San Diego-based Ballast Point has new, local investors in its ownership group, San Diego Beer News reported.
Hospitality force RMD Group and boutique investment firm Cypress Ascendant have taken shares in the brewery, and the investors who facilitated the bombshell acquisition of Ballast Point from Constellation Brands in 2019 have exited.
Richard Mahoney, former chairman of the board for The Wine Group, was the lead investor in Kings & Convicts’ acquisition of Ballast Point from Constellation. He served as board director for Kings & Convicts from March 2016 to May 2025, according to his LinkedIn page.
It’s been an eventful decade for Ballast Point, arguably the darling of the booming San Diego craft scene when it was acquired by Constellation for $1 billion in 2015. After four years of tanking volume, Constellation offloaded the brewery to then-unknown Kings & Convicts, a tiny Chicago-based brewery fronted by Brendan Watters and Chris Bradley.
“It’s a completely different animal this time,” Watters told San Diego Beer News. “Our new partners know how to do retail and merchandising very well, and have actually been behind-the-scenes collaborators of ours for years. They’ll be bringing in tremendous management expertise and take a lot off my table.”
Four of Ballast Point’s taprooms are listed among RMD Group’s bookable venues on the company’s events website. They include the brewery’s outposts in San Diego’s Little Italy and Miramar, where Ballast Point still operates a taproom within the large production facility it sold to non-alcoholic beer maker Athletic Brewing last year. Athletic expects to begin shipping beer produced at the facility in Q4.
Also available for RMD Group bookings are Ballast Point locations in Long Beach and Anaheim. The brewery’s taproom in San Francisco is not featured. The Long Beach location page features client testimonials for events hosted in June and July, indicating a sale may have taken place earlier this summer.
Ballast Point plans to open additional locations in San Diego County and beyond, with RMD Group taking the lead on scouting sites, Watters said. He added that the company “doesn’t want to rush” to expand its hospitality footprint.
As RMD Group runs point on the brick-and-mortar front, Cypress Ascendant is tasked with expanding Ballast Point’s California sales force and opportunities for distribution expansion, San Diego Beer News reported.
The firm’s portfolio includes several restaurants under RMD Group’s umbrella, as well as beverages (Zico Coconut Water, Sunshine Energy), clothing brands (Rhone, Wild Sol), events (Temecula Balloon & Wine Festival, Wonderfront Festival), as well as investments in health care real estate and professional sporting event sponsorships.
Last year, Ballast Point’s production volume declined 60%, to 35,303 barrels of beer, according to the Brewers Association (BA). That’s a far cry from the 430,917 barrels it produced in 2016, the year after its sale to Constellation. Ballast Point never returned to that peak, as volume declined double-digits until Constellation sold it. Under Kings & Convicts’ ownership, Ballast Point hovered under 100,000 barrels annually, until last year’s steep decline.
When Ballast Point’s volume was peaking in the last decade, Constellation invested millions to expand production capacity. The company built a 259,000 sq. ft. brewery in Daleville, Virginia, in 2017. The same year, it opened Trade Street, an 80,000 sq. ft. facility dedicated to sour and barrel-aged Ballast Point Beers.
Constellation kept the Daleville brewery after selling Ballast Point, but sold it to New Belgium in 2023. Trade Street stayed with Ballast Point after the Kings & Convicts acquisition, but was sold to Athletic in March 2020.
With new local partners, Watters told San Diego Beer News he is confident their expertise and connections will return the brand to growth.
“Now, we have new people who love this company,” he said. “They understand Ballast Point and San Diego, and together we can focus on running and growing the business. It’s a new and exciting energy. The sky’s the limit on what we hope to achieve together as we take Ballast Point to the next level.”
Watters did not return a request for comment from Brewbound as of press time.