Schlafly Beer co-founder Dan Kopman will depart the company after 25 years.
In an email to Brewbound, Kopman said the decision to leave the brewery was part of previously agreed upon timeline with Sage Capital, the St. Louis-based private equity firm that acquired a majority stake in the company in 2012.
“With the end of a five-year agreement agreed at the time of the sale to Sage Capital, I am leaving The Saint Louis Brewery and Schlafly Beer at the end of 2016 to pursue other interests,” he said. “It has been a fantastic 25 years.”
Kopman, along with partner Tom Schlafly, co-founded Schlafly Beer parent The Saint Louis Brewery in 1991 and helped to grow the business to 60,000 barrels in 2015 and more than $20 million in sales.
“A friend and mentor once said to me, no matter what you do, leave it better than you found it. I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to do just that,” he wrote in the email.
Kopman currently serves as an at-large representative to the Brewers Association board of a directors and his term is set to expire in February, 2017.
Earlier this year, the company said it planned to invest $1 million to expand operations at its Maplewood production facility.
In early 2015, James Pendegraft, a Saint Louis native and the former vice president of sales & marketing for North American Breweries, took over as the CEO of The Saint Louis Brewery. At the time, Kopman was named co-chairman of the brewery’s board.