Samuel Adams Brewery Case Summary

The speaker of the series was named Brock Wagner. He is the CEO of the craft brewery located in the city of Houston in the section of town called Fifth Ward. Brock Wagner spoke of the path his life had taken and how it lead to him wishing to quit his investment banking job to start the Samuel Adams Brewery with the help of friends and family. The craft brewery landscape in the days that Samuel Adams was started in the mid 90’s was very different than what is like today to sell craft beer in Texas. Laws and regulations existed that prohibited the sale of beer or food at local brewery installations the state. Grass roots organizing and leadership in the Houston community lead to the passing and changing of laws that has made St. Arnolds the go to destination for craft beer that it is today. The CEO Brock Wagner shared his journey of finding the right environment at the time that appealed to him for the site of his brewery.
This brewery Saint Arnolds project and business endeavor was challenging; the first issue that needed to be solved was for the CEO
to find the best people to work for him in those early years of the company. The CEO states that it was a company tradition for him to personally interview every person that would be hired by Saint Arnolds. The main reason is that the Saint Arnold’s Company for this very reason has a very low turnover rate.
The CEO only desires to hires people who he would love to have a beer with at the end of the day.
In hind sight the issue that this hits most if that a ship’s direction is mostly impacted not by where it is going; but first mostly the very most important aspect of the situation is who is on the ship and what are the people like and how they work together to bring the ship in the direction of the goal desired by the CEO. It is not too important at first where the ship is heading; the most important is to get the right team on board and then after every one has taken the position of leadership; then it is the time for the ship to start of the desired journey. Brock Wagner stated that now that his company has become so successful and with some competitors trying to buy out the company from under him, the thought of running for office has crossed his mind and one day he might decide to run for mayor of
Houston.
Mr. Wagner has not decided to sell yet, but one day he might and then the next chapter of his life will begin. Until then the craft brewery business will be his passion even if the CEO is not always currently involved in the day to day operations of the business now that his employees and managers area earning salary level living wages that started in 2001 so that people could live a good and peaceful life while at the same time being gainfully employed at Saint Arnold Craft Brewery. The CEO Brock Wagner in the end of the speech went into a question and answer session which gave us a look into the daily operations of the Saint Arnolds Brewery which included information on the cost cutting and the high number of third party companies that are used to bring together the hops to make really good beer by high payment to make sure that the growers had enough money to keep growing best hops supply in the Texas Craft Brewery Business.