Sometimes there is a lot more to talk about than just beer, and that was the case during a recent interview with Batch Brewing Company's owner, Stephen Roginson, about their new stage in the beer garden when the conversation took an unexpected turn about community.
On Saturday, July 2, 2022, we shared a beer with Roginson under the pavilion once affectionately called Fauci’s Fieldhouse. The pavilion’s floor is artificial turf from I’m guessing was a football field. Lined rows of communal tables like what I imagine a beer garden in Germany fill the field.
The vibe reminded me of an Italian public square. A family sat behind us; a mom was nursing a tiny baby, and a toddler was munching on lunch. Grandma and dad were handing out napkins. A volunteer was collecting signatures for a ballot initiative. Bark Nation, a non-profit organization, was kicking off its Summer Beer Tour fundraiser. Happy dogs played between the tables.
BY Brenda Marshall
Batch Brewing Aims beyond growth to community development
An enormous Mike Han mural is on the west side of the pavilion in an empty parking lot. A recent article in Seen Magazine described Han’s work as “graffiti-inspired black-and-white murals. Han approaches his art with the precision of a sushi chef preparing a flawless sashimi cut.”
I wanted to run across the mural to follow a thick white line out the other side as you’d do in a hedge maze. Sprinkled across the mural are tables and umbrellas inviting you to sit and have a beer. But I wanted to shoo the people who parked their rented bicycles off the mural. “It is art. You shouldn't park your bikes there,” I wanted to tell them.
On the other side of the pavilion are the brewery and restaurant. During the pandemic, it got a facelift of sorts.
“I wanted to lighten the colors and the air. I wanted it to feel less cluttered, a little more minimal,” Roginson said. “There’s still a lot of communal dining, but there are a few small tables. It just feels a little bit more, like a refined experience. We can do all the ridiculous nonsense out here, now that I want the stage.”
“Tell us about the stage,” I asked.
Roginson gestured towards a large shipping container at the end of the pavilion.
“When I build a stage over here, I can have shows with 500 people outdoors," he said. "The stage will be on the other side of the shipping container. It is going to be the same general footprint as the pavilion. As wide as high, and it will be 16 feet deep. It's going to be a legit stage. It's a six-inch concrete riser, a step up. We can put in a riser for a bigger show and do a hip-high thing. There'll be a 15 to 20-foot moat between the pavilion and the stage. Standing room if it's a band that people want to be closer to. There will still be seating back here, more congregation space. I'm going to cut a hole through the train car. There will be a service window out to the beer garden.”
Roginson’s smile and enthusiasm are infectious.
“I keep bringing my hobbies to work. I brought my homebrew hobby. And then my barbecue. And now my music hobby. So here we are, Stephen's hobby land.”
Looking around, I couldn’t help thinking, “I love your hobby land.”
“The big takeaway from COVID, you need to take care of your backyard, take care of your neighbor, neighborhood," Roginson continued. "I mean, your backyard literally. We've been more aware of cleaning and beautifying, adding art.
One day I walked out here, and I was like, I can't stand the barbed wire on that fence anymore. It has to come down. It's not my fence. I had to call the neighbors and say, this is what I want to do. I want to take the Barb wire down. I want to put up these privacy panels. You know, I'm going to create an experience here. I think it'll add value to the neighborhood, and it's been little conversations like that.”
“I was thinking about your slogan, ‘Beer makes me happy.’ Do you think it’s a community that makes you happy? And beer just makes the community?” I asked Roginson.
His response came out in a rush. Like he’d been waiting for this question.
"You're a hundred percent right," he said. "Beer does make a community. It's a great starting point. You know, the community can and should be, uh, cultivated deliberately. That's something that we strive for here. As for beer making me happy, beer is one of these great levelers.
Are you familiar with the idea of a third place? Like your first place is where you spend most of the time. Is that at home? Is that at work? I don't know. It depends on the person. Your second place is the other. You have an assigned role in those places. You're a mother; you're a father; you're a daughter; you're a step-father, you know, whatever. Or at work, you're a VP, you're a peon. You're the chief marketing officer and, you know, you're the, whatever."
