Dustin Walsh of Crain's Detroit's Business writes that the death of the Stroh Brewery Company's brewery in the Detroit three decades ago marked a shift in the beer industry in Michigan.
Walsh writes that 30 years ago the company announced it was razing the 1 million-square-foot brewery, bottling and warehouse buildings on Gratiot Avenue at I-75.
He writes that the late Chairman Peter Stroh said nothing could save the the brewery, which saw beer barrel sales drop annually from from 31 million barrels to 24 million.
Crain's reports:
That year, 1985, marked the beginning of the end of Stroh and a culture shift for Michigan beer drinkers as a small-time home brewer took his craft legal.
Larry Bell founded Kalamazoo-based Bell's Brewery Inc. the same year Stroh's was razed and today is one of the largest local beer producers — expected to produce 410,000 barrels of craft beer in 2015.
Michigan craft beer accounted for only 6 percent of beer sold in the state in 2013, but it is growing at a clip that's forced the industry to mature, has attracted financiers and is ripe for expansion and consolidation.
