Bell's Brewery

Larry Bell incorporated the Kalamazoo Brewing Company, Inc., in 1983 as a homebrewing supply shop in Kalamazoo, Michigan. In September 1985, the company began to sell its own beer, brewed in a 15-US-gallon (57 L) soup kettle and fermented in open fermenters covered with plastic wrap. The company produced 135 barrels in its first year. In 1993 the company opened an adjacent brewpub, the Eccentric Café.

In 2003, Bell's opened an additional brewing facility in nearby Comstock, Michigan. The company legally changed its name in 2006 to Bell's Brewery, Inc., reflecting the name by which it was popularly known. A larger production facility in Comstock opened in 2012, increasing the company's brewing capacity from 180,000 barrels to 500,000 barrels per year.

In late 2012, the Bell family repurchased all stock held by outside investors, returning the company to full family ownership.

The company opened Upper Hand Brewery in the Upper Peninsula city of Escanaba in 2014. This brewery produces UPA (American pale ale), Upper Hand Light (lager), Yooper Ale (pale ale), Escanaba Black Beer (black ale), Upper Hand IPA (India pale ale), and a variety of seasonal and specialty brews. Initially sold only in the U.P., it began limited distribution in the Lower Peninsula in 2020. Upper Hand Brewery was sold to California-based Seven Beverages, Inc. in 2024.

In 2021, Larry Bell sold his controlling share of the company to the Japanese Kirin beverage group subsidiary, Lion, an Australia-based international producer of alcoholic beverages that also owns Colorado-based New Belgium Brewing Company.

Legal issues

In 1998, Bell's changed the name of its flagship summer beer from Solsun to Oberon as a result of legal action by Mexican brewing company Cerveceria Cuauhtemoc Moctezuma, makers of a beer with a similar name: El Sol ("The Sun").

Bell's was temporarily pulled from the Illinois market in October 2006 when Union Beverage (its distributor to Chicago) attempted to sell its distribution rights to a competitor that Larry Bell did not trust to adequately represent the brewery's full product line. In 2007, the company re-entered the market through new distributors by creating two new beers: Kalamazoo Royal Amber Ale and Kalamazoo Hopsoulution. In August 2008, Bell's was able to return its primary brands to the area, after Union Beverage's parent company quit the Illinois market.