A year and a half after guiding Stone Brewing through its acquisition by Sapporo, CEO Maria Stipp is moving on.
Stipp joined the Escondido, California-based craft brewery in September 2020 following the departure of her predecessor Dominc Engels earlier that summer. She steered Stone, the seventh-largest independent craft brewery in the country by volume at the time, through the process of being acquired by Japanese brewing giant Sapporo, a deal that was announced in June 2022 and closed in August 2022.
“It is a bittersweet moment,” Stipp said. “Unlike many acquisitions, we have the privilege of keeping our leadership team intact. This has allowed us to fully integrate and build a future where Sapporo and Stone are indeed better together. It’s been really challenging, fulfilling and exciting.”
After Stipp departs on January 26, CFO Zachary Keeling will serve as interim CEO while the company searches for a permanent replacement. Keeling was promoted to chief financial and strategy officer in October 2023, three years after returning to the company following the completion of a master’s of business administration from Harvard Business School.
“Zach and I have worked side-by-side over the last three-plus years,” Stipp said. “He’s played a critical role in developing our 2024 strategic plan and our three-year strategy as well. He is a strong leader, a well-suited person to guide this company in the future, and he’s an awesome leader.”
Before his business school hiatus, Keeling worked on Stone’s finance, analytics and strategy teams from 2015-2018.
“Stone Brewing has been in my life for the better part of a decade,” he said. “It’s so important to me from a company and people standpoint, and I’m super excited and even more passionate about what we can do with Sapporo too.
“I think one plus one definitely equals three here,” he continued. “I think we’re incredibly strong together, and I’m just excited to be able and humbled to step into this role and continue it forward.”
Part of Sapporo’s interest in Stone stemmed from its two bicoastal production facilities, both of which have doubled brewing capacity – to nearly 700,000 barrels – since the acquisition. Stone’s facility in Richmond, Virginia, has begun producing Sapporo, and Escondido will begin within the next couple of months, Stipp said.
“Sapporo Breweries has made a significant investment in the U.S. market,” she said. “We’ve doubled the capacity at our breweries, and we’ve created many, many jobs. People are going to be surprised when they see just how big we’ve become.”
The company has added 200 jobs in recent months, the majority in Richmond, where expansion began in May 2022.
Stone produced 376,347 barrels of beer in 2022, according to the May/June 2023 edition of the Brewers Association’s (BA) New Brewer magazine. Production data for 2023 is not yet available.
In off-premise scan data, the Stone brand family was the 14th largest among craft brands, according to market research firm NIQ, which includes brands that are excluded from the BA-defined craft brewer data set.
Dollar sales of Stone increased +3%, to $83.1 million, at multi outlet retailers and convenience and liquor stores through December 30, according to NIQ data shared by Bump Williams Consulting (BWC). Volume increased +3%, to nearly 2 million cases.
Stone’s gains weren’t enough to offset Sapporo’s losses, and the company’s off-premise dollar sales declined -1%, to $87.9 million, and volume declined -1.1%, according to NIQ data.
Stipp reflected on her time at the helm of one of the country’s biggest and oldest craft brands at a time when the craft industry was in turmoil due to the COVID-19 pandemic and about to enter a new reality of changed consumer behavior.
“I’m really proud of where we are at right now, and it’s certainly been a journey,” she said. “It was hard to know exactly what we needed to do when I first got here in the middle of COVID. I think all of us in the brewing industry were trying to figure out what to do.
“One thing that is loud and clear to me in the beer industry is scale,” Stipp continued. “Scale is critical. Utilizing your capacity the very best possible way was really something we had to solve for, especially given the Richmond site and how much expansion we needed there in order to make this business really, really healthy.”
Before and during Stipp’s tenure, Stone shuttered several of its locations, including selling its Berlin brewery to BrewDog in April 2019, closing the Shanghai taproom in March 2020, and shutting down its Napa taproom amid a legal dispute with its landlord in October 2021.
In recent years, the company has evolved its previously West Coast IPA-heavy portfolio with the additions of the Buena family (Buenaveza Salt & Lime Lager and Buenavida Hard Seltzer), as well as Hazy IPA.
The result of this portfolio work is a brand that is stronger than the sum of its parts, as Stone collectively ranks high in scan data, but none of its individual offerings cracked market research firm Circana’s top 30 craft brands in 2023.
Before joining Stone, Stipp spent five years at the helm of Lagunitas – another American craft brewery she shepherded to global acquisition. At Lagunitas, Stipp was the brewery’s first CEO, working in tandem with founder Tony Magee, her “fourth consecutive founder working relationship,” according to the bio shared by Stone at the time of her hiring.
During Stipp’s tenure, Lagunitas doubled in size and was acquired by Heineken N.V. in two different transactions, the first of which was estimated to be worth $500 million.
Her career also includes stints at ecoATM, Activision, Miller Brewing Company and Kellogs, and she holds seats on the boards of directors at Siete Foods and California Olive Ranch.
Sapporo’s embrace of Stone has allowed the company to tap into and elevate its people, which Stipp said are “really tremendous” and have “just been sheer magic” as the company transformed as a result of the deal.
“I was just so thrilled when Sapporo came to us with this opportunity, because it really allowed us to maximize our brewery footprint and also just utilize the tremendous amount of skill that we have at Stone in terms of brewing and expertise and innovation,” Stipp said. “All the things that this has given us is the ability to amplify all the talent that we already had under our roof.”
In addition to Stipp’s departure, Sapporo-Stone chairman Kenny Sadai will depart the U.S. to return to Sapporo Breweries later this year. Hiro Kitaoka, president and CEO of Sapporo-owned Sleeman Breweries in Canada, will become vice chairman of Sapporo-Stone in the U.S.