Creature Comforts Brewing’s new CEO said his recent transition to the top job has been surprisingly easy.
Adam Beauchamp, the Athens brewery’s original brewmaster, moved up from chief operating officer this spring, when previous Chief Executive Officer Chris Herron stepped down, less than two months after Creature Comforts celebrated its 10th anniversary.
David Stein, Beauchamp and Herron co-founded Creature Comforts in 2014, and Herron had served as CEO from the beginning.
“We knew Chris might be moving on,” Beauchamp said in a recent phone call, adding that Herron “has passions that he wants to fulfill in his life, and we’ve been really open and talked about that possibility for a while.”
In the meantime, Herron will be serving as an adviser to Beauchamp.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
“We’ve been able to work out a deal to where I get 20 hours a week to ask him anything or help me review anything,” Beauchamp said. “I’ve been a board member since Day 1, so having the top view is something that I was familiar with. But there’s definitely been a change in my life dealing with a whole range of new things day to day.”
In addition to his work in Athens, Beauchamp goes to Los Angeles every six weeks to help oversee the brewery and taproom that Creature Comforts opened there in late 2023.
“It’s been good,” he said of the Los Angeles operation. “We just got our beer in a lot of the grocery stores, and we built a fairly good size brewery. The distribution business is starting to pick up. Having partners among all these different grocery and convenience stores (means) quite a lot of volume.”
As for taking over the CEO role, he said, “We had some time to put together a plan for Chris to hand everything over to me.”
Beauchamp joked that he worried more about the Lo-Fills, the musical group that he laughingly described as “our crappy cover band.”
“We’re just marginally good at playing music,” he said. “I’m the singer and I’m the cellist. We played ‘Wonderwall’ by Oasis and ‘Glycerine’ from Bush. I was more stressed out about learning the lyrics than my first day as CEO.”
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Looking forward, Beauchamp said he is excited about Creature Comforts’ potential for growth, including possibly adding product lines and locations.
“I am inheriting a plan that’s been hashed out, debated, argued over, researched, and we’re still developing and fleshing it out with some working groups,” he said.
In the short term, there will be plenty of Creature Comforts happenings around Athens, too. The brewery is in its second year as a sponsor of University of Georgia athletics “and we’re going to have some really exciting offerings that are related to the Dogs this fall,” Beauchamp said.
“Over the next year, we plan to keep making the high-quality beer that we’re known for and doing important work in our communities,” he added. “But we’re going to try some new things, too, and I’m excited about that.”
Creature Comforts Brewing Co. 271 W. Hancock Ave., Athens. 706-410-1043, creaturecomfortsbeer.com.
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