Founders Brewing Company in Grand Rapids, MI has a story of guts, risk and a fierce commitment to staying true to itself. As the tale goes, a few years after co-founders Mike Stevens and Dave Engbers opened the brewery, they were on the verge of bankruptcy. As Dave Engbers likes to put it, “when we started, we brewed well-balanced, unremarkable beers. We were brewing the same things as everyone else.”
It eventually got so bad that Mike Stevens recalls getting a phone call from their loan officer warning them of the lock that would be placed on the brewery’s door that coming Monday. That’s when they knew something had to change. They told themselves “if we’re going to go out of business it might as well be on our own terms. Let’s make the beer we want to drink.” This new commitment brewing beer for themselves produced Dirty Bastard, Curmudgeon Old Ale, Kentucky Breakfast Stout and other genre-defining, big, bold, strong, flavorful beers. It wasn’t long before the public took notice. Now, a little over a decade later, Founders Brewing Co. is preparing for a year producing over 200,000 barrels of beer… all while continuing to push the envelope.
To get a better feel for what makes Founders, Founders, we sat down with one of Founders’ Co-Founders, Dave Engbers.
Lakeshore Beverage: I like to start most of our interview asking people about their personal craft beer journeys. What originally sparked your passion for better beer, and how did that bring you to where you are now?
Dave Engbers: I’m the fourth of four kids. One spring break I went to visit my oldest brother who’s about 10 years older then me. By that point, I had already started to steal beer off my parent’s back porch and started playing around with some of that stuff, being mischievous — a typical kid. When I got out there my brother asked me, “Do you smoke, and do you drink?” And then he introduced me to craft beer. We went to the store, got some Mendocino Red Pale Ale, and I had no idea that beer could taste like that. That was the sip that changed my world. That was my epiphany. It had flavor, it had malt characteristics, so when I came back to Michigan I started experimenting a little bit with other types of beer. By the time I was in college, I had the opportunity to go to Europe and drink beer from Germany, France, Belgium, and just expand my palate a little bit.
That was the sip that changed my world. That was my epiphany.
Lakeshore Beverage: What got you from that original “beer epiphany” to starting your own craft brewery?
Dave Engbers: What I really loved about beer during my time in Europe was how it was such a social beverage, something that brought people together. In Europe it was completely different from how we do things in the United States. In the U.S., beer was kind of shoved down consumers throats, especially during the advertising blitz of the 70’s and 80’s. In Europe, it’s part of everyday life. When I was in college, my partner Mike Stevens and I met, and we had one of those “what do we do when we get out of here” conversations. Everyone kept telling us, “do what you like, do what you like.” Mike was from Grand Rapids and we were both avid homebrewers, so we started this idea to open brewpubs. We thought, what if we could open up a brewery in our home town? If we could get a paycheck making beer, that’d be pretty freaking cool. When we started, we brewed well-balanced, unremarkable beers. We quickly realized that our packaging was lackluster, and we were brewing the same things — pale ales, amber ales — as everyone else. Things weren’t going well.
Lakeshore Beverage: So what changed that? What caused you to make a change?
Dave Engbers: Our business model was not working, we were losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. As Mike always says, we didn’t have any choice, we had to make it work. If we didn’t make it work we would term out our loans, owe millions of dollars. So we decided that if we were going to go out of business it might as well be on our own terms. I went to the web, pulled up the beer style guidelines, and said we have to do something different. We narrowed it down to 3 or 4 styles. We need a scotch ale, malty, big bodied, lots of flavor… and we called it Dirty Bastard.
Dirty Bastard was kind of our Hail Mary, our last shot.
Dirty Bastard was kind of our Hail Mary, our last shot and it struck a chord with people. This was also around 2000, so all of a sudden there are beer bloggers, BeerAdvocate and RateBeer and we could go straight to consumers, engage them. We had a voice. We were going to make the beers that we wanted to drink. So our beers got bigger, fuller, more complex.
Lakeshore Beverage: At what point did you start to get the feeling that this philosophy shift was working?
Dave Engbers: The philosophy shift was 2001, 2002… and by 2006 we were honing our craft. We were invited to the Extreme Beer Fest. I don’t think we realized how unique we were until we showed up to this little beer festival in Boston. It’s invite only, about 30 breweries and we were there with Stone, Dogfish, and Sam Adams, Smutty Nose, Harpoon, Russian River, Lost Abbey…. these were the guys we read about in All About Beer. And suddenly we’re these little guys no one’s ever heard of. After the first session, our line literally went all the way across the room.
Lakeshore Beverage: At what point in this philosophy shift did the now famous Kentucky Breakfast Stout come about?
Dave Engbers: As this new philosophy evolves, about a year into it Kentucky Breakfast Stout comes out. We were basically saying there are no rules anymore. I don’t know if any other breweries at the time had put barrel-aged beer in a package and sent it out to market. We started experimenting with a rye malt, and introduced a rye series. It created a culture here at Founders of doing things our own way. We didn’t do it with our noses in the air, we did it like “hey, we’re going to do this together.” As we continued to evolve, the beers got bigger, and better, and we just ran out of space at our first location. That was a big leap of faith.
It created a culture here at Founders of doing things our own way. We didn’t do it with our noses in the air, we did it like “hey, we’re going to do this together.”
Lakeshore Beverage: Why should Chicagoans come out here to Founders? What’s special about this place that needs to be experienced in person?
Dave Engbers: Well first, we have a unique experience. You get to see the brewers, the cellar folks, the packaging team — we have something really unique here. I like to say, at the end of the shift, they stay here to hang out with their friends — it’s really become an extended family. Another great reason is that our tap room has become our playground, our focus group. We’re constantly developing new brands, new flavor profiles, at the taproom you get to taste them firsthand. It might have a new name, but it might be released two, three, four years down the room. Our customers are kind of the guinea pigs.
Lakeshore Beverage: Can you give me an example of a beer that made the journey from taproom to package?
Dave Engbers: Red’s Rye. It was originally called Rye-PA, because it uses rye malt in an IPA. There came a point where we were making decisions and we went around the table, and were like, “who drinks Amber?” And people were like “yuck, I hate it.” So were like “ok, 86’d… who drinks Rye-PA?” And everyone raised their hands. We used to make decisions quick like that, we didn’t have anyone saying “this is what you need to do” so we’d sit around, have a few beers and make decisions.
Lakeshore Beverage: What do you think the future looks like for Founders? What are you excited about over the next year, five years, 10 years?
Dave Engbers: I think the future is bright. The question on our minds is is, how do we go from a regional brewery to a national player? I think given the quality of the products we have, and the respect for the process we have, we’ll be able to do that.
Lakeshore Beverage: What would you say to people who want to open businesses, whether that’s a brewery, bottle shop, or something outside of the beer business entirely?
Dave Engbers: Be the best at whatever it is you do. When I talk to college students who want to open restaurants, I tell them that it’s about operating the best business you can… it doesn’t have to be a 5-star restaurant, it can be a greasy spoon — but be the absolute best greasy spoon available. The other thing I tell them is not to take short cuts, hire smart people, and know your limitations. There are things I’m good at and there are things that my business partner Mike is good at, but we all have limitations. When you realize that and have that humility to look to someone else’s strengths, you’re able to move that needle that much further. With Mike and I, we don’t always agree. We have the same vision but different ideas of how to get there. If we didn’t challenge each other things would have gone south a long time ago.
Want to read more about Founder Brewing co? Check out this post for more about our trip to the brewery! Subscribe to our email newsletter list below to be notified of our posts: