Former brewery CEO: Don’t blame Pretoria Fields downfall on staff

ALBANY — Like many of his former co-workers at Pretoria Fields Brewery, Corey Flegel felt a little ill — and a lot angry — when he read social media posts pointing fingers at employees of the brewery as primary culprits in its demise.

Unlike most of those employees who shared their frustration “off the record,” Flegel, who was the “air-quotes CEO” of the brewery before being unceremoniously fired days before Pretoria Fields was shut down for failure to make loan payments to Southwest Georgia Farm Credit, decided to discuss his concerns in an effort to clear the air about the soap opera that the unraveling of the downtown brewery had become.

“The problem from the beginning was leadership,” Flegel, who with wife Angie has an infant son, Charlie, said. “When you factor out the noise of all this chaos, you realize that we had a very good team working here. It was a great team, and they all felt like they were a part of something special.

“Trust me, there were issues every day with (owner) Tripp and (his father) Harris Morgan, but there were few issues with the employees at the brewery. Everyone tried to make this a cool place for the people who came here looking for a good time.”

Flegel started working at the brewery in 2018 as a sales rep, one of several that sold the brewery’s craft beers to accounts throughout Georgia and other Southeastern states. 

“Initially, I was exempt from the drama because I was out on the road, selling our products,” he said. “I feel like I became kind of the face of the brewery, at least to the customers. It was a product I believed in.”

When COVID hit, the brewery was thrown a significant lifeline when it received a government contract to produce and distribute hand sanitizer. But that too became chaotic, according to Flegel.

“At first, they told us sales reps that we were being furloughed,” he said. “Then, when they got the contract from the government to do the hand sanitizer, it became all hands on deck. But there was all kinds of chaos.

“Tripp and other partners in the business often argued about the process, and despite the hard work of the people who came in to help with the hand sanitizer production, there were all kinds of issues. I remember once when an 18-wheeler pulled up to load a palate of hand sanitizer, the palate had disappeared.”

When he was promoted to CEO, Flegel said he got an inside look at the business of the brewery. He said he was stunned at what he saw.

“The bank was just floating the business,” Flegel said. “I never saw a bill get paid. They just kept getting piled up, higher and higher. But the arrogance never let up. It was like we were always between a rock and a hard place. I kind of figured things would end up the way they did.”

Still, Flegel said the social media posters who have taken shots at the employees got it all wrong. He does admit there were awful hires — people given management responsibility who had no previous experience, leadership personnel who gossiped and undermined attempts to run the establishment properly, cursing employees and even reports of insider theft — but he says Pretoria Fields had a core staff who took pride in the business and worked hard to make it the special place they thought it could be.

“Unfortunately, for Tripp the brewery became like another little shiny thing to add to his collection,” Flegel said. “He never listened to the professionals; he pretty much ignored the people who were hired because they had specific skills. He didn’t listen to anyone.

“Things became a joke. The whole thing became nothing but a playhouse for Tripp and his friends. Believe me, the core employees who worked there, they felt the loss of this really cool place a lot deeper than the people who owned and ran it.”

Special Photo