Harsens Island Brewery to open in a month

Along the strip of Gratiot Boulevard in Marysville sits a building completely transformed.

Gone are the worn white walls of the shuttered Wonder Hostess Bakery, in their place is a deep blue facade, reminiscent of a life lived on the water.

Harsens Island Brewery at 808 Gratiot Blvd., Marysville will open in about a month. Father and son duo, Spencer and Brian Phinney, purchased the building in September.

They have since invested close to $1 million to gut and remodel the building.

"We added an elevated deck out front to make it look like a pier, put in new front doors that are solid walnut, painted and then gutted the whole inside," Brian Phinney said. "Everything is new in terms of plumbing and electrical, we built the bar, kitchen and taproom, the floors had to be ground down and surfaced too."

On Thursday night the brewery hosted a private networking event for the Marysville Business Council.

Visitors were impressed.

"The brats were excellent, and the bruschetta too," said Marysville councilman Wayne Pyden. "If you saw it when it was the Hostess building, it's completely different. The wood walls, the remodel -- it's great. I will most definitely come back."

Dave Deshon, of Marsyville, said the No Reserve, a German ale, was good.

"I have been to Germany and this beer tastes like it was really made in Germany, but it was made here," Deshon said. "Its all good here, just very limited parking."

Tom Shirkey, of Shirkey Electric in Marysville, said he was impressed with the Mighty Marysville brew.

Once open, the taproom will have original brews on tap. One will be called the Mighty Marysville Belgian Ale, which is fruity with a high alcohol content. Another will be called the Tashmoo Steamer, an amber colored ale with an assertive hoppy flavor.

The brews, and the taproom, have a Harsens Island theme since the Phinney family has a home on the island — however, they said it was more economical to produce beer on the mainland.

"We will have our beers on tap here, but we will also be able to distribute them throughout the state," Phinney said. "A lot of breweries start small and grow into distribution, but we started pretty large scale because we can already distribute."

Phinney has already hired a full staff of 15 employees to serve, tend bar and cook.

The taproom will have a small menu available that includes sausages from Alpena, flat bread, sliders, salads and a variety of appetizers like pretzel bites, artichoke dip and nachos.

Phinney said the taproom chef is a graduate from Baker College of Port Huron's culinary arts program.

Phinney said his passion to brew beer began as a hobby. All of the beer recipes used at Harsens Island Brewery are his own.

"I brewed beer for a long time but began doing it more seriously five years ago," he said. "I worked in law for 15 years as an environmental defense lawyer. We would handle cases like ground water contamination, and we did that all over the country."

Phinney said changing career paths came down to wanting to decide his own fate.

"Myself and one of the lawyers I worked with both decided we didn't want to work for someone else anymore," he said. "We decided this was a better industry for us. It was exciting and it gives us the power to create our own product that people like."

Contact Nicole Hayden at (810) 989-6279 or nhayden@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @NicoleHayden_TH.