Founders Brewing Company

Commercial Brewery | Grand Rapids, MI, United States of America

Vital Statistics

Beers

Overall average: 71 (logged 60 times)
Founders All Day IPA: 72 (logged 3 times)
American India Pale Ale / IPA
Founders Azacca IPA: 67 (logged 1 time)
American India Pale Ale / IPA
Founders Backwoods Bastard: 78 (logged 3 times)
Scotch Ale
Founders Black Rye
Black IPA / Cascadian Dark Ale / American Black Ale
Founders Blushing Monk: 58 (logged 1 time)
Fruit Beer
Founders Breakfast Stout: 77 (logged 4 times)
Stout (Imperial / Double)
Founders CBS Canadian Breakfast Stout: 86 (logged 4 times)
Stout
Founders Centennial IPA: 50 (logged 1 time)
American India Pale Ale / IPA
Founders Curmudgeon's Better Half: 75 (logged 1 time)
Old Ale
Founders Dirty Bastard Scotch Style Ale: 67 (logged 3 times)
Scotch Ale
Founders Frootwood
Fruit Beer
Founders Green Zebra: 67 (logged 2 times)
Göse
Founders Harvest Ale: 54 (logged 2 times)
American India Pale Ale / IPA (Wet Hop)
Founders Imperial Stout: 83 (logged 2 times)
Stout
Founders KBS Kentucky Breakfast Stout: 86 (logged 7 times)
Stout
Founders Lizard of Koz: 50 (logged 1 time)
Stout
Founders Mosaic Promise
American Pale Ale
Founders Oatmeal Stout: 67 (logged 1 time)
Stout
Founders Pale Ale
American Pale Ale
Founders Palm Reader
American Pale Ale
Founders PC Pils
American Pale Lager
Founders Porter: 38 (logged 2 times)
Porter
Founders Project PAM
Black IPA / Cascadian Dark Ale / American Black Ale
Founders Red's Rye IPA
American India Pale Ale / IPA
Founders ReDANKulous Imperial Red IPA: 58 (logged 1 time)
American India Pale Ale / IPA
Founders Rübæus: 64 (logged 10 times)
Fruit Beer
Founders Solid Gold Premium Lager: 75 (logged 4 times)
American Pale Lager
Founders Sumatra Mountain Brown: 75 (logged 2 times)
Brown Ale
Founders Sweet Repute: 67 (logged 1 time)
Wheatwine

