ESOP

Left Hand Brewing co-founder Eric Wallace has assessed today’s challenging landscape for craft brewers and believes his Longmont, Colorado-based company may have a solution.

Craft brewers who care about providing innovative benefits, competitive compensation, and tools for employee engagement might consider employee ownership as a part of a strategy to achieve these goals. Employee ownership provides a way for the current owners to sell their shares and also to create a unique employee benefit whose value is tied directly to the success of the business.

Dennis and Tauna Arnold, owners of Tucson, Arizona-based Barrio Brewing, announced plans Tuesday to sell 100% of their company to employees in a self-funded employee stock ownership plan (ESOP).

Fast-growing Cincinnati craft beer maker Rhinegeist Brewery plans to implement an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) in mid-2020 that will eventually transfer 100% ownership of the company to its employees.

During its annual staff summit earlier this week, Great Lakes Brewing Co. owners Pat and Dan Conway announced that the company would be starting an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), giving workers a minority stake in the company.