During our vacation earlier this year up in the Grand Rapids area, we visited many of the local breweries the city has to offer. Quite possibly the most successful and high profile brewery in the city is Founders Brewing Company. We found out that they had a taproom with a kitchen that featured deli-style sandwiches and hand-tossed pizzas. We decided to head to Founders for lunch one day during our time in Grand Rapids.
It's sort of interesting how I found out about Founders Brewing. My Michigan brewery of choice for a number of years was Bell's Brewery based out of Kalamazoo. About 10 years ago, my wife and I were on a vacation trip to Michigan and it seemed like every place where I tried to order a Bell's Two Hearted American IPA - a staple at bars and restaurants around the Midwest - didn't have it. About the only Bell's beer that we encountered at places in Michigan was the Bell's Oberon Ale wheat beer. However, most places had the Founders Centennial IPA available. At one place, I asked the bartender as to why there seemed to be a dearth of Bell's beer - especially when their brewery was just down the road in Kalamazoo. I was told that Bell's founder Larry Bell could be, well, sort of a prickly individual - only the term the bartender used a much stronger term than that. "A lot of places have just given up trying to work with Bell's," I was told. "The guys at Founders are good guys and they make good beer." I've since sort of migrated over to the Founders All Day IPA which is a lighter version of the Centennial IPA.
The history of Founders Brewing starts with two college buddies who had a common interest in home-brewed beers. While he was in college, Dave Engbers received his first brew kit as a present from his parents. His older brother had already been making homemade wine, beer and mead, and Engbers parents thought that Dave would enjoy brewing his own beer.
Mike Stevens was enamored with the growing culture of west coast craft beers, especially the beers from Sierra Nevada. He set about to try and replicate some of those beers at home. Even though he threw out his first batch of beer, he persevered and little did he know that his hobby would later become his vocation.
Stevens and Engbers met at Hope College in Holland, MI and found their common interest in home brewing beers. Engbers was the one who first proposed having their own craft brewery at some point after some of the west coast craft breweries he was so fond of.
By 1994, both were out of college and started to work on a business plan they could present to banks and other investors for financing for their brewery. By 1997, they had procured approximately $350,000 and were ready to open their brewery.
Pictured right - Mike Stevens and Dave Engbers. Photo courtesy Craft Brewing Business.
Coming up with a name was the next thing to do. Initially, they were going to call their brewery Canal Street Brewing Company as a homage to the street where the bulk of Grand Rapids breweries were located before Prohibition. In the process of doing background work on the history of Grand Rapids breweries, the two found a picture of four men who were owners of breweries back in the 1880's. Above the four men was the term "Founders" which meant those gentlemen were the founders of the breweries. Steven and Engbers used that picture on their early bottles they had brewed. Some of their early customers started to refer to their beer as "Founders". Both Engbers and Stevens figured out that was probably a better name than Canal Street Brewing Company.
The first Founders brewery was a 9800-square foot building known as the Brass Works Building on Monroe Street in Grand Rapids. (Monroe Street was originally called Canal Street before the turn of the 20th century.) By 1998, Founders opened their first tap room serving beers to the public. Because they were on a shoestring budget from under-capitalization, Engbers and Stevens were the brewers, bartenders, bar managers and owners.
Founders beers weren't exactly setting the world on fire. By 1999, the co-owners had fallen behind on financial payments and at one point their only income was from the tips they were receiving working at the bar. But it soon became evident that the two were going deeper and deeper into the hole.
By 2001, they were far behind with payments to the bank and they were behind in rent to their landlord. Plus they were 8 months behind in paying state taxes. One day, they got a certified letter from their bank saying they had 6 days to make up the payments of which they were in arrears. Their landlord caught wind of it and immediately demanded payment or he would lock up the building with a chain and lock. Really down on their luck and not thinking straight, Engbers went out and bought a large bolt cutter that he thought they would have to use if their landlord or the bank locked them out.
Instead of having to use the bolt cutters, Stevens and Engbers started to canvas other potential investors around the area to see if someone would help them get out of their dire situation. One of those potential investors was Grand Rapids area philanthropist Peter Cook. During their meeting, Cook gave no indication that he was interested in investing in their brewery. But he did give them this advice, "Look forward to the future and not backwards at the disaster."
After leaving their meeting with Cook, Stevens and Engbers were all but sure they would be forced into bankruptcy. They went back to their taproom to have a "come-to-Jesus" realization meeting with themselves. They realized the beers they were making were bland and they didn't even really like them at all. They started to talk about the beers they wanted to make at some point, not knowing if the bank would be showing up in the next couple days to serve papers on them.
