Smuttynose Brewing Company

Peter Egelston founded Smuttynose in 1994 and expanded it into a regional brewery with a restaurant and real estate holdings. He lost control of the company in early 2018 when it was sold at a foreclosure auction to Provident Bank, which then sold the brand and operations to Runnymede Investments. Egelston's Portsmouth restaurant group, including the Black Trumpet, continued to operate separately after the sale.

Smuttynose Brewing Company has been owned by Runnymede Investments, a private equity firm based in New Hampshire, since 2018. Runnymede, led by Peter B. Smith, acquired the brand, brewing operations, and the Hayseed restaurant property after a foreclosure auction conducted by Provident Bank.

The original real estate portfolio under founder Peter Egelston centered on a 14-acre brewing campus on Towle Farm Road in Hampton, New Hampshire, built in 2014. The campus housed the production brewery, a barrel-aging facility, and a farm-to-table restaurant called Hayseed. The property was subdivided and sold through a foreclosure process in 2018, with Runnymede Investments ultimately acquiring the brewing facility and the restaurant parcel.

No. Smuttynose Brewing Company is no longer controlled by founder Peter Egelston. The 2018 foreclosure sale ended his direct involvement with the brewery. Egelston retained his separate restaurant group in Portsmouth, but Smuttynose itself became an operating company under a private equity owner, not a family-office structure.

Smuttynose financed the construction of its Hampton brewing campus with significant bank debt. By early 2018, the company had defaulted on these loans, leading Provident Bank to foreclose. The craft beer market had also experienced slowing growth and increasing competition, which pressured revenue at a time when the company was carrying heavy capital costs tied to its real estate assets.