Shauna Steigerwald

ssteigerwald@enquirer.com

Ei8ht Ball Brewing in Newport is closing. It will serve its last pints in mid- to late February.

The brewery, a division of New Riff Distilling, LLC, opened in late 2013 inside the Party Source. Its closure will allow New Riff to focus exclusively on whiskey and spirits, according to representatives from the company.

“Ei8ht Ball was incredibly successful as a small niche brewery, and we were selling all the beer we could make at our current facility,” New Riff Distilling president and owner Ken Lewis said in a new release, which noted that the brewery has 28 beers on tap and has doubled production each year it has been in business. "But the craft beer industry is tightening, and we made the decision to focus on distilling as we prepare for our first batch of bourbon in 2018. We have a unique position in the Kentucky bourbon market, but we’re less unique in the craft beer world. We’re going to narrow our focus and let others do craft beer.”

The brewery's tap room will keep its regular hours until it closes. Updates about the closing date will be shared on the brewery's Facebook page.

But even after Ei8ht Ball is no more, beer will still flow from the Party Source tap room. New Riff is in negotiations for another brewery to take over the space.

The shift in focus does mean that New Riff won't build a brewpub as part of its new "Whiskey Campus" on the west side of Newport. It will, however, continue with the $9 million project, already under construction. The facility, which will be able to hold more than 19,000 barrels of Kentucky bourbon whiskey, will include a tasting room and event space, along with the distillery's bottling/warehousing facility and distribution center.

The new facility is expected to open next year. That's also when New Riff's first batch of bourbon, which it began distilling in 2014, will be released.

Ei8ht Ball brewer Mitch Dougherty has plans to operate his own brewery in Ohio, the details of which are still to be announced.