Born and raised in L.A. (Lower Arkansas), JB’s affinity for beer developed early. In 1987, he found his way to Colorado and became a partner in the smallest bar in the state, where he ultimately became the first on- premise customer for many early-days craft players.
In 1995, he joined New Belgium Brewing Company where he enjoyed a 13-year career in sales, branding and distribution strategy, as well as, serving on their BOD. He left in 2009 and shortly thereafter started Craftcentric, a consulting firm dedicated to all tiers of the craft beverage space. In 2011, JB joined First Beverage Group as a strategic consultant. Focusing primarily on mergers and acquisitions, he advised many notable crafts such as Boulevard, Firestone Walker, Devils Backbone, Avery, Hop Valley and over a dozen others.
He joined Arlington Capital Advisors in January 2018. When JB joined, Arlington had an impressive list of craft clients of their own, including Dogfish, Stone, Victory, Cigar City and many others. Collectively, they became active globally, completing work with BrewDog and Beavertown in the UK and Bira in India. In 2019, they represented both Dogfish in its sale to Boston Beer and New Belgium with its Lion Kirin partnership.
Arlington and JB continued their successful run in craft beer completing deals for Bells, Sweetwater and, most recently, Montauk. Seeing the diversification coming to bev alc, they also closed a deal between Lone River Ranch Water and Diageo, as well as, recently completing a large capital raise for BeatBox, a leading RTD brand.
Arlington also has a successful restaurant and franchise practice and is quickly expanding into the rapidly morphing world of total beverages: be it alcoholic, non-alcoholic or cannabis based.
He lives in Cedaredge, Colorado with his wife Angie and two boys, Sawyer and Max. He is an avid fly fisherman, hunter, climber and writer.
