Vermont beer maker wins national brewery of the year, readies for cloudy craft-beer future
WAITSFIELD ― The news last December for Lawson’s Finest Liquids was unexpected: The Mad River Valley beer maker was named 2023 Craft Brewery of the Year by Brewbound, a nationally recognized craft-beer industry trade publication.
“We didn’t know this was coming,” said the brewery’s new CEO, Adeline Druart. “We were shocked, surprised, excited.”
Yet she and founding brewer Sean Lawson also knew they had set Lawson’s Finest Liquids up for that kind of success. Druart noted that Brewbound bases its Brewery of the Year honor on factors including growth, innovation and a succession plan for future security, all things that Lawson’s had been accomplishing in recent years.
“They’ve been able to see all the growth,” Druart said, noting that Lawson’s experienced a double-digit increase in retail sales last year. “It’s great beer, the finest beer, but it’s also very impactful.” Brewbound cited Lawson’s “major achievements for community, innovation, quality, and the expansion of its mission-led leadership team.”
The brewery is driven by values and purpose, according to Lawson. Since opening its spacious Waitsfield taproom in 2018, Lawson’s has reached 100% of solar-powered operation. The company pays employees a livable wage plus benefits that Lawson said covers 90% of medical and dental costs.
That allows Lawson’s to eschew tips for employees, so the company puts any extra money customers leave toward local charities. Lawson’s has donated more than $2 million to 300-plus Vermont nonprofit organizations in the past five years, including $400,000 in 2023.
The national craft-beer scene has struggled since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, with sales numbers yet to reach pre-pandemic levels. That impact has been felt in beer-intensive Vermont, where Collaborative Brewing, a Waitsfield-based competitor of Lawson’s, closed two years ago. A once-heralded brewery in Morrisville, Lost Nation Brewing, paused making beer.
Druart noted that 15 years ago as craft brewing was taking off in Vermont, customers would line up outside the nearby Warren Store to purchase the latest specialty bottles from Lawson’s Finest Liquids. That urgency has passed, she said, but Lawson’s is trying to position itself to weather that change.
“What we’re seeing today is like maturity,” according to Druart. “We have matured in our industry, so it is going through a cycle of rightsizing itself.”
Taking the lead at Vermont Creamery
The gleaming, high-ceilinged, wood-and-glass taproom Lawson and Druart spoke from on a winter’s afternoon is miles − more figuratively than literally – from the brewery’s beginning in 2008 in a cramped, dank outbuilding at Lawson’s home a short drive away.
Riding the popularity of Lawson’s signature India pale ale, Sip of Sunshine, and complex brews often featuring that other golden elixir Vermont is known for – maple – the brewery began to build a sizable audience of beer lovers and garner international attention for its creations. The taproom near the Big Picture Theater & Café in Waitsfield opened just over five years ago, reflecting the gradual, cautious but ultimately enormous growth Lawson’s Finest Liquids experienced over the past decade.
The biggest move by the company since then came last September. Lawson and his wife, Karen Lawson, stepped back from their leadership roles so Druart could take charge as Lawson’s Finest Liquids CEO.
Druart grew up in eastern France, near Switzerland, and attended a national dairy school to study cheesemaking. Despite her inability to speak English she wanted to move to the U.S. to pursue her career as a cheesemaker. She took an internship at Vermont Creamery and said she fell in love with Vermont’s people, culture and food.
Druart worked her way up at Vermont Creamery, eventually becoming president at the socially conscious business. In 2017, she helped the company integrate with Land O’Lakes following its acquisition by the major dairy conglomerate.
After 20 years at Vermont Creamery, however, Druart wondered what was next.
Science and craft come together
Druart attended a roundtable discussion of CEOs in Vermont where Lawson mentioned he was looking for a “unicorn” to succeed him – a business leader overseeing a world-class product at a company with a purpose-driven mentality to give back to the community that nurtures it. That was exactly the type of business Druart had hoped to move on to, but just as Lawson wasn’t sure such a person existed, Druart said associates told her she wouldn’t be able to find such a place in tiny Vermont.
The Lawsons, who had been looking for awhile to move on from their day-to-day operation of the brewery, interviewed what Sean Lawson called four talented candidates. “Adeline,” he said, “was clearly the standout.”
Lawson said Druart’s philosophy aligned with what drives Lawson’s. He said she has experience in leading a founder-run company that grows into something much larger, understands a business centered on consumer-package goods, and worked with a world-class product at a company with a reputation for an “outstanding people culture.”
While Druart helped transition Vermont Creamery to corporate ownership, Lawson anticipates no such move for his company. “We built the business to thrive,” he said, “not to sell.”
The move from a cheesemaker to a beer maker even keeps Druart in the field of fermentation. “The science and craft,” she said, “comes together."
‘Good culture of diversity’
Druart is the rare yet increasingly common woman in leadership in the brewing world. The Vermont Brewers Association has three women – president Kara Pawlusiak of Simple Roots Brewing in Burlington; secretary Heather Kraemer of Kraemer & Kin in Alburgh; and treasurer Nina Hurley of Good Measure Pub & Brewery in Northfield – in its four executive positions. The Pink Boots Society, a professional organization that encourages women in the field of brewing, began a Vermont chapter in 2022 and this month brewed a double IPA called Brewtifully Bold in conjunction with Lawson’s.
Just over half of the staff at Lawson’s is female. “We have a great culture of diversity,” according to Druart.
She said only about 10% of the top 50 craft brewers in the U.S. have female CEOs. Druart values her new role for that reason and because it represents the socially driven way of doing business that Lawson’s aims for.
“If you want to be a brand that speaks to diversity,” Druart said, “you have to represent the consumer landscape that you want to talk to.”
Reaching a more diverse audience is part of Lawson’s plan to thrive in the otherwise flat craft-brewing industry. Lawson said the growth of breweries has been immense – the number climbed from 1,500 when he began more than 15 years ago to more than 10,000 – but the COVID-19 pandemic and increased popularity in canned spirits and flavored malt beverages competing for “share of stomach” has cut into that once-thriving craft-beer industry.
“There are so many options that it’s overwhelming,” according to Druart.
Last year, Lawson’s began selling its flagship Sip of Sunshine IPA in 19.2-ounce cans and introduced a new IPA called Hazy Rays. Lawson’s increased its distribution, and its products can be found in nine states. Druart said the company will continue to grow in areas where it belongs and not just chase “shiny new innovation.”
Druart said the company wants to make sure consumers know they are drinking good beer they can feel good about. Lawson’s has a equity/inclusion/diversity board that continually reviews company policies. The brewery will continue to talk with customers about how Lawson’s values align with their own – that the sustainability of a brewery completely powered by solar energy fits the lifestyles of many of those who drink Lawson’s products.
“We know who we are,” Druart said. “The brand is really strong since day one.”
As the company’s new CEO, Druart plans to make sure the brand stays strong as the craft-beer industry lurches into an uncertain era. She evoked the name of Lawson’s signature brew in expressing her view of Lawson’s as it heads into the future.
“We are the sunshine story in a changing environment,” Druart said.
If you go
WHAT: Lawson’s Finest Liquids taproom/restaurant
WHEN: Noon-7 p.m. Monday-Wednesday; noon-8 p.m. Thursday; 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Friday-Saturday; 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Sunday
WHERE: 155 Carroll Road, Waitsfield
INFORMATION: (802) 496-4677 www.lawsonsfinest.com
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com.
This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Lawson's Finest Liquids in Waitsfield VT named brewery of the year
