Moosehead Breweries is temporarily laying off about 50 workers at its Saint John plant starting this week and lasting until early November.

The people affected work in production, and they will be laid off on a rotating basis, company spokesman Joel Levesque said Wednesday.

The cutbacks are mainly the result of the downturn in the United States economy, where nearly 50 per cent of the brewer's product is shipped, he said.

Levesque said regular production should resume in early November and continue until Christmas. It’s uncertain what will happen in 2009.

"In the new year, we will evaluate our orders. Now, because we are shipping so much beer to the United States, it all depends on business and economic conditions in the United States," he said.

"As everybody who’s been watching the news knows things are kind of up in the air there. So, it’s one of those things it’ll be very difficult to predict until we get closer to that time."

Also contributing to the layoffs were poor beer sales locally this past summer because the weather was so cool and rainy, Levesque said.

"About 70 per cent of our sales take place between the May long weekend and Sept. 1. So, if you don’t have great weather in the summer, then people aren’t out partying, they’re not at their cottages, or on the beach or on the golf course drinking beer,” he said.