Todd Haug Set To Join 3 Floyds Brewing After Exit from Surly Brewing

(Munster, IN) – Last week, Surly Brewing announced the departure of head brewer Todd Haug from their team.  With all the changes in the craft beer landscape over the past year, it was sad to hear, but not all that particularly surprising.

Sure, Surly Brewing began marketing Todd a bit in the last few years, sending him to beer events and even releasing an excellent IPA called Todd The Axeman, but still, people come and go in all fields.

This morning, we learned from Mpls.St.Paul Magazine that Todd will be joining world famous 3 Floyds Brewing out of Munster Indiana, and that his split from Surly was not so amicable.  Here is the most telling excerpt from the article at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine.

Does that mean that Todd wasn’t supported at Surly, which he resigned from hours after this year’s cult-beer Darkness release? Yeah, it does. Like everyone in the Twin Cities, I was surprised earlier this year when Linda Haug was let go from Surly, especially since she had sold her successful Cafe Twenty-Eight to join them and help build the food side of the beer hall. But I was more shocked to learn that Todd had no ownership stake, employee-stock, or any other financial incentive to remain at Surly, a brewery that ballooned from a tiny startup to a $35 million dollar destination brewery in the decade that Todd was inventing, brewing, naming, branding, and marketing beers for them. “I’m just a lowly brewmaster,” noted Todd. “They marketed the shit out of me. When I saw what they did to Linda, after she never had a bad performance review or one word of warning, I had to ask, could they do the same thing to me? When Nick heard what happened to Linda, he called her immediately and said, ‘If you guys could work for us, that would be an all-star team of brewers and hospitality people. We could join forces, and have fun doing it.'” Months after that phone call, the Haugs are moving. “When I gave my notice I suddenly got job offers from all over the planet,” says Todd. “But I knew what I wanted to do—to go to Three Floyds.”

While there is another side of the story to be told, from Todd’s side, this sounds unfortunate, but at the same time, very fortunate for Three Floyds.  We wish Todd the best of luck with his new role.

Source: http://mspmag.com/eat-and-drink/foodie/brewer-todd-haug-goes-to-chigolands-three-floyds/