Local Buyer Purchases Charlotte’s Petty Thieves Brewing, Promises Continuity and Growth

Petty Thieves Brewing Co., the eclectic taproom at 413 Dalton Ave. just outside uptown Charlotte, has been sold to local buyer Brian Kletch, a company news release cited by The Charlotte Observer said, and the business “will remain in operation without any closures or interruptions in production.” The release named Kletch and the handoff is set for the beginning of March, with some reports pinpointing March 1 for the takeover.

Aaron Gore, a Fort Mill resident who serves as vice president of the American Craft Beer Hall of Fame, confirmed he assisted the buyer in the transaction and said he has known the sellers for years. Gore declined to disclose the sales price, the Observer reported, and local coverage noted his experience with Beer30 and craft-beer advocacy initiatives that helped guide the handoff to a first-time brewery owner.

Kletch was described in the company release as a corporate veteran with more than 20 years of experience; the release quoted him saying, “I wanted to take my business knowledge and love of people and employees in a new direction.” Media summaries carried that line and emphasized that the new owner is local and new to the brewing industry, signaling an operator-change focused on continuity rather than an immediate rebrand.

Founders Ted Rosenau and Greg Calabria started Petty Thieves during the pandemic; Rosenau initially declined to confirm the sale when contacted but told the Observer he sold for his “personal well-being due to the constant pressures of running a small business in a still-emerging area of Charlotte.” The founders leave behind a taproom known to regulars for a rotating tap list, steady live music, and a packed calendar of local events.

The taproom sits inside The Shop, a renovated industrial building about a mile south of Camp North End, and is noted for thrifted finds, worn leather couches, reclaimed wood, vintage framed prints and a concealed hidden room behind a rotating bookcase. Petty Thieves’ beer program has mixed German, Czech and West Coast-style beers, and the North Carolina Craft Brewers Guild has called the brewery a “hidden gem.”

Coverage from Hoodline, The Charlotte Observer, WSOC and syndicated outlets like Yahoo converged on the same core facts but left some transactional details open: Gore and the company release declined to disclose the sales price, and neither staffing plans nor recipe or management changes were detailed in the release. Kletch’s early-March assumption of control will be the first sign of how much the tap list, live-music calendar and neighborhood feel change under new ownership.