Firestone Walker
Brewing Company
| Website | firestonewalker.com / 805beer.com |
| HQ | Paso Robles, CA; Buellton, CA; Venice, CA |
| Industry | Craft Brewing / Alcoholic Beverages |
| Parent Company | Duvel Moortgat (Belgium), majority stake since 2015 |
| CEO | Nick Firestone (since July 2020) |
| CMO | Dustin Hinz |
| Chief Sales Officer | Tony Amaral |
| Brand Director | Hannah Barnett |
Growth Stage Assessment
California's 2nd-largest craft brewery at 500K+ barrels, backed by Duvel Moortgat. In active brand-expansion mode (Mind Haze Rage, Cali Squeeze, 805 extensions) while deliberately avoiding "rotation nation." Core challenge: expanding nationally from a California-dominant base where 75% of volume is consumed.
LinkedIn Content Themes
Verified Current / Recent Hiring Activity
| Role | Location | Signal |
|---|---|---|
| Social Media Manager | Venice, CA | $80K to $100K · Marketing |
| Manager of Shopper Marketing | Not specified | ROI systems · Retail/DTC/E-comm |
| Social Media & Content Strategist | Los Angeles, CA | Multi-brand · SEO · Analytics |
| Territory Sales Mgr, Nevada | Paso Robles, CA | Geographic expansion |
| Market Manager, LA County | Burbank, CA | Market-level sales |
| Sales Brand Ambassador | St. Louis, MO | New market penetration |
| General Manager, Venice | Marina Del Rey, CA | Taproom + brew store |
| Senior Controls Technician | Paso Robles, CA | Brewery automation |
Hiring Signal Flags
Shopper Marketing hire manages paid channels, Meta advertising, e-commerce, consumer promotions. Social Media Manager ($80 to $100K) for multi-brand content.
Shopper Marketing role includes building "pre and post-ROI systems for all executed shopper marketing programs." Social Media Strategist requires Google Analytics, marketing analytics.
Sales Brand Ambassador hiring in St. Louis, MO. Territory Sales Manager for Nevada. Growing presence in new markets outside California.
Brewmaster's Collective beer club ($399/yr DTC membership). Shopper Marketing role spans DTC and e-comm delivery channels.
Social Media & Content Strategist role explicitly requires SEO expertise alongside analytics. This signals an intent to grow organic visibility, but SEO in isolation creates a familiar problem: more traffic arriving at a funnel that isn't optimized to convert it. The brands investing in SEO and lifecycle infrastructure simultaneously are the ones that see compounding returns.
Recurring Positive Themes
Areas for Awareness
| Theme | Frequency | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Limited career growth | Recurring | "Very little upward mobility. I would consider this a stepping stone job." |
| Production vs. office divide | Recurring | "If you work in an office, you're well taken care of... If you work in production, you're just low paid." |
| Inter-department friction | Moderate | "Typical drama between departments." |
| Communication issues | Moderate | "Some managers have problems effectively communicating." |
| Brand outside California | Notable | "Brand doesn't resonate well outside of California." |
| Compensation (production) | Recurring | "Brewers aren't paid very well." / "Raises are minuscule." |
| Temp worker reliance | Moderate | "Too many temp workers in semi-skilled positions." |
| Work-life balance (sales) | Moderate | "They expect you out there 60 hours a week." |
Production Data
805 Beer accounts for ~80% of total output. A strong foundation with significant opportunity to grow the broader portfolio's share of volume.
Ownership & Funding
Brand Portfolio
805 Beer
Mind Haze
Cali-Squeeze
Firestone
Barrel-Aged
Confirmed Channel Mix
Observed Signals (Evidence-Based)
Where We Come In
Firestone Walker is executing its most ambitious multi-platform media investment ever: national campaigns across ESPN, Hulu, Meta, OOH, and WSL, while simultaneously expanding into new markets and launching new products across 4 brand families.
This is exactly the stage where the right measurement and testing infrastructure makes the difference between media spend that drives growth and media spend that drives impressions. As investment scales across this many platforms, brands, and geographies, having a unified system to track what's working becomes essential.
COA specializes in building that system: connecting paid investment across 5+ platforms and 4 brand families to actual purchase behavior, market by market, brand by brand.
Firestone Walker is hiring for SEO, social, shopper marketing, and sales expansion simultaneously. Each of these is the right move individually, but without a connected system, they create silos: SEO drives traffic that isn't captured by lifecycle flows, social builds awareness that isn't retargeted, and shopper marketing runs promotions without attribution back to brand spend. Fixing one channel without fixing the others means paying to fill a leaky bucket. COA's value is connecting all of these into a single system where every channel reinforces the others and every dollar is traceable to an outcome.
COA helps craft beverage brands at this stage (scaling national media with a multi-brand portfolio) build the measurement and testing infrastructure that connects paid investment to actual purchase behavior. Not more campaigns. A system that shows which spend is driving which brand, in which market, to which customer.
Proof of Concept: Gatorade
Confirmed Meta / Paid Social Activity
Observable Creative Patterns
With 4 brand families running across Meta, maintaining fresh creative at scale is critical. Frequency and creative refresh rates directly impact CPMs and engagement. COA's structured testing programs ensure each brand maintains a steady pipeline of high-performing creative, keeping audiences engaged and costs efficient.
Based on our analysis, we've identified four high-impact areas where COA will drive measurable results: unified cross-platform measurement, structured creative testing across all brand families, geographic media alignment, and DTC growth. Here's the plan.
Build a Unified Cross-Platform Measurement Framework
COA will deploy a unified attribution model that connects ESPN/Hulu brand spend to Meta performance to retail sell-through to DTC conversion across all 4 brand families. The framework will be structured by brand family and geography so every dollar maps to a market and a product, giving leadership clear visibility into what's driving results.
Launch a Meta Creative Testing Program by Brand Family
COA will stand up structured creative testing across 805, Mind Haze, Cali-Squeeze, and Firestone: separate test matrices per brand with distinct audience segments (California core vs. expansion markets, Millennial/Gen Z for Mind Haze Rage, Hispanic consumers for Mind Haze). We'll maintain a minimum of 3 to 5 new concepts per brand per month to keep creative fresh and performance strong.
Align National Media Spend to Distribution Footprint
COA will audit the "Long Live Cold Beer" campaign's media mix against actual 805 distribution (currently 16 states) and Cali-Squeeze footprint (45% of 805's reach). We'll identify where impressions can be better allocated to match retail availability and build a market-tier model: Tier 1 (California core), Tier 2 (expansion markets like NV, MO), Tier 3 (awareness-only).
Build a DTC Growth Engine for Brewmaster's Collective
COA will build a dedicated acquisition and retention program for the Brewmaster's Collective ($399/yr) and webstore. This includes: Meta/Google prospecting campaigns targeting high-intent craft beer buyers, retargeting from 805 Films and Beer Talk video viewers, and email/SMS lifecycle programs to grow club membership and increase repeat purchases.
Deliver a Monthly Brand-Level Performance Dashboard
COA will create a unified dashboard for leadership showing: per-brand media spend, per-brand acquisition costs, per-market sell-through correlation, creative performance indicators (frequency, CTR trends), and DTC membership pipeline. One view that answers "which brand is working, where, and why," updated monthly with clear recommendations.
Embedded Partnership: COA as a Force Multiplier
COA will operate as an extension of the Firestone Walker marketing team, not a separate vendor. We'll onboard alongside new hires, integrate into existing workflows, and ensure every deliverable directly supports the team's priorities. Our goal is to amplify the capacity of a talented team by handling the measurement, testing, and optimization infrastructure so they can focus on what they do best: building world-class brands.