Unexpected Craft

FROM BRISTOL TO LOS ANGELES, FROM WORKING WITH FILMS TO WORKING WITH KEGS, EDWARD STENCEL HAS WORN MANY HATS.

“I never expected to be running a brewery,” he says when asked where the “unexpected” part of his latest venture, Unexpected Craft Brewing Company, comes from. “And I hadn’t realized that the craft of brewing is in my DNA, so that’s also unexpected.” Having the moniker of “unexpected” also kicks the door wide open to offering all kinds of flavor combinations, like his Peanut Butter Chocolate Stencel Stout and Grapefruit & Basil I-75 IPA (both top sellers).

Some patrons may know UCBC from its earlier iteration as River Rouge Brewing Company, which was Ed’s first foray into the world of brewing. He began that in Royal Oak in 2015, and originally wanted to keep it and add another location. Fast-forward through finding a new building suitable for tanks, dealing with family health issues, dealing with his own health issues – he got Covid when it first hit the US – and working with the city of Oak Park to sort out ordinance issues for breweries, and he said it’s amazing that he and his wife and business partner Martha made it through.

“It was chaotic,” he says in what might be the understatement of the year. Ultimately, he closed River Rouge and opened UCBC on October 1, 2021.

BEFORE HE WAS A BREWMASTER, ED WORKED IN THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY. During that time, he met his wife while working at a plant in Mexico, and she convinced him to get a broader life perspective by going abroad and studying for his master’s outside the US. (She had lived in England herself for three years.) He wound up graduating from the University of Bristol with a master’s in film, and then moving to Hollywood to pursue a career in the movie industry.

In 2010, he and Martha moved back to Metro Detroit for her job and because the film industry was booming in Michigan at the time. When the state incentives for movie-makers disappeared and film fizzled, though, that left Ed in the lurch.

He tried working for a buddy who had a brewery in San Diego for a few months, but the constant back-and-forth lifestyle got to him. The logical course of action, Ed decided, was to open his own brewery, armed with all of the on-the-ground knowledge he’d acquired from being a “fixture” in San Diego breweries. “I caught craft beer fever there,” he explains.

NOW, HAVING OPENED AND RUN TWO BREWERIES, he can see how small businesses like his develop relationships with customers and the community. “They morph into being your larger family,” he says.

He’s also realized that it’s about more than just the dollars. “Yes, you have to make dollars to make it work, but for me, it’s about the environment and the community, particularly the community here. We have to make this area work, not just for us, but for everybody. And not just the businesses right here, but in the 11 Mile corridor.”

Fortunately for Ed and said corridor, his customers from his River Rouge days have happily migrated to UCBC to enjoy his latest offerings on tap along with his newer-to-the-menu wines and ciders. In the future, Ed might even get a distiller’s license and tinker with yet more “imbibe-ables.” Because why not? Life is all about the unexpected.

14401 W Eleven Mile Rd, Oak Park | 248.802.0555 | https://unexpectedcraft.com