However, the next day they got a call from their bank. Peter Cook had made a phone call and guaranteed the bank loan and authorized a line of credit for more financial help for Steven and Engbers. Other investors stepped forward to help pay off other debts the brewery had accumulated. That was the impetus the duo needed to continue on with their venture.
Engbers and Stevens then fired their head brewer at the time and brought in a new team that included Jeremy Kosmicki. With Kosmicki's vision, Founders dumped their boring beers and came up with some exciting beers such as the aforementioned Centennial IPA, the Kentucky Bourbon Stout - commonly known as KBS - that was aged in bourbon casks, and the Dirty Bastard Scotch ale that became Founders signature beer.
As Founders Brewing Co. grew, they continued to lose money. Distribution problems, mounting costs and the lack of a proficient space to brew their beers was the biggest problem. Their original location could only produce approximately 5000 barrels of beer annually. A larger place would allow them to produce more beer and to one day pursue national distribution.
In 2006, Engbers and Stevens found a building that was an old trucking warehouse on Grandville Ave. SE just south of downtown Grand Rapids. The 27,000-square foot terminal had closed in 1991 and had sat vacant since then. They were able to renovate it into a brewery and they moved into their larger facility in 2007. The brewery was soon producing 11,000 barrels annually and was growing exponentially over the next few years, finally going into the black and being able to begin to pay back investors and financial institutions. In 2014, Founders announced a $35 million dollar expansion adding another 12,000-square feet to the building that would give them the capacity to produce up to 900,000 barrels of beer on an annual basis. By 2018, Founders was the 14th largest brewery in the United States and was producing over 550,000 barrels of beer annually.
To help finance that expansion in 2014, Stevens and Engbers sold a 30 percent stake in Founders Brewing Co. to Mahou-San Miguel, the largest brewer in Spain. And in 2019, Mahou-San Miguel bought another 60% of the brewery allowing for Engbers and Stevens to stay on as combined 10% share holders in the brewery. The further investment by the Spanish family-owned brewery was designed to take Founders nationwide. In all, it was estimated that Engbers and Stevens were paid over $295 million dollars for their controlling stakes in Founders Brewing Co. Not too bad for a couple guys who were hours away from bankruptcy just 20 years ago!
Founders Brewing Company is located between the Grand River and the US 131 freeway that winds north south through Grand Rapids. (see map) Parking is sort of limited in the area, but we found a parking spot on the north side of the brewery along Williams Street SW.
As we went to the front door of the public entrance to Founders Brewing, we found their beer garden to the left. It was a good sized open air space with benches, picnic tables and outdoor heaters for cooler days and evenings. It was a brilliant sun-shiny day when we were there and we sort of contemplated about sitting outside for a moment.
On the far end of the beer garden was a full functioning bar with high-top tables and heaters hanging from the ceiling. It was open on the sides, but it appeared that there were plastic screens that could be rolled down to continue to make it a functional space even on cold or rainy days.
The main area of Founders Brewing Company features the original beer hall. Heavy on wood accents, the main hall has a stage at one end for live music events. Garage doors that can be opened to the beer garden are part of the beer hall with a long ornate bar opposite the garage doors.
We took a seat in the middle of the beer hall and were given a couple food menus and beer menus to look over. It wasn't long before our server, a 30-something guy by the name of John, came over to greet us. It turned out that John had worked in the kitchen at Founders Brewing for 5 years before he grew tired of being in the back and wanted to interact with people out front. Before he started at Founders, he told us he was a pastry chef. "But, man, the 3 a.m. work calls got to be too much after awhile," he said. John gave us a few minutes to get settled in as we checked out the lengthy list of beers they had to offer in the tap room.
It turned out that John was very helpful in trying to figure out which beers to try at Founders. They have three different classes of beers at Founders - Class 1 features some of their well-known beers as well as some seasonal beers. Class 2 beers are the more eclectic beers including their nitro-based beers and fruit-based beers including their Rubaeus pure raspberry beer. Pints were $6.50 each for the Class 2 beers while Class 1 beers were $5.50 a pint.
Class 3 was the upper echelon of beers available at Founders. These were generally the highest in alcohol content (ABV) and featured some of their barrel-aged stouts. An 8-ounce glass of these ales ran $7.25 each. In all, Founders featured 10 beers available that day that weren't available outside of their taproom.
As we were looking over the menus, John came back to our table with two small glasses of their Kentucky Barrel Stout infused with cinnamon, vanilla and cocoa. "It's sort of our breakfast stout," John told us. It was complex in its flavor, but we decided that it wasn't for us.
John was asking what we liked in beers and we both said we like the IPA's or hazy IPA's. "I don't want to try an All Day IPA because I can get that anywhere," I said. John said that most people don't get their mainstream beers in the taproom because of the large list of other beers that are available.
