303 Main Street Frankfort
231-352-0118
OWNERS: Rick Schmitt, Brian Confer, and Jim Kunz
BREWER: Brian Confer
FLAGSHIP BEERS: Rainmaker, a Belgian pale ale that won a bronze medal at the 2014 Great American Beer Festival; Sirius, a Belgian dubbel; the Farthest Shore, a traditional Belgian dark strong; Fun Guv’nr, a black IPA
RICK SCHMITT STRATEGICALLY LOCATED STORMCLOUD ON THE BUSIEST BLOCK OF THE BUSIEST STREET IN TINY FRANKFORT. IT’S LOCATED NEXT TO A MOVIE THEATER AND ACROSS THE STREET FROM A HARDWARE STORE TO MAXIMIZE THE NUMBER OF PATRONS.
Rick Schmitt doesn’t hesitate to say it: Frankfort is his home, and he wouldn’t have opened a brewery anywhere but here.
Schmitt has a sense of both pride and ownership in this community. Besides being co-owner of Stormcloud Brewing Company, he’s part owner of the Garden Theater, the town’s only movie house, and has served on the town’s school board and the downtown development authority.
But the pride he feels for Frankfort is compounded when he hears Stormcloud’s patrons tell him how much they enjoy visiting the taproom. The brewery opened in 2013, and almost immediately he heard customers refer to Stormcloud as “our place.” In fact, patrons have even given the brewery a loving nickname, referring to it as simply “The Cloud.”
That sense of ownership among patrons is exactly what Schmitt and co-owner and brewer Brian Confer hoped to develop when they wrote the business plan for Stormcloud. Not for cynical or selfish reasons, either. Before opening the doors, before even brewing batch number one, Schmitt and Confer had a frank discussion of what they wanted their brewery to be. In that conversation they discovered common ground; they both felt it was important that the brewery have a community-based philanthropic program. They knew from watching other small-town breweries in Michigan and elsewhere that breweries create their own communities—early customers quickly become regular patrons who develop a sense of passion for the beer, the place, and the people. Both owners thought if they could develop that sense of community at Stormcloud there could be tangible benefits for Frankfort and the region.
Visitors to Stormcloud are encouraged to show where they live by placing a pin on a map of the United States.
So as part of the brewery’s business plan they created an adopt-a-charity program. Every month during the summer—the brewery’s busiest season—and quarterly during the rest of the year, they invite an organization to share its message with patrons, and the brewery hosts a day where a percentage of profits are donated to the charity. In addition, Schmitt and Confer organize the brewery’s patrons to volunteer their time when they seen an opportunity for a group event, like improving an area bike trail.
Since establishing the program, the brewery has teamed with local arts organizations, environmental organizations and conservation groups, a nonprofit farmstead and educational organization, and Habitat for Humanity.
The best thing about this philanthropy, Schmitt says, is he gets to see firsthand how it improves the community. “When you’re running an operation that is at the center of the community—on the best block on Main Street in a destination community—you get to know other people and you realize that what you do can make a measurable and meaningful impact that you get to watch.”
The taproom itself is designed to create its own community. There’s only one television set and it’s usually turned off. On the piano there’s a stack of board games and coloring books. There’s no hostess to greet patrons when they come through the door. Customers are invited to seat themselves with the unwritten goal having them sit someplace where they can start a conversation with someone they have never met before.
And then there’s the brewery’s other impact on the Frankfort community: because of Stormcloud, more people are coming to Frankfort for the beer. The secondary benefit is they are spending additional money with other retailers.
Stormcloud co-owner Rick Schmitt.
The brewery’s business plan identified people who visit northern Michigan on wine or foodie tours as potential customers. Since opening, however, more and more transient visitors have turned out to be beer tourists working their way along Michigan’s west coast. “I have no hesitation in saying that our brewery brings more people into town and elevates other business around it because of it,” Schmitt says. “People travel for a destination beer experience, not unlike wine, and they are spending money in town because of us.”
ONE MORE THING: Stormcloud brewer Brian Confer’s reputation as one of the state’s best brewers continues to grow. Of course, Confer specializes in Belgian-style beers, but his skills go beyond that style.
Confer’s reputation was cemented in 2016 when the Little Traverse Inn, a gastro pub in the Leelanau Peninsula, sponsored a fun competition called the Michigan Civil Beer War. The competition was a single-round knockout blind taste test, and the beers were voted on by the pub’s patrons. The quarterfinals of the competition pitted Stormcloud against the much larger and widely respected Founders Brewing Company. Stormcloud’s four beers—Rainmaker, Gerald’s Talking Dog, It Was A Dark & Stormcloudy Stout, and 31 Planes—not only defeated four beers from Founders—Mosaic Promise, Rubaeus, Imperial Stout, and ReDANKulus—they won in a clean sweep.