First look inside Founders Brewing Co.'s Detroit taproom

The Founders Brewing Co. taproom opening Monday in Midtown Detroit makes excellent use of its 40 taps.

Beers such as Solid Gold Premium Lager (4.4% alcohol by volume) and bourbon-barrel-aged Sumatra Mountain Brown (11.8% ABV), both of which had been tough to find outside the Founders' Grand Rapids headquarters, were on the well-balanced menu during Friday's media preview. 

At 3 p.m. Monday, Founders will welcome the public to the 14,000-square-foot space at 456 Charlotte Street, which also will offer appetizers, sandwiches and salads. This is the brewing company's first-ever taproom outside Grand Rapids, and it also includes a small, 3-barrel (a beer barrel is 31 gallons) brewing operation for house beers. 

The space is like a smaller version of the Grand Rapids location, with large, garage-style doors separating the interior from a heated patio. The parking is limited, so be prepared to park on the street or elsewhere -- or take a Lyft or Uber.

This marks the 10th brewery taproom in Detroit, up from three in 2013. A surge in craft-beer growth across Michigan, from 131 to 222 breweries between 2013 and 2016, has followed national trends, according to data from the Brewers Association. The association, a nonprofit trade organization, actually no longer defines Founders as a craft brewery since it sold a 30% stake to Spanish company Mahou San Miguel in 2014.

Founders in 2016 was the 16th-largest brewing company in the United States, and its beer is now available in all but four states. Excitement around the Detroit location's opening is high: The 800 mug club memberships sold out within seven hours. 

"The response to our moving here has just been unprecedented," Founders spokeswoman Francesca Jasinski said. 

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The first high-profile bottle release from the new taproom will be Canadian Breakfast Stout, available at two bottles per $50 ticket, with online sales starting at 11 a.m. Saturday. The beers become available for pick-up later this month. More details are on the Founders website. 

The taproom is to employ roughly 100 people. It also includes a "barrel room" with stone-like walls inspired by the underground gypsum mines the brewery uses for bourbon-barrel-aging beers under Grand Rapids. This room includes eight taps and is to eventually be available for private events. 

The in-house brewing operation is expected to produce about 300 barrels per year. On-site brewer Andrew Veenhoven, who already had a pale ale and amber ale fermenting on Friday, said he expects to have about two to three beers on tap at a time. 

Founders was founded in 1997, in Grand Rapids, by Mike Stevens and Dave Engbers. They were making "well balanced but unremarkable beers" and nearly went bankrupt, according to the brewery's website. 

"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," according to the website.  

The Detroit taproom's selections range from light to beastly, from the brewery's best-selling, easy-drinking All Day IPA (4.7% ABV) to the malt-forward, bourbon-barrel-aged Tank Bender (15% ABV) eisbock, and much more. 

Regular hours, starting Dec. 5, at the Founders Detroit taproom will be: 

• Sunday-Wednesday 11am-12am
• Thursday-Saturday 11am-1am

Spirits of Detroit columnist Robert Allen covers craft alcohol for the Free Press. Contact him: rallen@freepress.com or on Untappd, raDetroit; Twitter @rallenMI, and Facebook robertallen.news.