Founders on firm foundations
While the latest edition was still at the printer’s, we took a quick look inside: in the 2/16 magazine. And it was well worthwhile! We don’t want to post any spoilers here, but nor did we want to keep what we saw all to ourselves either. For instance, there’s an article about Founders, which we found fascinating. We’re reporting the salient facts about it here already, and there’ll be more about it in the next magazine.
“Brewed for us”: with this rededication to its own corporate values, Founders Brewing has soared into the Top 20 of the USA’s craft breweries – and (of course) with its beers as well, whose popularity seems boundless. Now, at its facility in the city centre of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Founders has tripled its capacity to 900,000 barrels (around one million hectolitres) – and thus, as it were, built a second brewery into the existing one.
Actually, the history of Founders dates back to 1997. The co-founders Mike Stevens und Dave Engbers, had opened a small pub brewery here in Grand Rapids, not far from Lake Michigan. But it was not a great success, and teetered on the edge of bankruptcy several times. One of the reasons was that the beers were too ordinary; back then, more or less every small craft brewery was offering an Amber Ale. Founders was thus only one among many. But the initiatives adopted in the year 2000 triggered a turnaround: it was then that Founders decided, under the motto of “brewed for us”, to produce only beers to the personal tastes of the proprietors, ones they could passionately identify with. “Our commitment to the idea of ‘brewed for us’ is a daily reminder for us to do only what we really want to do. And I believe that our beer consumers, too, appreciate this passion and the flavour experiences we create,” avers Brad Stevenson, Chief Production Officer. In the next seven years, the output rose continuously from 1,600 barrels (around 1,900 hectolitres) to a rather impressive 6,000 barrels (around 7,000 hectolitres). So it was time for the first wave of expansion: Founders bought a building right in the city centre, where they installed a small demonstration brewhouse with an output of 35 hectolitres, which could be viewed from a generously dimensioned taproom.
Well, are you curious? Then you should request the magazine right here, so as not to miss out on a single issue in the future.
