Looks like one of the area's oldest craft beer brands -- Grand Rapids Brewing Company -- will be reborn downtown in a spot that has some microbrewery heritage of its own.
Downtown restaurateur Mark Sellers, who recently purchased the assets of GRBC, told REVUE's Beer Dude Ben Darcie that he plans to reinvent the brand in the Brassworks Building location that formerly housed Founders Brewing. He's targeting an opening in spring 2012. Sellers confirmed the news with REVUE and the Hopcat Facebook page has also posted the news.
Sellers plans on doing beer and authentic barbecue at the new Grand Rapids Brewing Company. While the beer will be brewed in the same equipment used by the former owners of Grand Rapids Brewing Company, the similarities will end there, Sellers said.
"I plan to completely reinvent the brand," he said. "I won’t be using the same recipes for the beers, I won't have anything resembling the food menu. (It's a) new location; it’s not going to be the same at all, except the name and the brewing equipment.
The 118-year-old beer brand has had several incarnations, its most recent was launched in 1993 when the Grand Rapids Brewing Company opened in a location on 28th Street in front of Woodland Mall. That location closed in June when the lease was not renewed. Nearly three months later, it was announced that Sellers had purchased the assets of Grand Rapid Brewing Co.
The full interview with Sellers will appear in the October issue of REVUE, which marks the magazine's first-ever Beer Issue, which will highlight craft brewers throughout the West Michigan region.
