Boston Beer Announces Executive Pay for 2022, Leadership Foregoes Bonuses for 2021

Boston Beer Company executive salaries for 2022 were shared in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday. The company also announced that its top executives would forego bonuses for fiscal year 2021.

Boston Beer — whose portfolio includes Truly Hard Seltzer, Twisted Tea, Samuel Adams, Dogfish Head, and Angry Orchard, among other offerings — reported that its compensation committee approved 2022 base salaries on February 9. Those include no raises for CEO Dave Burwick at $835,459 and senior VP of supply chain Quincy Troupe at $515,000, as well as 3% pay bumps for CFO Frank Smalla ($596,650), chief sales officer John Geist ($596,650) and CMO Lesya Lysyj ($519,045). The new salaries will go into effect on March 21.

Burwick was eligible to receive a 5% salary bump but declined, according to the filing.

Boston Beer’s executive officers and other members of the company’s leadership team informed the compensation committee on February 9 that they would not be accepting bonuses for fiscal year 2021, and instead asked that the funds be reallocated “to other company coworkers.” The committee accepted the recommendation and also determined that none of the company’s named executive officers or other members of its executive leadership team would receive bonuses for FY2021.

The compensation committee, and subsequently Boston Beer’s board of directors, also approved stock option awards and restricted stock units (RSUs) of Class A Common Stock for its top executives. The grant of stock will go into effect on March 1.

The stock options will depend on Boston Beer “achieving certain compounded annual growth rate targets based on net revenue growth in Fiscal Year 2023 over Fiscal Year 2021.” The compensation committee will determine if those stock units are eligible to vest prior to March 1, 2024.

Executives who will be awarded stock option awards and restricted stock units, based on the closing price of Boston Beer’s Class A common stock (SAM) on February 28. Those awards will vest contingent on Boston Beer hitting its growth targets each year up until March 1, 2026. If growth targets are missed, the options will lapse. RSUs will vest at 25% annually on March 1 from 2023 through 2026 based on continued employment and could vest sooner based on certain events.

Those awards will go to Burwick ($2 million stock options, $2 million RSUs), Smalla ($289,636 options, $289,636 RSUs), Geist ($289,636 options, $289,636 RSUs), and Lysyj ($251,964 options and $251,964 RSUs).

Boston Beer also laid out its cash bonus opportunities for fiscal year 2022 based on achieving company goals for the year. Those goals include achieving:

  • “Depletions targets over 2021, which are weighted as 60% of the goals;
  • Certain EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes) targets, which are weighted as 20% of the goals;
  • The generation of certain resource efficiency (cost savings) targets, which are weighted as 20% of the goals.”

Those bonus targets include:

  • Burwick: 100% of his base salary;
  • Smalla: 75% of his base salary;
  • Geist: 75% of his base salary;
  • Troupe: 60% of his base salary; and
  • Lysyj: 60% of her base salary.

Bonus targets set for Boston Beer’s executive officers range between 40% and 100% of their base salaries. The compensation committee will determine the bonus payouts for the execs prior to March 1, 2023.

Boston Beer will report its Q4 and full-year 2021 earnings after the close of the market this afternoon.