Roar Brewing opens on Selden as Detroit's first Black-owned brewery

Roar Brewing Co. soft-opened at 666 Selden Street on March 23, 2025, the same day as the Marche du Nain Rouge, the annual parade that drives out a folkloric red dwarf said to curse the city. The timing carried an extra wrinkle. The space had been Nain Rouge Brewery, and the new operation takes the building in the opposite direction.

Founder Evan Fay says Roar is Detroit's first Black-owned brewery. According to the National Black Brewers Association, Black-owned breweries account for fewer than one percent of all breweries in the United States, a figure the company cites in its own materials. By Fay's account there were none in Detroit before Roar.

Fay is a U.S. Air Force veteran who grew interested in craft beer while stationed in Cheyenne, Wyoming. On weekends he drove to breweries in Fort Collins, Colorado, and came away with a specific idea of what a taproom could be. "When I was in the military and stationed in Wyoming, I would visit breweries in Fort Collins, and I realized they weren't just places to grab a drink, they were community hubs," Fay told Hour Detroit.

That absence of a local model shaped the build. With no Black-owned breweries in the city to learn from, Fay has said he had to look outside Detroit and outside his immediate network for technical and supply-chain guidance. "Typically, you turn to people in your community who have done it before, but with no Black-owned breweries in the city, we had to look outside our immediate circles for guidance," he told Black Enterprise.

The flagship is a Honey Oat Stout, the beer Roar poured on opening day. The lineup also includes a pilsner, a wheat beer, and a saison. The brewery describes the approach as approachable craft beer without pretension, in a space meant to feel welcoming to newcomers as much as to regulars. Roar lists an outdoor area and a three-and-a-half-season room for shoulder months, and the company has said it plans brewing tours and watch parties.

The name points back to the city. Roar's own framing ties it to the sounds of Detroit, its sports teams, its music, and its industry. Fay has put it more vividly in interviews. "Detroit is home to the Lions, the Tigers, the Pistons, and the Red Wings, teams that roar with pride," he told Black Enterprise. "But the roar isn't just in sports. It's in the city's engines, its music, its industry, and its people."

Fay also owns Café Noir and the Chloë Monroe Galleries, which makes Roar his largest hospitality project to date. The brewery operates out of 666 Selden St., Suite B, and has said it expects a grand opening later in the year.