Dick Leinenkugel will retire from the brewery that bears his family’s name at the end of 2022, Molson Coors announced today.
Tony Bugher, associate marketing manager for the brand and Leinenkugel’s nephew, will take the reins of the Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin-based Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company on January 1, 2023.
“I am humbled to have served as the seventh brewery president in our company’s 155-year history and am thrilled another descendent of Jacob Leinenkugel will now lead our brewery,” Leinenkugel said in a press release. “Working with the Molson and Coors families has been a blessing, especially when it comes to understanding the value of heritage in a business.”
Leinenkugel has served as president since 2014, and has worked for the brewery since 1987, the year before his family sold the company to then-Miller Brewing. Leinenkugel briefly left the family outfit in 2008 to serve as Wisconsin’s commerce secretary, and returned two years later in a leadership role within Molson Coors’ craft arm, Tenth & Blake. In 2007, he oversaw the development of Summer Shandy, a seasonal offering that boosted Leinenkugel’s brand profile from regional to national.
“It’s rare in a beer career where you get the opportunity to launch a brand that’s first in its category, and that really stands out to me as one of our team’s biggest accomplishments,” Leinenkugel said in the release.
When Bugher begins his new role in 2023, he “will serve as the de facto face of the brand, sharing the Leinenkugel’s story and history with distributors, retailers and brewery fans as a direct representative of the family,” Molson Coors wrote. Within Bugher’s purview will be brand marketing, production and the brewery’s destination taproom, the Leinie Lodge.
“It’s an honor and a privilege to have that opportunity to continue the legacy alongside my uncle John and cousins Katie and Matt Leinenkugel,” Bugher said in the release. “I appreciate all that I’ve learned from Dick throughout the past eight years and look forward [to] the future of our family’s storied brand that we love so much.”
Since 2018, the Leinenkugel brand family has posted double-digit volume declines, according to data from the Brewers Association (BA). In 2020, the most recent year for which data is available, its volume declined -20%, to 550,000 barrels, nearly half its peak of 1 million barrels in 2015.