After 16 months as owners of Stock House Brewing, Lori Sommerfeld and brothers Aaron and David Morrill have decided to call it quits. 

In a letter to their investors, the three owners and operators offered to sell their shares in the Wauwatosa business back to investors at a starting price of $100,000. 

According to Aaron, if the minority shareholders decline to purchase the interests by Aug. 31, the company could seek a third party or close. 

While Stock House’s fate is up in the air, it is not because of a lack of success. Instead, the unlikely team of the Morrills and Sommerfeld was able to survive the worst months of COVID-19 and improve the equipment while in charge of the company. Also, they held successful community nights and created a local following for their fruity IPAs. 

But now, they are deciding to call it quits, and their unlikely path to friendship might explain why. 

When the trio bought ownership of the brewery, their existence as a team seemed to come by mere chance. They came from vastly different professional backgrounds: Sommerfeld was a recent doctoral graduate hoping to become an audiologist. David was, and still is, a full-time pharmacist, and Aaron was a mortgage officer looking to change career paths. 

In some ways, COVID-19 helped unite the trio, as fresh off completing her doctorate Sommerfeld was looking for a service industry job while she waited for the world to return to normalcy. This led her to Stock House, where she met David and Aaron, and their friendship blossomed. 

“I have been in the service industry in some capacity for almost 20 years at this point,” said Sommerfeld. “So with everything shut down during COVID, it just felt natural to return back to the service industry, so I started working a couple days a week.”

Before their brewing partnership, the only ones who had experience with the process were brothers David and Aaron, who adopted brewing as a hobby.

“We both liked beer a lot, so in college I got (Aaron) a brewing kit; it was exciting and he made beer with it, but he didn’t really make beer after that,” said David. 

It was only when the brothers returned to brewing after college that they discovered how fulfilling the brewing process was when they used their own malt — which allowed them to make more unique recipes.

After experiencing the process, Aaron was hooked. Soon after, he was hired as the assistant brewer at Stock House Brewing. 

“I started getting a little bit more serious with brewing, and coming to Stock House was a good place for me to come and educate myself,” said Aaron. 

Soon after, the then owners of Stock House expressed their desire to move on, which provided the perfect opportunity for the three to step into an ownership role. 

“David and Aaron were the brains on the brewing side, and I took over the front-of-house and management side — so all three of us just fit together perfectly,” said Sommerfeld. 

For David, Stock House was always about family, choosing to get involved as a way to spend more time with his brother. As he leaves, family guides his decision once again, as he said he wanted to make more time for his family after almost a year and a half of owning a business and working full time as a pharmacist. 

“I have a 3-year-old and an 8-month-old now, and life was just too busy,” he explained.

Also, deciding to sell her ownership, Sommerfeld said, “For me, I just wanted to advance my career in audiology and pursue my next steps as a professional.”

Aaron is the only one who doesn't plan to leave the brewing industry, taking a job as an assistant brewer at the larger Deadbird Brewing in Milwaukee. He sees the move as an opportunity to learn how to perfect his recipes using larger equipment.

But he hasn’t ruled out moving back to Stock House in the future. 

“We (Stock House ownership) always had bigger goals of brewing more beer and possibly breaking into the commercial market, but we just sort of realized that we can’t do that until I go and educate myself in the industry on how to make beer on larger equipment,” said Aaron. 

Now, as each of the three go their separate ways, they will once again just be brothers and close friends. But just as they could have never expected the result that the convergence of their lives would have, they will also never forget the brief moment when their unique differences created a perfect harmony — and good beer too. 

“I don’t want to be too nostalgic,” said David, as he reflected on the experience, “but it truly was the best outcome that you could possibly ask for when you have the opportunity to go into business with your brother and one of your best friends.”

Beck Andrew Salgado can be reached at 512-568-4070 or Bsalgado@Gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Beck_Salgado