USA, MI: North Grove Brewers celebrates arrival in downtown Montague

A week after quietly opening to the public - and more than a year later than planned - a craft brewery officially celebrated its arrival in downtown Montague on January 15, mlive.com reported.

North Grove Brewers opened at 8735 Water St, Montague, on Jan. 8, but the fanfare was saved for a grand opening a week later, where the founders and Montague natives RJ Nordlund and Jason Jaekel were there to snip a ceremonial ribbon.

“It was always my dream to come home and make a brewery,” said Nordlund, who, until recently, was brewmaster at Bare Bones Brewery in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. “This is really a dream come true.”

Nordlund and Jaekel, both Montague High School graduates, first announced their intentions to open the craft brewery in the spring of 2018, and hoped to open officially later that year. But their plans were slowed down by “a little bit of financial stuff [and] government stuff,” said Nordlund. During the ribbon-cutting, Montague City Manager Jeff Auch praised the entrepreneurs’ “persistence” in bringing their vision to fruition.

“It was stressful, but worth it,” Nordlund later told MLive.

The brewery and taproom was converted from an empty building, once home to Montague Foods, behind and below the The Book Nook & Java Shop on Ferry Street. It is open every day beginning at 11 a.m., and sells deli-style food - soups, sandwiches and salads - for lunch and dinner, to accompany a rotating menu of beer and cider.

The draft list will feature “whatever I feel like making next,” Nordlund said, including, at the moment, a Hefeweizen, a stout, and a double IPA.

“We’re not doing any distribution, you can only get our beers in the taproom, so that gives me the freedom to make whatever I feel like making,” he added.

Brews are available in three tiers, ranging from $4-6 for 16-ounce pours, and $2-3 for 5-ounce samples.

The food menu includes pretzels and beer cheese, a daily soup, and sandwiches served on bread from Norton Shores’ Hodgepodge Bakehouse.

By summer, the owners anticipate opening an outdoor beer garden with cornhole and music. The menu will also be expanded to include liquor distilled from the in-house beer, as well as wine, Nordlund said.

In the meantime, the 77-seat, 4,000-square-foot taproom is spacious, with a mix of high-top and communal seating. Those seated at the bar can see the inner-workings of the brewery through a clear window behind. Food can be ordered at an adjacent kitchen window.

The brewery currently has 12 employees - seven in the kitchen, and five behind the bar - with Nordlund doing almost all of the brewing, and Jaekel running the kitchen.

“I’m just excited to get started,” Jaekel told MLive. “We want this to be a beer destination.”

19 January, 2020