Jack’s Abby will acquire fellow Massachusetts-based craft brewery Wormtown Brewery, and will operate the two breweries under the newly created parent company Hendler Family Brewing Co.
The sale is expected to close in “early summer,” “pending licensing approvals,” according to a press release. Jack’s Beverage Co., Jack’s Abby’s contract brewing arm, will also operate under the new parent company.
“The acquisition is not only a milestone for the three co-owners and brothers, Jack, Eric and me, Sam Hendler, but also reflects a broader trend unfolding within the craft beer industry,” Jack’s Abby co-founder and CEO Sam Hendler said in a statement shared with Brewbound.
Hendler noted that the deal “comes on the heels of notable shifts” in the New England craft brewery scene, including the acquisition of Wachusett Brewing Co. by Smuttynose parent company FinestKind, and the mergers of Ipswich Ales with Riverwalk Brewing Co., and Dorchester Brewing Co. with Aeronaut Brewing Co.”
Hendler Family Brewing will offer jobs to “the vast majority of current non-ownership Wormtown staff,” according to a press release. This will bring Jack’s Abby’s staff roster from 167 to roughly 200. The new entity’s brewing capacity will be 110,000 barrels, making it the “largest craft brewing facility in the state of Massachusetts.”
Wormtown and Jack’s Abby’s taprooms will remain in operation and continue only to serve only their own respective products, “with additional resources, support and staff from the new ownership,” according to the release. Wormtown operates taprooms in Worcester and at Patriot Place, an open-air shopping district in Foxborough near the New England Patriots’ home field, Gillette Stadium. Jack’s Abby’s sole location is its production brewery and taproom in Framingham.
“We are dedicated to fostering long-term growth and prosperity within the Massachusetts brewing landscape and that includes keeping beloved brands like Wormtown going strong,” the three Hendler brothers wrote in an announcement on Instagram. “When you grab a [Wormtown] Be Hoppy IPA or [Jack’s Abby] House Lager, you’re not just enjoying a great craft beer, you’re supporting a local, family-owned business.”
The companies’ combined 2022 volume would make them the 35th largest independent craft brewery by volume that year, the most recent year for which barrelage data is available from the Brewers Association (BA). Jack’s Abby produced 52,046 barrels of beer in 2022, while Wormtown produced 23,595 barrels, for a combined 75,641.
While volume numbers have yet to be released for 2023, the BA last week listed the top 50, which had Jack’s Abby as the 38th largest BA-defined craft brewery by volume, jumping nine spots from No. 47 in 2022. The brewery recorded a +16% year-over-year (YoY) increase in production in 2022, its second consecutive year of double-digit growth, after increasing production +10% in 2021, to 44,716 barrels. 2022 also marked the company’s largest barrelage to date (excluding yet-to-be released 2023 numbers).
Jack’s Abby also took on extra contract brewing volume in 2022 from Night Shift Brewing, after the Boston-based brewery scaled back in-house production.
Jack’s Abby recorded double-digit dollar sales growth in 2023 (+12.1%) in NIQ-tracked off-premise channels (total xAOC + liquor plus + convenience). 2023 volume increased +0.3%. The company has maintained some growth in 2024, with dollar sales increasing +2.4% YoY and volume +1% in the last 13 weeks (ending March 23).
Wormtown was the 114th largest BA-defined craft brewery in 2022, producing 23,595 barrels of beer, a -5% decline versus 2021. The brewery’s production peaked in 2019, at 31,238 barrels, a +27% increase YoY.
Wormtown ended 2023 with dollar sales down -3% and volume -3.6% in NIQ-tracked channels. Declines have accelerated in Q1, with dollar sales declining -11.3% and volume -12.3% in the 13 weeks ending March 23.
The company has posted growth in its home market, with 2023 dollar sales increasing + 7% and volume +5.7% in the Northeast grocery channel, according to NIQ data. In the last 13 weeks, dollar sales in Northeast food declined -3.1% and volume declined -5.2%.
The addition of Wormtown brings craft ales, notably the all-important IPA, back into Jack’s Abby’s realm, as the brewery famously only produces lagers. Jack’s Abby mothballed its ale offshoot Springdale in February 2023.
Wormtown’s flagship Be Hoppy IPA recorded declines in both dollar sales (-4.7%) and volume (-6.1%) in 2023. The brand – including its extensions – received a packaging refresh in February to make it easier for consumers to spot “the beer with the smiley face.” A positive impact has yet to materialize in scans, with Be Hoppy’s dollar sales and volume both declining -16.1% YoY in the 13-week period ending March 23.
Wormtown distributes its beers in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and Connecticut. The company shares a handful of Sheehan distributors with Jack’s Abby in its home state (Craft Brewers Guild, Seaboard Products Co. and L. Knife & Son), and also distributes with Girardi Distributors, Quality Beverage and Burke Distributing Corp. in the Commonwealth.
Wormtown also shares distributors with Jack’s Abby in New Hampshire (New Hampshire Distributors and Bellavance Beverage), but do not overlap in Rhode Island (McLaughlin & Moran) or Vermont (Farrell Distributing), according to Wormtown’s distributor page.
Mancini Beverage, the parent company of Wormtown’s Connecticut distributors (Levine Distributing and Northeast Beverage), recently agreed to acquire Jack’s Abby’s wholesaler in that state, Craft Connecticut, from Sheehan.
Refresher: Wormtown’s Harassment Claims and Leadership Changes
Wormtown’s leadership came under fire in May 2021 during the craft beer industry’s reckoning with misogyny and workplace harassment when a group of employees accused the brewery of fostering a toxic environment run by a boys’ club that was unable to police itself. In the wake of the allegations, most of the brewery’s ownership group stepped back from day-to-day operations.
Then-president Scott Metzger steered the brewery through that tumultuous time and departed in July 2021 for Maui Brewing, where he is now president and COO of Craft ’Ohana, the parent company of Maui Brewing and Modern Times. Metzger was supplanted as president and general manager by Kimberly Golinski, who joined Wormtown from Massachusetts powerhouse Tree House Brewing.
Wormtown was founded in 2010 by Tom Oliveri and Ben Roesch, who sold a majority stake to David Fields in April 2014. Fields used proceeds from the sale of his distributorship, Auburn, Massachusetts-based Consolidated Beverages, to Quality Beverages to fund his investment in Wormtown.
In 2017, Oliveri sold his minority stake to the Clarke Group and exited the brewery. The Clarke Group consisted of Wormtown CFO Kary Shumway and brothers Richard Clarke and Jay “Digger” Clarke. The latter was mentioned by name in Instagram messages publicly shared by Brienne Allan, then production manager of Notch Brewing, whose crowdsourced posts from women in the industry speaking up about mistreatment sparked the movement.
The allegations against Jay Clarke were quoted in a MassLive story during the 2021 reckoning and included “berating female department managers, having female employees drive him home or to hotels when he’s intoxicated and pressuring three female employees to go to a strip club with him.”
Roesch’s tenure at the brewery that he helped found ended in late 2023, when he left to start Murder Hill Brewery and Taproom with his wife Adrienne Roesch.