USA, MI: Longship Brewing Company preparing to open in downtown Lawton later this fall
It’s been nearly five years since Joe Magers first tried his hand at brewing beers.
Now with close to 60 beers and four ciders of his own, he’s preparing to open his own brewery, mlive.com reported on September 24.
Magers hopes to be pouring the first beers at Longship Brewing Company later this fall at 114 N. Main St. in downtown Lawton, which is about 20 miles southwest of Kalamazoo.
Magers has more than 20 beers and four hard ciders he’s comfortable showing off at the new brewery.
The hard ciders are all named after Norse goddesses. His flagship cider is called Iduna, named after the keeper of the lifegiving apples that kept the gods young, Magers said.
With a youthful, crisp flavor, he hopes the cider will have the same effect on his patrons.
Magers isn’t the first person to open a brewery at 114 N. Main St. The first brewery to occupy the space was Duster’s, which opened in 1993. Old Hat was then opened by craft beer industry legend Larry Bell in 1998. The space changed hands twice before closing in 2012. Barn Brewers most recently occupied the space from 2015 to 2022.
A regular at Barn Brewers who has lived just outside of Lawton for eight years, Magers started making moves to purchase the space shortly after the brewery closed late last summer. He took ownership in March, and it has “been a sandstorm of remodeling since,” Magers said.
Magers has opened up the space, made updates to the brewhouse, remodeled the bathrooms and doubled the size of the kitchen. He’s also restoring the exterior to resemble what it looked like in the 1870s.
“I want to embrace as much of the history of this place as I possibly can,” Magers said.
That history isn’t limited to the three breweries that came before him. But also the tailor shop, restaurant, the drug and hardware stores, the grocery and the butcher’s shop that called the building home over the past 150 years.
At one time, there was even an underground secret society called The Odd Fellows that met there, he said.
Magers said he’s in the process of building an “homage wall” to showcase the building’s history.
While he pays his respect to all those who came before him, Magers said he’s also excited to make the place his own. He plans to host live music on the weekends and on occasional weeknights — mostly folk, southern blues or old-timey jazz.
“I want music that people can come in and sit down and it’s entertainment ... or it can be quiet enough that (customers) can still enjoy a conversation with a person they came there with,” he said.
The brewery will have space for 80 guests inside and an additional 18 to 20 outdoors, he said.
When it comes to food, Magers will offer a “simplistic, single-page, single-column menu” featuring soups, sandwiches, burgers, fish tacos and desserts. The menu will vary seasonally and everything will be made in house, Magers said. The only fried item will be the housemade French fries.
However the highlight of the space, of course, will be the beer.
Four beers people can expect on tap when the brewery opens this fall include:
• Myrkwood’s Fury Black IPA: A lightly-smoked, dark and foreboding beer made with mango and habanero that draws its name from the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings
• Sucker Dunkin’: A traditional lager made for Magers’ late father that takes its name from a turn of phrase his father would use for how he would bait for pike
• Mucklebones Black Scottish Heavy: A sweet Scottish beer
• Gingerberry Shandy: A ginger, lemon and strawberry shandy that is one of the most requested beers Magers has crafted for family and friends over the past five years
Magers, who spent 15 years working in emergency services — as an EMT and volunteer firefighter in Portage and working for the National Park Service — began brewing as a hobby.
After his wife, Pat, presented him with his first real brewing equipment five years ago, he quickly went down the rabbit hole, he said. Almost immediately, Magers jumped into all-grain brewing. All of his overtime earnings and extra time went into the hobby.
“I basically had the equivalent of a commercial brewery, but on a smaller volume, in my pole barn in Lawton,” he said.
He considered opening a small brewery when he retired. But, after compliments over his beers stacked up and opportunity presented itself, Magers, now in his early 40s, jumped.
To be brewing his first beers commercially where Kalamazoo’s most famous brewer once crafted beer isn’t lost on Magers either.
“I think that’s a really cool thing,” he said of Bell – founder of Bell’s Brewing – opening Old Hat there in ‘98. “I used to live on Kalamazoo Avenue and my first time going to Bell’s was long before it was all modern and nice as it is now.
“This place has so much history, though. Not even just Larry Bell, but to have so many different brewers here and different takes on the same space and different types of beers being made here, I think it’s pretty cool.”
In addition to beer, Magers also plans to offer non-alcoholic drinks, including a locally-made root beer, coffee, tea and Pepsi products. He even has some designs on crafting a non-alcoholic hop water.
25 September, 2023
