Lansing’s first organic brewing supply company, Materagaia, recently opened in Downtown’s Lansing City Market.
Materagaia owners, Jaclyn and Brad Barcroft, only recently decided to turn one of their favorite pastimes—home brewing—into a business.
“We opened on [June] 7th in the west wing of the City Market,” Barcroft says. “I think we started seriously pursuing it in January.”
The Barcrofts sell everything from ingredient kits to malts, yeasts to brewing books. While many brewing products include chemicals and pesticides, the 
products the Barcrofts sell are free of chemicals.
“As far as the organics are concerned, all of our ingredients are organic,” Barcroft says. “I’m not aware of anyone in the state that offers that. I think that will change.”
Barcroft says going organic increases the quality of the beer. Barcroft is in the midst of trying to find local, organic barley suppliers.
“I would absolutely love to source all local ingredients, but that’s definitely something we’re going to strive towards,” he says.
Down the road, the Barcrofts would like to have their own storefront. In the mean time, they’re working on getting booths at local farmer’s markets.
“We’ve had a lot of interest,” Barcroft says. “I was pretty surprised because we haven’t done a lot of advertising yet.”
Source: Brad Barcroft, Materagaia
Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here.
All Photographs © Dave Trumpie
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