Ohio Eagle Announces Closure? Or They’re Being Bought? Let’s Make Sense Of This.

Written By: The Gnarly Gnome

7/9/25

Ohio Eagle caught me off guard with the announcement that they would be closing down operations, laying off all their employees, and closing the business. Between the headquarters here in West Chester. and their smaller location up in Lima, Ohio – we’re talking about more than 175 employees who (might be) losing their jobs.

Things got even more interesting, though, when the news was followed up with an update that Redwood Capital Investments would be purchasing the company’s assets… that’s interesting for a few different reasons.

Before we get too deep, let’s pull this apart.

About Ohio Eagle

Ohio Eagle was founded back in 2015, when John Saputo purchased long-running Dickerson Distributing, which had been around since the 1930s. What resulted was a company that managed to grow and evolve, eventually operating in 18 different counties across the state of Ohio.

Ohio Eagle carries some great brands. They’ve got everything from the big guys (They carry Anheuser-Busch Products, Constellation, and Yuengling) to some of your favorite small, local brands (Municipal Brew Works, Country Boy, Warped Wing, Sonder, March First, and Alexandria are all in their portfolio). Somehow, they’ve managed to tackle both sides of the beer business well. Keeping both craft drinkers and macro drinkers happy with their favorite beer in hand.

Redwood Capital Investments

Redwood Capital Investments started around 2006. It’s a private investment firm… which in itself isn’t really important to this story (other than private equity always has such a great track record in the beer industry).

Where things get interesting for our topic is when, in 2021, Redwood purchased Heidelberg Distribution. The company is a massive distributor in the area and the purchase was a huge deal when it happened.

I assume you’re putting this together now.

The Deal

All of this is still fresh, and the details of it are still coming out in little bits and pieces. As of today, though, we are getting word that this sale is definitely happening. Redwood is purchasing the assets of Ohio Eagle, closing the company, and, from what we can only assume, pulling their brands into their existing distribution network.

None of this is very shocking. Redwood has also acquired Silver Eagle in Houston and, more recently, Pepin Distributing. These are all moves that appear from the outside as a strategy to expand via major Anheuser-Busch wholesale networks… which, if you remember, is exactly what Ohio Eagle is, too.

What Does This Mean?

The initial reports are that the company was closing and that all the employees were being laid off. Follow-up reports seem to hint that some of the staff might be headed over to Heidelberg as part of the new deal, which would certainly be good news for Heidelberg.

In short, we don’t really know what it means until we’re able to put everything together over time. Until then, we’re mostly speculating.

This could be a rough go for some of the smaller brands, assuming they are picked up by the new distributor. The transition process will be relatively simple for a large brewery, especially those that are already carried by Heidelberg, but for a small craft brewery, any hiccup could be extremely difficult.

The bigger concern is with Heidelberg itself… a distributor that isn’t exactly known as being a haven for craft breweries. Over the last couple of years, things have gotten a little “touch and go” with the distributors’ relationships with some of their retail partners, especially the smaller ones. If I were a small brewery that had been with the wonderful folks at Ohio Eagle and was possibly making the move over to Heidelberg, I don’t think I’d be super excited about it.

What Happens Now?

This is extremely unknown right now; the reports are coming in that employees MIGHT be rehired by Heidelberg, and that the warehouse in West Chester MIGHT stay open. That’s all speculation at this point.

For the smaller brands that are currently being supported by Ohio Eagle, I would assume that a change like this opens both them, as well as the new distributor, up to being able to rework the previous arrangements.

Stay tuned, I’ll keep updating this post as more details become available!