Well in this edition of Throwback Thursday, I figured since we are doing a lot of Bearded Lamb related stuff this week, I might as well review the brewery that it replaced. We all knew it was going to happen eventually, I worked there for 3 and a half years of my life. Today I am going to review Liberty Street Brewing Company.
Liberty Street Brewing Company opened its doors in 2008 and was immediately successful; they had brought the craft beer market to Plymouth, Michigan and everyone was loving it. They started in a time where craft beer hadn’t quite caught on everywhere, and every town didn’t have their own brewery. I know that is hard to imagine now with close to 400 active breweries in the state of Michigan.
Some of the more popular beers that Liberty Street brewed over the years were THE American IPA, Red Glare Amber Ale, Soul Geometry, Liberty Belle Blonde, Steamy Windows, Majesty, and a whole lot more. The early years were extremely good for the brewery and it began to seem like the sky was the limit for Liberty Street Brewing Company.
By 2015 they were so successful that they decided to open a production facility where they would bottle their beer for statewide distribution. Who else remembers seeing 6 packs of THE American IPA, Red Glare Amber, or Eagle Eye PA on their local Meijer’s shelves? I remember buying plenty of those 6 packs myself. That was all due to the production facility in Livonia.
During this time a lot more breweries started to get into the beer distribution scene. With the influx of new places distributing, it became harder and harder for smaller breweries to compete for shelf space with the bigger, more mainstream breweries.
In 2019 the decision was made to close down the production facility and go back to just serving beer out of the taproom. Things were looking up for the brewery as the calendar turned over to 2020, and then March of 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic hit. That is when things started to get really hard on the brewery.
Even when the brewery opened back up to the public in June of 2020, the business never totally recovered to pre-pandemic levels. In October of 2020 the owners told us that if we didn’t find buyers for the business that we would be closing permanently at the end of 2020. I ended up talking to Ryan Lamb, who I knew was interested in the brewery, and it set the wheels in motion of keeping the brewery open.
Liberty Street ended up staying in business until November of 2021, when it was sold to Bearded Lamb Brewing Company. 13 years in the service industry is an impressive amount of time to stay in business, 80% of the service industry doesn’t make it to see 5 years in business. Here at Bearded Lamb Brewing Company, we keep the tradition of Liberty Street alive to this day. Two of our beers, THE American IPA, and Soul Geometry, are both Liberty Street names and recipes that we have kept on the taplist. We also hope that we can keep the brewery alive and well for years to come, while also continuing to honor our past.
I have met a lot of awesome people throughout my years serving the Plymouth community, and a lot of those seeds were planted at Liberty Street Brewing Company. Quite a few people that subscribe to this page, I have known for 6 years or more, and most of that would not have been possible had I not spent 3 and a half years working for Liberty Street Brewing Company. So even though you are gone, you will not be forgotten. We salute you, Liberty Street Brewing Company. Cheers!
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