Great Crescent Is Closed But Has Not Failed.

Written By: The Gnarly Gnome
Photography By: The Gnarly Gnome

9/16/25

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting at a four-top table in one of Cincinnati’s oldest craft breweries. Still, most folks in the city aren’t aware of their history, and unfortunately, some of them probably won’t until after Great Crescent Brewery closes its doors for good at the end of business today.

Back in 2008, when the Valas family first opened their brewery in a small storefront in Aurora, Indiana, the brewery looked a little different than it does today. They’re wrapping up a 16-year run as a small business that brought tourism to their small town and also gave locals a place they could call their own. It’s easy to look at this from the outside in and shout doom and gloom for the craft beer industry; it’s easy to say that Great Crescent is the next in line of a group of breweries in the United States that have “failed” as the craft beer industry faces an uncertain future – but… then again, it’s easy to be wrong.

The History

I’m trying to recollect every visit that I’ve made to Great Crescent over the years – which, while certainly isn’t as much as some of the breweries that are close to home for me – is still far too numerous to actually do. Every time the door squeaks with a new person walking into the brewpub for lunch and a couple of beers (or maybe to join the line to give Dan and Lani a hug and heartfelt thank you), it snaps me out of my daydream and reminds me that this is the perfect example of a place that did things their way.

That’s not always an easy road.

When they moved into their current location in 2008, they did so with a much bigger brewhouse, scaling up to 10 barrels and adding a canning line, which was later replaced with a larger line. The standard model at the time was to get your beer out of your doors and into the hands of as many people as possible.

They expanded their distribution footprint into Ohio and Kentucky… they wowed beer drinkers with staples like their Cherry Ale and their Coconut Porter. They did what the market and their peers said you’re supposed to do.

Then, in 2015, they realized that they were missing the point entirely… They pulled back on all their distribution, they refocused on their hometown… and they became even more of a destination for those of us who had fallen in love with what they were doing.

Who They Are, And Why They Succeeded

While I wasn’t a regular at Great Crescent, and I certainly can’t pretend to know the Valas’ as deeply as a lot of other folks clearly did, I was lucky enough to sit down with Dan and record an episode of Cincy Brewcast back in 2016 right as they were rediscovering themselves.

I got a clear picture then, and in every subsequent conversation I had with Dan that success didn’t lie in trying to grow bigger, or trying to sell more beer than some other place they compared themselves to. It was evident that the success of Great Crescent was all about their neighborhood and their community. It was about making a space where people could show up for lunch or dinner, grab a beer or three… and leave calling it theirs.

Great Crescent succeeded in a way that a lot of United States craft breweries will never even understand, let alone achieve.

So, Why Close?

If you missed their social media post, instead of putting it in my own words – here’s the statement from Great Crescent:

A Message from Dan, Lani and Joe – Sunday, September 15 is our last day of operations for Great Crescent Brewery. We are truly grateful for the support of our customers, community, Main Street and the City of Aurora through the past 16 years – we don’t know where all the time went. 

You know that we try to keep social media posts limited to business and keep our personal lives as far apart from it is we can. In this case though, we think it would be unfair to those who have supported us throughout the years to not communicate why we are closing without notice.

We are very fortunate to be in a position that we can decide when to say we want to move on, which isn’t something afforded to every business – large and small. We could have kept the brewery open but we decided a new project is in order. More on that later in this message. We had a plan to go through to the end of the year and retire. But sometimes things don’t go as planned and the timeline gets moved. 

During the past few months Dan had been working through what he believed was a minor medical problem, but in a short period of time it bloomed into cancer. If you have any experience with cancer you likely know that once it enters your life, it takes charge until it can be eliminated.

Dan has the support of our family and a very skilled team at UC that, together, we are mapping out the road to getting him back to health. There was no clear answer on what generated the cancer. The only option for this cancer is surgery, and he has already started the process of getting ready. Without going into too much information we decided as a family we couldn’t run the brewery and get through the surgery and recovery, which is an extensive amount of time.

As for the future – the need for a small grocery store to serve the community became evident after Tandy’s left Aurora. We have a new store planned in the brewery building along Mechanic Street. We are looking forward to seeing you at the Aurora Marketplace in early 2025.

Thank You, and remember – “Good Things Happen in Aurora”

Great Crescent has had plans to retire—and that’s okay. It’s miserable that plans were changed and expedited by a personal illness, but it’s so far from a failure that I literally want to shake people when I hear them talk about it like it is.

This was extremely evident to me as I’ve been spending my afternoon in the taproom. It’s not full of folks walking in, somber, talking amongst themselves about how they should have visited more or worrying about where they’ll go now. Great Crescent was full of smiles, full of hugs, and full of warm gratitude for what this place meant to a community.

Where We Go From Here

The space will get a new small grocery store in early 2025. Dan will get through his illness thanks to the love and prayers of all the folks around him. People will find new places to gather and have a drink. The world will continue.

I hope, from a very deep place in my soul, that as places like this close, as people retire, as god forbid a place you love is sold… everyone in the future learns from it. I hope that every new place that opens takes a piece of places like Great Crescent and forces it to become a core piece of who they are.

What’s your measure of success? Are you living up to it, and if not… I think it’s time you do.

To the Valas’ family – thank you. We’re all thinking about you, and know that you’ll get through this. Your brewery was a core piece of what made Cincinnati Beer special, and there will never be another place that replaces Great Crescent in the same way. It’s sad, but it’s also a wonderful piece of how Cincinnati Beer got here, and that’s something I know I’ll cherish for a very long time.

Be Gnarly, and F Cancer.