USA, MI: Old Post Brewing Company hopes to open in Howell next spring

A former post office in Howell is planned as the location for the city's newest brewery, the Livingston Daily reported on July 30.

"We'll try to maintain the feel the post office had," said Craig Gantner, who purchased the 121 S. Walnut Street building with business partner Aaron Guild.

The former post office, which was built in 1936, was closed in the 1980s. The city sold it in 1987 to Ann Arbor Railroad, and it was converted to office space. Several features of the old post office remain such as a cupola with a weather vane on the roof and woodwork around interior doors. The building has been vacant for several years.

"We're trying to stick with the post office theme, and it's going to be called Old Post Brewing Company," Guild, 38, of Lansing, said. "We're also going to name some of the beers after the post office (theme)."

Gantner, a 60-year old Iosco Township resident who grew up going to the former post office, said he is excited to breathe new life into the building.

"It's been abandoned for a while," he said. "The building needs a little TLC, but we're real happy to have it."

They plan to brew beer in the back of the building and serve food and beer in the front.

"We'll have a full kitchen, a tap room and a patio outside behind the opera house, which should be a very nice spot," Gantner said.

Guild, who plans to be the head brewer and manage the brewery, has been homebrewing beer as a hobby for about 15 years.

"I like to brew a lot of traditional styles, and I'm a big IPA and stout fan, but we'll brew other things as well," he said. "We're still really early planning it."

Gantner co-owns Shelby Township auto parts manufacturing company G&G Industries. He said he will leave the brewing to Guild.

"I don't brew beer, but I drink beer, and most home-brewed beers are not that good, but the beers Aaron brews are really good," he said.

The partners' company Old Post Property, LLC, purchased the former post office last month for $380,000, according to city property records.

They said they hope to open the new brewery next spring.

Breweries have popped up across the county in the last few years, and a couple new breweries are on their way.

"I think, in Howell right now, it would be nice to have another place," Guild said. "It's an up and coming place and having more places for beer lovers to go will drive people to the area, because if you see there is more than one, it makes (the city) a location to go to for it, like a destination spot."

Elsewhere in the county, husband and wife Ryan and Nikki McDonald are gearing up to open Hartland Brewing Company, 1836 Old U.S. 23 in the Hartland Town Center in Hartland Township, later this year. The microbrewery will serve food from 59 West, a banquet hall and restaurant his parents own in neighboring Oakland County community Highland Township

American Concrete Products owner Brad Jonckheere and manager Neal Maddox, who brew beer for Block Brewing Co., have proposed a microbrewery for a vacant office building at the gravel pit and concrete business, 4944 Mason Road in Howell Township.

Aberrant Ales opened in November at 219 W. Grand River Avenue in downtown Howell.

Since 2014, four other breweries have opened, including Eternity Brewing Company at 4060 E. Grand River Avenue in Genoa Township, Brewery Becker at 500 W. Main Street in Brighton, and two locations for Block Brewing Co. at 1140 S. Michigan Avenue in Howell and 1840 S. Old U.S. 23 in Brighton Township.

30 July, 2018