With Stone Brewing’s sale to Sapporo expected to close in August, the Escondido, California-headquartered craft brewery has promoted Nicole Williams and Robert Kuntz to lead brewing operations at its bi-coastal facilities in Escondido and Richmond, Virginia.
Stone announced today the promotions of Williams to senior director of brewing operations for Stone Brewing — Escondido and Kuntz to senior director of brewing operations for Stone Brewing — Richmond as it prepares for the transfer of all of Sapporo’s U.S. production to Stone’s two facilities. Williams and Kuntz will “oversee the entire brewing, packaging, maintenance, engineering, and water operations of their respective facilities,” per the announcement.
“Sapporo was attracted to Stone for our advanced, bi-coastal brewery operations, and to adopt our incredible team,” Stone CEO Maria Stipp said in the release. “They will entrust our team with their beers, and we already have the talent they need right here in our breweries. We have big plans to build out physical capacity and meet the production goals of both Sapporo and Stone. We’re thrilled to be promoting from within and to have Nicole Williams and Robert Kuntz leading us into this exciting time.”
Williams joined Stone in 2018 after 3 ½ years at Honeywell as a senior process engineer. Her previous role at Stone was senior manager of maintenance and engineering. The company called her “a natural leader with a team-first mentality” and credited her with being “instrumental” in expanding Stone’s brewing capabilities, including “leadership, design and installation of projects to enhance efficiency and improve Stone’s sustainability efforts.”
Kuntz joined Stone in 2019, and most recently served as head brewer in Richmond. The company said Kuntz became Master Brewer certified after completing the qualifications from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling. Prior to joining Stone, Kuntz worked at Magic Hat, contract producer Sleeping Giant and Molson Coors.
The Richmond plant currently can produce up to 700,000 barrels of beer annually, but is not yet built out to its full capacity. Kuntz will be tasked with overseeing capital improvements at the Richmond brewery to support Sapporo’s production needs. Additionally, Kuntz will oversee the “installation and management” of a small-batch system in Richmond for innovation projects.
Once Stone is integrated into Sapporo, the combined company plans to produce about 720,000 barrels of beer by the end of 2024. Stone produced 360,000 barrels of product in 2021.
Stone expects to invest between $20 and $40 million in capital improvements in Richmond and another $10 to $20 million in Escondido in the coming years.
Sapporo’s planned acquisition of Stone was announced on June 24 in a deal valued at $165 million. Stone Distributing was not included in the sale.