue in 2018.
Earlier this year, Ben Simon — the son of Freddy’s co-founder Randy Simon and the chain’s longtime senior vice president for company store operations — and some partners took over a majority stake in the two WBC restaurants and added another at 901 W. Douglas in Delano.
That deal did not involve the production facility or the event venue. Horn remains a partner in the restaurants.
Hunt and Rick Goehring launched Walnut River in 2013, adding partner Travis Rohrberg a few months later. In 2016, Walnut River expanded its operations, adding equipment and a tap room. That year, its beer hit local liquor stores.
In 2018, Walnut River’s owners opened a Wichita brew pub and restaurant called PourHouse at 711 E. Douglas. Then, in 2024, they partnered with Ziggy’s Pizza to launch a new concept in the space, calling it The Depot.
Hunt said that he and his partners were excited about the partnership. They’re now trying to “ramp completely up and go,” he said, adding that the brewery would be producing several test batches to make sure that the difference in El Dorado’s water doesn’t affect the flavor of the WBC beers.
“Our heads are spinning a bit,” he said. “But... the whole deal makes a lot of sense.”
This story was originally published December 18, 2025 at 4:35 PM.
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