Logs for beers from this brewery

Jammy, oversweet blueberry is a lot to take. Not much soy backbone to balance this. That said, it is exactly what you might expect.
Really seems more like just a pale than an IPA. But it's nice.
Not thick, but still way too sweet. Boozy.
Bottle at Home
Just a bit overly alcoholic for a session beer at 4.7%. But tasty and not generic like so many IPAs
Can at Home
Thin, strongly whiskey, flattish. Very sweet, but not thick. Not gonna lie, this is delicious but I don’t think I can take this more than two ounces at a time.
Somehow this isn't as satisfying today. Tastes a little insipid, though the aftertaste is kind of a nice cereal flavor. I think this is better than the Smithwick's though.
Founders Backwoods Bastard (unknown release)
Bottle at Home
This is barely disguised bourbon; I guess without the strongly sweet flavors in the Maple Mackinac Fudge this one is more naked. It does have a light pleasant roasted coffee flavor and a bit of fizz but make no mistake, this one is all about the booze.
Bottle at Home
Normally this would be way too sweet for me but at least this beer came in advertising exactly what it was. This tastes like maple fudge, high, sweet, pretty darn alcoholic. Not thick, which comes from its KBS heritage and which I think helps in this case. Nice dessert beer.
Bottle at Home
Strong coffee like the breakfast stout with a little bit of maple sweetness and chocholate.
Bottle at Home
Very coffee; chocolates, roasty, not very sweet. Tastes strongly alcoholic, which is a negative.
Roast coffee, not too sweet, light but present bourbon. Did not seem nearly as punchy as 12% ABV would predict. Pleasantly surprised by how understated this felt after the strong sweetness of CBS.
A bit raw in its hit of whiskey but otherwise a pretty good barrel-aged scotch ale. If it's reminiscent of anything it's Goose Island's Cooper Project Scotch.
Bottle at Odin Lounge
NOOOO FRANCIS, FAREWELL I CRY FOREVER
Bottle at Odin Lounge
Just an excellent lager, rich cereal flavor, slightly sweet, slightly buttery. Delicious.
Smooth bourbon stout, not too syrupy or thick. Plenty of maple sweetness, although it does feel a bit slippery, extraneous to the flavor rather than a smooth transition. Not sticky, but it lingers. Maybe with age it will meld more.
Light, spicy-sour with watermelon flavor. This is actually quite tasty.
Can at Home
Ummm. Almost exactly like drinking a watermelon jolly rancher. It was okay, but startlingly artificial-tasting.
I didn't even want to log this because apparently I've already logged it. Boo.
Came to blows fighting over the differences between a glass from the end of the keg and a glass from a fresh keg. There is a lot I could say about the beer, but all that matters is I am right and Matt and Jet are wrong. Okay, apparently I'm totally wrong about the kegs but still don't care. I'm totes right about it being watery. Also, who drinks pink unicorn juice? Wrong people, that's who. Beer tastes like evil koolaid.
Yup. Still delicious, and on draft now, even, thanks to distribution.
Very light stout, made lighter from nitro. Slightly nutty, touch of sourness. Pretty decent and very inoffensive.
There's something off about the sweetness of this beer. It's got a fake quality about it, like the quality you'd get from an artificial sweetner; tied with the kind of juice-box fruit flavor it's not a good look. This is maybe the only beer where I've vastly preferred the nitro version.
My least favorite of the three, with a decidedly more bitter finish and a more naked alcohol flavor to boot.
Bottle at Odin Lounge
Similar in basic qualities to the All Day, but with a bit more of a pungent, uric aspect. Or is it resin? Either way, this is danker and as a result less refreshing and pleasant. There's a bit of extra sweetness on top as well, which borders on too much.
Bottle at Odin Lounge
This is a really tasty, light IPA - fresh, fragrant passion-pine hop flavors to start, solidly cereal finish balancing it out. No bitterness at all. Only negative is that if you squint, you can imagine this being slightly watery. But this is super, super drinkable.
Bottle at Odin Lounge
This is a very nice Imperial Stout, roasty but not bitter, thick but not pungent. There's a really interesting buttery smoothness to the top of the flavor that is very, very pleasant. I could drink a lot of this in a hurry, which is not something I can say about a lot of imperial stouts.
Moderately sweet, caramel and toffee scotch ale with some strong Bourbon notes. This is not unlike Black Raven's Splinters, although the finish takes a turn towards an herbal / spice note... anise, maybe? A little odd, but quite tasty.
Smell is like a floral, piney IPA or pale ale, which is decidedly not what you want in a porter. This is followed closely by roast malt notes. Flavor is... basically what you'd expect based on that, although the roast side is more prominent. Not quite a Black IPA, but closer to that than what I'd call a porter.
A really solid coffee stout, without being sour or over-roasted. Creamy and robust.
At first sip, this tastes really nice. Sweet bourbon notes, some chocolate, and a really concentrated sweet blueberry flavor. Over time though, the whole combination gets really cloying, and the blueberry starts to taste more and more like candy flavoring, and it sticks to the tongue and lips. I couldn't finish the glass.
Founders Harvest Ale (unknown release)
Rather drying for a "juicy" IPA. That said, this has a well balanced flavor profile that I kind of like.
Fruit in this IPA felt a little less identifiable, maybe a touch sweeter (probably from caramel). Vaguely pineapple? Overall, a little less distinctive but maybe overall a smoother-flavored beer. Finish was somewhat prickly.
Really good Imperial stout. Well rounded: sweet, malty, roasty.
Draft at Whole Foods Market - Domain
Raspberry. If almost think this was a cider except for am undertone that I guess is its claim to the beer family. And the fact that it looks like an Amber ale rather than a cider.
I'm in a fruity mood tonight and this is nice and fruity. Not too over the top, maybe the nitro smooths it out.
Opens like a dry, fruity soda or a framboise lambic - believable raspberry flavors and refreshingly effervescent. The finish is unusually funky and bitter and comes a little bit out of nowhere, which was a negative.
Bottle
Smells strongly of raspberries. The flavor is surprisingly sweet, almost too much so, but mellows out very quickly into nitro smoothness and a breakfast cereally sweet finish (I thought... streusel? corn pops in milk?). Never allowed to get tart, the flavor is very much along the lines of a raspberry bar.
Quite raspberry. I thinkit's tasty, though there is not as much tartness as one might expect. I think the sweetness it moderating it .
Sweet, like Bourbon County Coffee but with less creaminess in the mouthfeel. Plenty of roasted coffee, and a strong hint of toasted ... hazelnut ... on the finish? Really delicious.
Bottle at Xbeer One
More Scottish than an American-style Scotch Ale. Thinnish with a bit of wet-hay grassiness and quite sweet. It was ... okay.
Bottle at Xbeer One
Not quite as delicious as the Kopi Loewak, but delicious nonetheless. Strong coffee presence and a slightly sweeter and assertive malt profile.
Bottle at Xbeer One