Rock Bottom Brewery, a Denver-based chain of brewpubs, has closed its downtown Portland location, the latest brewpub in the city to close.

A sign on the door says the restaurant officially closed Sunday. An employee at the restaurant, who said he was a manager but would only identify himself as Efron, said the location would not reopen.

He declined to answer any questions about why Rock Bottom is locking the doors or provide any other details about the closure, first reported by Jeff Alworth in Beervana: The Blog.

The chain, which began in 1991 in Denver, is owned by CraftWorks Holdings, which is based in Broomfield, Colorado, and also owns the Old Chicago chain of restaurants as well as the Gordon Biersch chain of brewpubs. A phone message left at CraftWorks was not immediately returned.

The sign thanked Portland for years of patronage and also said: “We have enjoyed being part of your neighborhood and we appreciate your business.”

Last week, longtime Portland brewery Lompoc Brewing announced that Tuesday would be its last day.

The closures are the latest in a string of setbacks for longtime Portland breweries. In the past year, Portland’s once-beloved BridgePort Brewing closed, Portland Brewing and Widmer Brothers Brewing closed once-packed restaurants, and brewpubs Alameda Brewhouse, Columbia River Brewing and Burnside Brewing shut their doors. In addition, Laurelwood Brewing closed its Westmoreland pub and sold off its production side.

Rock Bottom, whose website shows it has 25 other locations throughout the U.S., opened the Portland pub in 1995. It also had a Seattle location, but it closed nearly three years ago.

Van Havig is one of two co-founders of popular Gigantic Brewing. But before he opened the Southeast Portland brewery with partner Ben Love, he was a brewer at Rock Bottom for over a decade.

Havig said his time working at the downtown Portland brewery was invaluable and rewarding, but he left the brewpub after the chain was bought in 2010 by Centerbridge Partners, a private equity company. Havig said Centerbridge formed CraftWorks Holdings to manage its brewpub divisions, and he felt like “bad business decisions” were made after the change.

“It was great place to work in the early years,” Havig told The Oregonian/OregonLive in a phone interview Monday afternoon. “I feel fortunate to have worked there. Most people don’t understand that. But most brewers who were there would say that.”

Havig said Rock Bottom at the time had 35 breweries and put its brewers through proper training, with a network that provided an excellent resource to call brewers across the country for advice or answers that weren’t available elsewhere. Even today in Portland, many current brewers are alumni of the downtown brewery, he said.

“Especially in the ‘90s and early 2000s, there was not a ton of brewery knowledge out there,” Havig said. “Most brewers toiled away by themselves without a lot of people to talk to and learn from. But we could ask all these guys and women – who were smart people -- about anything.”

Havig said he didn’t have any inside knowledge about why the pub closed, but he suspects it may involve the lease expiring. He said in the ‘90s, Rock Bottom was signing 20-year leases and it may have been extended recently. He said Rock Bottom wasn’t the place today it was two decades ago and was making significantly less beer than in previous years.

“It’s a total dinosaur,” he said. “It’s the epitome of a mid ‘90s brewpub. It’s big, tanks right up against the windows. … It had its time.”

“It’s telling that in two days Lompoc and Rock Bottom are closing,” he said. “They’re from the same period in time -- from the mid ‘90s. It’s tough to keep up. The industry is changing drastically.”

-- Andre Meunier