At the time, light yellow lagers dominated the American market, but Kenary’s love of beer pushed him to leave a job in banking to be at the vanguard of the US craft beer movement. The three were originally inspired by the rich, varied beer culture they experienced together while backpacking around Europe. Kenary describes it as one of his most rewarding moments in the three decades since he founded Harpoon with two college friends. You are now all the owners of 48 percent of Harpoon.’ The place erupted.” “And then I said: ‘I’d like you to turn to the person next to you and shake their hand. “You could’ve heard a pin drop at that point,” he recalled. He’d brought everyone together, he said, to announce the new owners of Harpoon. Everyone knew how crowded the craft beer market had become, and how common it was for independent brewers to sell to investors or a competitor. What would usually have been a lively gathering was clouded by an air of nervousness as employees eyed the strangers in suits lining the walls-lawyers and bankers who had been visiting CEO Dan Kenary with increasing frequency in recent months. It was a July day in 2014, and some 200 employees of Harpoon Brewery had assembled in the company’s Beer Hall on the Boston Seaport. And so that's kind of where that motto came from. So, we really are about not just the beer, but bringing people together around beer.Īnd so it just lends itself. So, they create that ecosystem.ĭan: Our festival we have 500,000 people visit us at our two breweries every year. Rick: Well middle market companies like Harpoon are essential to a community because they provide jobs. Always been proud of our deep involvement in the community. We've always just kind of been a New England company. I think New England is a really proud region. I think we've seen that at Harpoon, and I think JP has been, they're kind of right alongside with us. We're not fair-weather friends, but it's particularly fun to watch a company like this from out of nowhere, you know, grow out of the ground and build something.ĭan: You have banks that are truly partners to businesses and individuals can make a great deal of difference in people's lives. Jamie Dimon: We bank companies for long period of time, we get to know them in their communities.
Rick: JP Morgan Chase adds value to middle market companies because we help them with treasury services, we help them with capital, we helped them with international needs. It's no different than any other sort of stock plan except the employees are actually the beneficiaries of the plan.ĭan: The ESOP transaction could not have happened without bank partners and JP Morgan they have the deepest expertise and getting ESOP leverage, ESOP transactions completed. Rick: An ESOP is the shares in the company transform from a existing owner to the employees. They stand for employee stock ownership plan. So, we brought it back as a summer seasonal, then just kept making it and it took off.īack in the summer of 2014 we had been working on an ESOP transaction. Our first product was Harpoon Ale back in the mid 1980s but in 1993 our summer seasonal was Harpoon IPA and the next year the outcry was we had to make it year-round. So, I started talking with a college classmate of mine and said to me, what do you think about leaving your banking job and opening a brewery here in Boston? And decided to join him and went out and raised $430,000 to start a brewery on the waterfront in Boston. The scene was the same in the US and the seventies and eighties it was light yellow lagers coast to coast there was no choice in beer. Dan: The simple answer of why I got into the businesses is that I love beer.
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