Crying in their beer.

• Position: TRIAD REGION

North Carolina's beer industry is booming, but don't tell that to the folks in Eden. MillerCoors plans to shutter its Rockingham County brewery by next September, cutting 520 jobs. It's a tough blow for Eden, where Miller Brewing opened the plant in 1978. MillerCoors is the largest private employer in the city of about 15,500 residents. But big brewers are consolidating, while hundreds of new entrants are flooding the market to meet demand for local varieties. MillerCoors is owned by Molson Coors Brewing and South Africa's SABMiller, which has a tentative $104 billion deal to be acquired by Anheuser-Busch InBev. The Eden plant brewed 7.1 million barrels of beer in 2014, including Blue Moon, Coors Light and Miller High Life. Work will shift to seven other breweries, but primarily to Shenandoah, Va., about 200 miles away. It is MillerCoors' newest brewery and closer to key northeastern markets.

Eden's pain comes as craft brewing explodes, siphoning customers who had picked Budweiser, Miller or other dominant brands...