This story is part of a series about arts and culture in Washtenaw County. It is made possible by the Ann Arbor Art Center, the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, Destination Ann Arbor, Larry and Lucie Nisson, and the University Musical Society.
Tony DeRosa says some were initially skeptical about his idea of opening a combination craft brewery and improv theater in Ann Arbor.
"When you're a two-in-one business," he says, people sometimes ask, "Are you taking both sides seriously?"
But DeRosa's enthusiasm for both comedy and beer have helped his business,
hear.say brewing + theater, take off since it opened last fall at 2350 W. Liberty St. in Ann Arbor. DeRosa used to be an improv performer at Ann Arbor's Pointless Brewery and Theatre. Although that venue closed in 2020, it wound up providing some inspiration for hear.say’s setup. Pointless co-owner Jason Tomalia co-founded hear.say with DeRosa, although he's since moved on from the business.
At the time of Pointless' closing, DeRosa’s wife had earned a fellowship at Stanford University, and the couple moved to California. DeRosa was working for YouTube, where he managed a help center operation.
"It just felt very soulless to me," he says.
He says YouTube is "a big multinational corporation," and he’d realized he wanted "to do something hyper-local."
DeRosa’s two biggest passions were comedy and beer. While he acknowledges that "not everything that people love should become one business, I had seen that model work at a smaller scale" — and he saw a way to scale it up.
"Working here," DeRosa says, "I watch somebody smile if they like a beer. … I get to see, day to day, the impact of my work when people like the product on the beer side or on the comedy side."
He also learned from some of Pointless' challenges. There, he’d noticed, the taproom and theater were combined, "so you couldn't just come in and have a beer if you weren't there for a show."
DeRosa wanted hear.say's theater space to be adjacent to its taproom for specifically that reason. You can have a beer, enjoy a show, or both.
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hear.say brewing + theaterAn improv show at hear.say brewing + theater.
hear.say's enclosed theater hosts improv shows on Friday and Saturday nights, and standup comedy late most Fridays and Saturdays. (The complete event schedule is available
here.) The venue also offers improv classes. With 80 students already enrolled, DeRosa says, "that’s growing really fast."
On the brewery side of the operation, DeRosa says he's focused on "using wholesome ingredients." hear.say Head Brewer Ben Schnurle, former owner of One Drop Brewing Company in Oxford, Mich., brews with premium non-GMO grain from Germany. Hops come from Yakima Chief, New Zealand, or — for one particular project (a Michigan India Pale Ale) – Michigan. The result is an almost startlingly fresh and flavorful product that may not bear much resemblance to the beers you’re used to.
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hear.say brewing + theaterBeer at hear.say brewing + theater.
"We're not putting garbage in people's beer," DeRosa says. "I don’t mean that as a critique on anybody else, but there’s a certain purity to what we’re doing on the beer side."
The space DeRosa found for hear.say had belonged to Townies Brewery, which ultimately failed to survive the pandemic. However, DeRosa says, "it was a good opportunity to inherit some [brewing] equipment."
Before Townies, the building belonged to Diamond Glass and Feiners, a glass manufacturing business. DeRosa says much of the remaining décor pays "homage to the manufacturing that started here."
In fact, to make room for everything, DeRosa’s started to move some of the improv classes to an office suite in Jackson Plaza "so that this [space] can really focus on being a brewery."
Now, DeRosa’s working on pursuing all sorts of community and nonprofit partnerships.
"We're happy to work with people," he says. "Where other people would say no, we tend to say yes, because we're down to try things. We're down to create a home for various niche interests and hobbies."
But, he adds, "we've got lots of regulars on the beer side that literally just come here because they love … beer and they want a really pure, clean-tasting beverage."