Heavy Seas Beer, located at 4615 Hollins Ferry Rd. in Halethorpe, Maryland, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as its founder, Hugh Sisson, plans his retirement.
The brewery, legally known as Clipper City Brewing Company, filed on November 8 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland. The filing was first reported by What Now.
According to The Baltimore Banner, court documents list more than $4.3 million in liabilities, including a loan of more than $2.3 million from Wells Fargo. The filing points to the drop in craft beer sales nationwide and Sisson’s decision to retire after more than 30 years.
The brewery’s attorney, Paul Sweeney, told the Banner the filing is meant to clear the way for a sale or merger with another local brewery. “There’s a number of suitors that we’ve been talking to,” Sweeney said. He also told CBS News Baltimore, “We are optimistic about Heavy Seas future and the fact that it is on a different path from what happened to Guinness.”
“It buys us time,” Caroline Sisson, Heavy Seas’ director of marketing and Hugh’s daughter, told the Banner.
Heavy Seas remains open while it reorganizes. The filing comes the same month Guinness closed its nearby Open Gate Brewery.
The Story Of Heavy Seas
Hugh Sisson got his start at his family’s bar, Sisson’s, on Cross Street in South Baltimore. In 1987, he worked with state lawmakers to legalize brewpubs in Baltimore City, and in 1989 Sisson’s became Maryland’s first brewpub.
Sisson opened Clipper City Brewing Company in Halethorpe in 1995, brewing its first batch, Classic Pale Ale, on December 8. In 1999, it bought Oxford Brewing Company, Maryland’s first production craft brewery.
In 2003, the brewery launched Heavy Seas, a line of higher-ABV beers starting with Winter Storm, an Imperial ESB. Loose Cannon IPA followed in 2005 and became the flagship. Heavy Seas soon outsold the Clipper City and Oxford brands, and the company rebranded as Heavy Seas Beer in 2010.
It added a 60-barrel brewhouse in 2014 and opened its taproom in 2017, the year Beer Connoisseur Magazine named it national Brewery of the Year. In 2024, Loose Cannon and Hazy Cannon were named national champions at the U.S. Beer Tasting Championship. Heavy Seas turned 30 on December 8, 2025.
Production has since fallen from 51,380 barrels in 2019 to 26,528 in 2023 and 24,551 in 2024, according to Maryland tax data reported by Brewbound.
In October 2025, Heavy Seas announced it was joining B3 Beverage Company with Yards, Two Roads, and Bald Birds. In August 2026, Brewbound reported that Heavy Seas and Two Roads had left B3. Sweeney told the Banner the B3 deal did not go through. B3 and Bald Birds have since faced several lawsuits.
