USA, IA: Peace Tree Brewing Co. to close down on August 10

Peace Tree Brewing Co. continues the shutdown of its operations. The brewery based in Knoxville announced that it closes on Aug. 10, Des Moines Register reported on August 6.

In July, the first 100% woman-owned brewery announced plans to close the taproom in Des Moines. Now, after a 15-year run in central Iowa, owner Megan McKay said the Knoxville brewery closes. Customers who stop in before Aug. 10 can score 20% off all cans of to go beer and all merchandise items in the taproom.

“...still winding things down, going to take a little time off and figure out what she wants to be when she grows up!” she wrote on Facebook.

Some of the staff at the brewery already found new positions at other local breweries. Brewer Ashley Hynick is now at West Hill Brewing Co. in Indianola. Head brewer Bryan Davis moved over to Reclaimed Rails in Bondurant.

Blonde Fatale, the Belgian-style blonde ale that won the Des Moines Register’s Beer Brackets in 2023, with fans voting it the best beer in Iowa. Blonde Fatale also earned gold at the World Beer Cup in 2014 in the Belgian-Style Blonde Ale or Pale Ale category while the brewery’s Get a Little Hazy won gold in the Juicy or Hazy Strong Pale Ale category at the Great American Beer Festival in 2021.

Last September, McKay announced plans to sell the brewery, but at the time estimated it would take two years to complete a sale. She did not indicate that the brewery sold when she announced that production would stop.

McKay opened the brewery in Knoxville in September 2009 across the street from the insurance agency her family owns. The family initially bought the building filled with junk without plans for it, but McKay’s father read an article in the Wall Street Journal about the success of breweries and the family decided to open one in Knoxville to draw new tourists and maybe even homeowners.

When it opened, Peace Tree became Iowa's first 100% woman-owned brewery. The first beer, the Rambler Red Ale, earned its name from the Rambler automotive dealership once housed in the building.

By 2017, Peace Tree opened a taproom in a Quonset hut in the new Market District south of the East Village in Des Moines.

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