Aruba, Jamaica, Summerlands will take ya

Though he was born legally blind, Mason resident Brian Hunt has long had his sights set on opening his own brewery.

Hunt, 50, moved to Greater Lansing from Austin, Texas, in 2003. A programmer by day, he first took up brewing in 2008, but his efforts really started to take off two years later, when he joined forces with fellow hobbyist and co-worker Joe Prevo, a 41-year-old Lansing native.

“We would just hang out and brew beer. Eventually, things progressed to where we were making some really good beer that people really liked. The brewery kind of just evolved out of that,” Hunt said.

In 2016, the pair began “joking” about opening a brewery, Hunt said. But those plans were put on an indefinite hold later that year when doctors found a noncancerous tumor in Hunt’s brain that required an eight-hour surgery to remove.

“They didn’t get it all the first time, though,” Hunt said. “Nine months later, I had to have a second that lasted 17 hours.”

When Hunt was back on his feet in 2018, he circled back with Prevo about reviving the brewery project. However, it wasn’t until fall 2022 that they “seriously started digging in,” he said. 

Envisioning a Caribbean tropics theme, they named their venture Summerlands Brewing Co.

“I’m in a position where I get called in a lot for work. My escape would be to go on a cruise,” Hunt said. “We both like Caribbean-style food, so we talked about doing stuff from places like Aruba, Cuba and Mexico.”

Once they had their finances in order, Hunt and Prevo purchased a 3,300-square-foot building in Holt that had previously housed Charlie’s Bar & Grill until its closure in July 2023. They immediately got to work on renovations, which took just over a year, leading to a grand opening weekend July 12 and 13.

The brewery staffs 20 employees, including executive chef Kevin Cronin, a staple of the Greater Lansing culinary scene for nearly three decades. Cronin’s tropical menu includes conch fritters, hush puppies, seafood nachos and a Paradise Burger, which Hunt said is a “salute to Jimmy Buffet.”

“We brew just about everything, from Russian stouts to Kölsch to IPAs,” Hunt said of their rotating taps. “Because we’re Summerlands, we’re also going to have a few lighter varieties like fruit beer and seltzers.”

His personal favorites are the In the Gloaming IPA and the Jamaica-inspired Tropical Storm stout.

Of the former, he said, “It’s a red IPA that we went through a few iterations of to get just right. It turned out to be really, really good.”  Meanwhile, Tropical Storm is “a lighter-bodied stout that you can drink in warm weather, similar to a New England-style IPA. You’ll get all the hoppy aroma coming off the top of it, and it’s really strong.”

Early customer favorites include the cucumber cream ale, coffee stout, golden Kölsch and Key lime-coconut pale ale.

“We wanted to create a fun place where people can expect a nice, relaxed environment. We’ve also got a weekly list of events ranging from karaoke, trivia, bingo, brunch, Saturday movies and live music on the weekends,” Hunt said.