After a six-year run, Finnegans Brew Co. is closing its downtown Minneapolis taproom and moving in with fellow local brewer Fulton.

On Tuesday, the two breweries announced that Finnegans will stop serving and producing brews at its current facility at 817 5th Avenue South in downtown’s East Town neighborhood. Finnegans taproom will officially shut down on Aug. 31.

But that won’t be the end: Fulton has agreed to begin producing Finnegans beers at its Northeast Minneapolis facility and serve them at its North Loop taproom by early fall. The two breweries are describing the effort as “Finnegans Residency at Fulton.”

Like several other hospitality-oriented businesses operating downtown, Finnegans has seen a notable drop in traffic in the hybrid work era, said founder and CEO Jacquie Berglund. Though the brewery seemed to have made it through the worst parts of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent shutdowns, Berglund said it’s “been a challenge to make the business model work” with fewer people downtown.

“Anybody who’s been downtown knows it’s a really different landscape than it was prior to the pandemic,” she said in a Tuesday interview. “Friday happy hours used to be our busiest thing, and now those are gone.”

Berglund said the partnership with Fulton is a unique one, and she’s looking forward to the change. “I don’t know of any other brewery that’s done this type of partnership in Minnesota,” she said. “It’s pretty unheard of to have a competitor’s beers on tap at your place.”

Finnegans is, of course, not a typical brewery: Berglund first launched the company back in 2000 with a plan to tackle social issues. She set Finnegans up as a for-profit company, which, until the taproom opened in 2018, donated all its profits to Finnegans Community Fund, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit aimed at alleviating hunger. The move to Fulton isn’t expected to change the fund’s nonprofit status.

In 2022, Finnegans Community Fund reported total revenue of just over $31,000 and expenses of just over $57,000, according to the organization’s tax records.

Finnegans completed an acquisition of its own that same year, buying local non-alcoholic beer brand Hairless Dog Brewing.

The Fulton partnership also won’t affect the Finnovation Lab program for entrepreneurs, which has been running since 2018. The program enrolled its sixth cohort last summer. Berglund said the Finnovation Lab is “a separate business with separate funders and everything; it’s not at all connected to Finnegans.” The lab will continue to operate on the fourth floor of Finnegan’s existing building at 817 5th Avenue South, which is owned by architecture firm Kraus-Anderson.

Meanwhile, Mosaic, the weddings and events venue that operates on third floor of that building, is set to take over Finnegans taproom space once it closes in late August. A news release issued Tuesday said that Mosaic will “expand its innovative third-floor event space into a new concept to be unveiled on the first two floors of the building.”

In the same release, Fulton CEO Ryan Petz said his company is “honored to be able to produce and soon offer Finnegans at our taproom for fans of both our brands.”

“We see this as a positive evolution for the craft beer scene in Minneapolis,” he said.

Today, Finnegans employs three full-time staffers and eight part-time beertenders. Berglund said the core full-time employees will move over to Fulton, while part-timers will get an opportunity to take shifts at Fulton or work seasonal events.

The Finnegans-Fulton partnership is not a merger or acquisition, and both companies will continue to operate as separate brands. Berglund was unable to share details on the precise nature of the partnership, but said there will be a “collaboration on revenue.”

She described the move as a “neat opportunity between two like-minded partners.”

“That’s what business is supposed to be about, right?” Berglund said.