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Stroh's Brewery closed its doors 25 years ago this week

Greg Kacir

This week in 1985, the Stroh Brewery Company announced that it would close its brewery on Detroit's East Side. Chairman Peter Stroh said the facility was obsolete, and it was demolished within a year.

Many in the state mourned the brewery’s loss. Detroit radio stationWRIF's JJ & The Morning Crew released a tribute—a parody of Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer.” It was called "After the Brewery on Gratiot is Gone."

WKAR’s Melissa Benmark asked Mike Stevens, the CEO and co-founder of Founders Brewing in Grand Rapids about his memory of the Stroh’s closing and the beer renaissance that was about to begin.

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