Eastern Market Brewing Co. Announces Expansion and Statewide Distribution

Elephant Juice is going statewide: Eastern Market Brewing Co. announces a contract brewing search and a statewide distribution push that could make it one of Michigan's largest breweries.

Detroit, MI — April 23, 2026 — Eastern Market Brewing Co., one of Detroit's most celebrated craft breweries, today announced a landmark growth strategy that will significantly expand its production capacity and bring its flagship beers to consumers across Michigan for the first time.

The brewery has launched a formal search process with several of Michigan's largest brewing facilities to identify a contract brewing partner for its core Eastern Market Brewing Co. brands, led by Elephant Juice, the brewery's best-selling and fastest-growing beer. A partner is expected to be selected in May, with production beginning in June and statewide distribution launching this summer.

The production expansion is paired with a statewide Michigan distribution strategy that builds on what the brewery has already accomplished through self-distribution. Eastern Market Brewing Co. is the only self-distributing craft brewery with placement in Michigan's major retail chains, but geographic constraints have limited that reach to the metro Detroit market. Statewide distribution removes that ceiling entirely.

“For years, our self-distribution business has been our most important competitive advantage,” said Dayne Bartscht, Founder. “We built something nobody else in Michigan has done at our scale, and we did it intentionally. This is the moment that investment pays off. The rights to our brands statewide have significant value, and we structured this expansion accordingly.”

A Detroit brand going statewide.

Eastern Market Brewing Co. was founded in Detroit and has grown into one of the city's most recognized craft beer brands, with a taproom in Eastern Market and an experimental brewing arm, Ferndale Project, in Ferndale. The breweries collectively rank among the top 10 largest in Michigan and continue to grow at a moment when most in the industry are standing still.

The move to contract brewing and statewide distribution is expected to increase Elephant Juice IPA production alone by seven times its current volume, a jump that could put Eastern Market Brewing Co. in the top five largest breweries in Michigan overnight.

“We started Eastern Market Brewing Co. in 2017 because we looked at the Michigan craft beer landscape and realized that Detroit didn't have a brewery competing at the highest level. The west side of the state had all the players,” said Dayne Bartscht. “Everything we've built since has been pointed at closing that gap. Going statewide isn't new. It was always the destination.”

The strategic logic.

The craft beer market is contracting nationally, with major retail chains reducing shelf space for underperforming craft brands. For Eastern Market Brewing Co., that contraction creates opportunity on two fronts. As struggling brands lose placements, shelf space is opening up for breweries with the velocity data to back them up. And as Michigan's largest breweries face declining volumes, they have excess capacity and every reason to partner with a brand that can fill it. Eastern Market Brewing Co. offers exactly that, gaining access to scale it cannot replicate on its own at a significantly lower cost per barrel than brewing independently.

The brewery is in the midst of a competitive search process with several of Michigan's largest brewing facilities, inviting them to submit proposals to produce Eastern Market Brewing Co.'s flagship brands. The process is designed to identify the partner best positioned to meet the brewery's standards for quality, freshness, and scale while bringing down production costs.

“Elephant Juice has always been defined by its freshness. Our self-distribution model has allowed it to hit shelves sometimes the same day it's packaged, and that obsession with freshness doesn't change as we grow. What changes is how many people get to experience it,” said Bartscht. “We are being deliberate about who we partner with because the beer has to be exactly what our customers expect—just available to a whole lot more people.”

What's next for the Eastern Market Brewing Co. portfolio.

Elephant Juice leads the statewide expansion, followed by Wunderboi, the brewery's easy-drinking light beer and top taproom seller, and Detroit-Style, its fastest-growing brand. Pineapple Market Day IPA, which briefly surpasses Elephant Juice as the brewery's highest-volume beer during its annual release, is planned for statewide distribution next spring.

As flagship beers move to a contract brewer, all remaining brand production returns to Ferndale Project, which continues to serve as the innovation hub for developing and testing the next generation of Eastern Market Brewing Co. brands. At the same time, brewing activity increases at the Eastern Market taproom and Elephant & Co. Detroit, where small-batch releases and rotating taps will give guests more variety and fresher beer than ever before.

What started as a community brewery in the heart of Detroit is becoming something bigger. Eastern Market Brewing Co. is not just growing. It is positioning itself as the defining craft brewery of eastern Michigan, with the brands, infrastructure, and strategy to match.

About Eastern Market Brewing Co.

Eastern Market Brewing Co. is a community-driven brewery in the heart of Detroit, known for innovation. Founded in 2017, the brewery has grown into one of Michigan's most recognized independent craft beer brands, with a taproom in Eastern Market, an experimental brewing arm at Ferndale Project, and Elephant & Co., a Detroit-style pizza and sports destination.