"The third place is where everywhere you come together, that
Batch Brewing Company
1400 Porter St.
Detriot, MI 48216
(313) 338-8008
www.batchbrewingcompany.com
people don't play those roles as a parent or as a sales guy, they only play the role of what they are inside the four walls," Roginson continued. "I think of beer as a mobile third place where if you're getting together and sitting down with somebody to drink a beer, that becomes the context of your interaction and your conversation, the environment. It is something that makes anyone in that moment equivalent to whoever they're sitting down and sharing with.
I want people to be able to walk into this place and abandon all of the baggage they've been dragging around with them all week, all day, and just like, leave it in the car. I'm going to walk in here and have an awesome beer, and I'm going to have a great sandwich.”
The conversation switched gears. I was immediately jealous and started thinking about moving to Corktown when Roginson told us about a community project they are working on with the Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation.
“I just did a soft launch for something we're calling the Porter Street Night Market," he said. "This year it's once a month as we test it out. But next year, the plan is every Friday night. We're going to shut down Porter Street from Trumbull down to Eighth. And we're going to have about 150 10X10 tents of vendors: exile jewelry, art, wearable or not, food. It's to help incubate and launch the most nascent of small businesses. We are specifically trying to create a low barrier of entry for Black and Latinx-owned businesses.
I want to make deliberate choices about my business's impact on the community. That's always been part of the ethos here.”
“Are there any other festivals cooking?” I asked.
Roginson was thoughtful before he replied.
“We do the Octoberfest every year," he said. "It's one of our big things that will probably grow. We are announcing on Tuesday a partnership between a group of independent breweries in Detroit and the Charivari Worldwide Music Festival. It is in August and is the second biggest electronic music festival in Detroit.
They came to me about sponsorship, and I absolutely wanted to do it, but as I thought about it, it's like I can find some money. I can put my brand on it. But you know there is something that would be a lot more fun. I went to my colleagues, and they're now six breweries participating, and we're doing this Detroit brewery garden.d
A cool cross-promotion for the next six weeks until the festival launches. This is what I'm talking about, reaching out to communities that might not know who you are. They never felt like there was a reason for them to visit.
Also, it is more fun to do it with your friends. It's Batch, Brew Detroit, Faison, Eastern Market, Motor City, and Tenacity. All of the independents.”
Roginson’s staff was hovering. We spent nearly an hour with him, but it felt like five minutes.
There were so many questions I wanted to ask but settled for, “What is it you want? Beyond your hobby land?
“I don’t have any desire to become the next big distributing brewery that has all the headaches of a 15-state territory," he said. "I just don't want that. It's not a priority. So what is it that I want? What I want to do is have a place that is the place that you have to go. When you come to Detroit, you have to check this place. There's art there. Beer is amazing. The food is killer. They have live music. If you go to Detroit and you don't go to this place. You missed the thing. Yeah. That's what I want. I also want to make sure that while we're doing that, it's the most welcoming place for the locals.
"It's important to do that deliberately, especially in one of the blackest towns in the United States," he continued. "What am I doing deliberately to make sure every resident in the city of Detroit, if they were to walk in here, would feel loved? It starts with music. And art. And the menu. Not everyone gets beer until they've had the chance to cross its path. Most people still in the United States, when they think about beer, they think about a yellow lager, or maybe they think about the one time they tried an IPA. It's so bitter.
You can't make somebody excited about craft beer, but you can open the door. If we want to be deliberate about being a member of the community, we need to make sure that the community knows where the door is in the first place.”
Check out Hearst’s newest brand showcasing Michigan Breweries at MiBrewTrail.com.
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MIBREW TRAIL MAGAZINE
Fall 2022
MIBREW TRAIL MAGAZINE
Fall 2022
Check out Hearst’s newest brand showcasing Michigan Breweries at MiBrewTrail.com.
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