We decided to get a flight of beers to start out with and John was very knowledgeable in the differences between some of their IPA's. We settled on four beers the Red's Rye IPA, the Unrivaled IPA, the Hello Jane IPA, and a special IPA - Ales for ALS where the proceeds of the beer's sales went to the ALS Association earmarked for research.
John brought out the flight of beers we'd ordered up and he brought along another one that he said he really liked - the Scarlet Dawn IPA. Red's Rye IPA was a little too much of a whiskey taste for me. The Unrivaled IPA was smooth, as was the Hello Jane, but just a bit more hoppy in taste. The Scarlet Red was all right - it was basically a combination of a red ale and a session IPA. I'm afraid that it really didn't trip my trigger and I apologized to John for that. "No problem," he said. "It just happens to be my favorite beer right now and thought you might like to try it."
However, the Ales for ALS was my clear favorite. This had a bit higher ABV (7.1%) than the other IPA's we had tried and it had a wonderful flavor. My wife thought it was a bit too forward, but she liked the Hello Jane IPA as it was sort of in between the Ales for ALS and the Unrivaled. I got a pint of the Ales for ALS and my wife got a pint of the Hello Jane.
The menu at Founders Brewing featured a number of appetizers such as chips and guacamole or chips and salsa, a Bavarian-style pretzel, bourbon-barrel smoked chicken wings and a beer cheese dip that was made with smoked Gouda, cream cheese, chopped fresh garlic, red peppers, spinach, all blended with a combination of their Centennial IPA and the Red's Rye IPA. The beer cheese dip comes with seasoned crostini and tortilla chips.
14" hand-tossed pizzas were part of the menu as well as a handful of salads. But deli-style sandwiches were the main items on the menu. The "Devil Dancer" featured roasted chicken, Muenster and pepper-jack cheeses, jalapeños, banana peppers with a chipotle mayo. The "Backwoods Bastard" featured barbecued pulled-pork, Colby Jack cheese, house-made cole slaw and a house-made barbecue sauce. They had their own rendition of a Philly cheesesteak sandwich at Founders, as well as a ham and cheese sandwich made with cheddar and Swiss cheese with Founders Dirty Bastard stone ground mustard.
John must have come over three or four times while we were trying to figure out what we wanted to order for lunch. It really shouldn't have been that big of a problem, but we were just sort of taking our time trying to figure out what to order. After the third time John came back and we weren't ready, I began to apologize profusely. "No problem," John said. "Take your time. I'm not going anywhere."
My wife was sort of torn between a couple things - she thought about getting the turkey reuben on sourdough bread, but ended up getting the "Blushing Monk". It consisted of cranberry/chicken salad topped with provolone and smoked Gouda cheese, finished off with lettuce, tomatoes and red onions on a Mexican-style telera roll. She got a half and she was glad she did because it was huge on its own. She got a side of their house-made cole slaw. She really enjoyed the sandwich, but she thought the cole slaw was just all right.
I had the same problem figuring out what I wanted. They had a smoked-pork Cuban sandwich, as well as a smoked pastrami on Polish rye. But John talked me into the reuben sandwich - "Rubin's Reuben". It featured thin-sliced house-made corned beef with sauerkraut cooked in Dirty Bastard beer. It was topped with Swiss cheese, 1000 Island dressing and served on Polish Rye. It was excellent. Once again John didn't steer us wrong.
After we finished up our lunch and paid the bill, we took a little look around the rest of the tap room. The addition that was built back in 2013 added a separate tap room next to the gift shop and the office area. There was a separate bar in there and was a bit more cozy than the main tap room.
Part of the secondary tap room had a display of Founders memorabilia through the years. There were old bottles, photographs, and other items they had accumulated since Founders started nearly 25 years ago. It was sort of neat to see some of the awards they had won for their beers over the years.
While there are a large number of great little craft breweries in Grand Rapids, a trip to the area can't really be complete without a visit to Founders Brewing Company. There are some locals in Grand Rapids who we talked to about Founders who felt that Mike Stevens and Dave Engbers literally sold out the craft beer movement when they gave up majority interest in Founders Brewing. But I look at it as a way to preserve their legacy from taking their little two man operation that was on the verge of insolvency 20 years ago and making it into one of the largest breweries in the United States. The Founders Brewing tap room was a great place to relax and have some of their special beers that are not available elsewhere, and to nosh on some pretty good sandwiches. We can't say enough about the service we had from John who was friendly, helpful, knowledgable, patient, and had a great sense of humor. Founders Brewing Company wasn't even our favorite brewery that we visited during our trip to western Michigan, but we realized that it was good to go pay homage to one of the pioneers of the craft beer movement in Grand Rapids.
