Business

All Day IPA: Founders Brewing Opens Monday in Midtown

November 29, 2017, 8:34 AM by  Allan Lengel

Founders Brewing Co., based in Grand Rapids, will open a taproom at 456 Charlotte in Detroit's Midtown on Monday at 3 p.m.

The 14,000-square-building, constructed in 1937, previously housed the Cass Corridor Food Co-op. It's near three other craft brewers -- HopCat, Jolly Pumpkin and Detroit’s oldest continuously operating brewery, Motor City Brewing Works.

It's the first new location in the company's 20 years -- a move that sends Food & Wine magazine into frothy excess. The taporoom is "in an up-and-coming Midtown neighborhood called South Cass, which began boosting the city’s revitalization efforts in 2013," writes New Jersey freelancer Tara Nurin.

The hyperbole overflows as she predicts "many a 'beer-cationer' [will] hop onto planes, trains and automobiles to visit Founders and Detroit’s impending critical mass of beer destinations." Tuesday's article adds:

Hopes are high for Founders to bring its mojo to the Motor City.

Founders' website tells its story: 

Mike Stevens and Dave Engbers both had steady jobs when they decided to chase their dreams and open a brewery–which meant writing a business plan, quitting their jobs, and taking out giant loans. They figured if you’re going to live life, you ought to live it hard, without regrets.

After some initial challenges, due to making well balanced but unremarkable beers, we were on the verge of bankruptcy. It was at this point that the original Founders team decided to brew the kind of beer that got them excited about brewing in the first place: complex, in-your-face ales, with huge aromatics, bigger body, and tons of flavor.

The Founders Family, a group of passionate beer enthusiasts, has grown around this simple philosophy: “We don’t brew beer for the masses. Instead, our beers are crafted for a chosen few, a small cadre of renegades and rebels who enjoy a beer that pushes the limits of what is commonly accepted as taste. In short, we make beer for people like us.”

We at Founders Brewing Co. have been lucky to evolve into one of the highest recognized breweries in the United States. We have been ranked in the top breweries in the world by Ratebeer.com for the last five years, and we have several beers listed in the top one hundred beers of the world on Beeradvocate.com. We’ve won six World Beer Cup medals, four European Beer Star medals and three Great American Beer Festival medals—thirteen medals total across eight different beers.



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