Go Nuts for Legacy Detroit Brands

A chat with intrepid entrepreneur Mark Rieth

About 10 years ago, I made a cross-state trip from Grand Rapids to Grosse Pointe for a lunch meeting at Atwater in the Park.

The brewery is an outpost of Detroit’s Atwater Brewery, located in an old church in Grosse Pointe. I was meeting Mark Rieth, then the owner of Atwater, who had plans to open a location in Grand Rapids.

Mark was immediately welcoming and friendly (he is a fellow Michigan State Spartan, after all) and has remained a great beer industry source through the years. Rieth has since exited Atwater, selling it to Molson Coors, which has since sold it to Tilray Brands. Tilray has assembled a fascinating collection of once-heralded craft breweries, many purchased up by Molson Coors and Anheuser-Busch over the past decade or so before they shifted their strategies away from the trend.

After his exit, I saw Mark get into NA and functional beverages, but more recently, I saw he acquired a legacy Detroit peanut butter brand, so I had to reach out and see what was happening.

Keeping busy with consumer goods

Mark Rieth loves Detroit. Back in 2002, he saw an opportunity in the city’s Atwater Brewery, first investing in and then purchasing it in full before guiding it to become one of the largest independent breweries in Michigan.

An astute businessman, he noticed the headwinds against the brewing industry's growth nearly a decade ago. He began looking at opportunities to help further stabilize Atwater’s future and eventually brought in Molson Coors in 2020.

The Molson Coors deal was initially dubbed a strategic partnership, and Rieth managed the brand for about 18 months before fully exiting the company.

“You go through a range of emotions when it’s your life for 25 years, but based on what I knew, especially now, what’s going on in the craft beer world, it was the right decision at the right time,” Rieth said.

It makes sense, around the same time, a lot of the what you could call pioneering brewery owners also exited — many of those that sold to Molson Coors and AB InBev, or even the likes of fellow Michigan stalwarts Founders Brewing Co. and Bell’s Brewery, sold to Spanish company Mahou San Miguel and Japan’s Kirin, respectively.

After his Atwater exit, Rieth launched FüL Beverage, which makes non-alcoholic beer and functional beverages. FüL’s a product of Rieth’s Detroit Liquid Ventures, which now also makes a line of Old Head Irish-style ales brewed in Detroit.

“I’ve learned a lot about that world; it’s hyper-competitive, but we’re excited about it,” Rieth said of functional beverage space. “The NA beer world is growing leaps and bounds. We’re still in the crawl phase to get to walk and run, but we have some cool opportunities ahead.”

From the archives: Saturday Sips’ first ever issue, a chat with Bill Shufelt, CEO of NA beer juggernaut Athletic Brewing Co.

Credit: Lansing Brewing Company

As his non-compete from the Atwater exit came to an end last year, an opportunity arose for Rieth to jump back into craft beer. He came to an agreement with Lansing-area developer Pat Gillepsie to acquire a majority stake in Lansing Brewing Company.

Across from the Lansing Lugnuts minor league baseball stadium, approximately 80% of business is on-premise, and he recognizes the old path to growth for breweries is no longer open. Instead, LBC will double down on the Lansing and surrounding market, similar to how he initially built the foundation for Atwater.

But why get back into a small brewery when the industry is struggling?

“Beer isn’t going anywhere, and a little correction in the number of breweries isn’t a bad thing,” Rieth said before expressing sadness for the entrepreneurs who lost their dream. “I wouldn’t say there were too many breweries, but maybe breweries that opened up for nostalgia reasons or didn’t have the equipment or funding to do it right, like any business.

“And the craft beer cache is gone, beer in general is down, and Gen Zers are drinking less, making different decisions.”

And he’s not keeping beverages as the only product in his portfolio. In November, the opportunity to acquire Velvet Peanut Butter came up. The Detroit peanut butter brand was started in 1937 by Paul Zuckerman. Zuckerman sold it in 1985, after which it disappeared until Eric Bruce returned it in 2008. Now, Rieth sees a chance to take it back to new heights.

He sees the $2.5 billion peanut butter market as a significant opportunity.

“As a Detroiter, I ate Velvet growing up — it’s an iconic brand,” he said. “Eric brought it back and it’s in all the Meijer stores, but it’s just him and a few people. He’s got a full-time job; he wanted someone from Detroit to take it to the next level.

“We’ll have some fun with it.”

After nearly two decades of running one brewery, a successful exit could be enough for some people to slow down. Instead, Rieth is running full speed ahead with his goal of developing a full stable of products. And it doesn’t seem like there’s a slowdown in sight.

“I’m re-energized,” he said. “It’s different now, from a second-time-around point of view, I look at things differently with a different mentality. I’m excited about looking at other opportunities as they come to build out a CPG portfolio.”

What’s your favorite local brand from your region?

Literary Libations

Hi it’s me, Alyssa! Literary Libations is your source for book recs and the drinks to accompany them. You know the drill.

I just finished listening to From Here to the Great Unknown by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough on audiobook and… wow. Quite possibly the best audiobook I’ve ever listened to (or “read”? I never know) (ironically, my other favorite audiobook Daisy Jones & The Six features Keough as the lead in its on-screen adaptation). This memoir was finished by Keough posthumously following Presley’s death and offers a first-person POV from Presley herself, interspersed with reflections by Keough.

It spans the duration of Lisa Marie’s tragic life, from growing up in Graceland to her untimely death in 2023. Julia Roberts plays the voice of Presley in the audiobook, with Keough reading as herself, and it also includes tapes from Presley. It is a masterclass in audiobook memoirs. While listening, I sipped on Tennessee whiskey and toasted to Lisa Marie — daughter of the King of Rock N Roll, mother of four, and a misunderstood public figure since birth.

P.S. Please consider purchasing from our affiliate page on Bookshop.org, which supports independent bookstores worldwide. Sure, Amazon might be cheaper, but at what cost? It’s more important than ever to support independent authors and local businesses.

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