Few craft breweries in American history have been as influential as Founders Brewing Company. Mike Stevens and Dave Engbers opened Founders in 1997 on Grandville Avenue in a city that already had some brewing heritage — Grand Rapids had been home to industrial breweries before Prohibition and a modest craft scene in the early 1990s. For the first several years Founders nearly went bankrupt, surviving on determination and a decision to stop making beers they thought the market wanted and start making beers they actually wanted to drink.
That pivot produced Dirty Bastard, an outsized Scotch ale, and then KBS — Kentucky Breakfast Stout — a bourbon barrel-aged stout with coffee and chocolate that became one of the most sought-after and celebrated craft beers in the world. Founders helped establish Grand Rapids as what many now call the Craft Beer Capital of the United States, a city with more breweries per capita than almost anywhere in the country. The taproom is enormous, the beer is serious, and the food is better than a brewery taproom has any obligation to be.