SISTER LAKES — While searching through the aisles of a local grocery, convenience or liquor store in Cass or Van Buren county, one may come across one of three beer cans with the Sister Lakes Brewing Company label hugging the plastic.

This past spring, the brewing company decided to release three beers in cans to be sold in southwest Michigan. Since 2017, the brewery had been distributing kegs and six barrels to local bars and restaurants.

Getting the cans in grocery and liquor stores was the natural progression of the growth of the business, one of the owners, Joe Morin said.

The brewery’s initial plan was to create a tap room where the owners could share their beers with the community.

“With the main goal,” Morin said, “if you want to grow, then it requires going out to distribution and expanding your brand.”

Part of distribution is getting people initially interested in a brewery’s beer, which will drive customers to a tap room, Morin said.

Since the release of the brewery’s beer in cans and its active participation in beer festivals, the brewery has seen traffic drawn to its tap room.

“People will ask, where is Sister Lakes?” Morin said. “A lot of people don’t necessarily know where Sister Lakes is or will think it’s some far away destination.”

In addition to the cans being sold in Cass and Van Buren counties, the canned beers have also made their way onto three stores’ shelves in Grand Rapids.

“People have our beer on tap and will say, ‘Let’s go check them out this weekend,’” Morin said.

Morin said it makes sense for the brewery to distribute cans in the summer since beer sales in southwest Michigan in general are much higher during that time.

The owners are not 100 percent certain on what will happen with their can distributing in the winter, but Morin said if beers are released in cans, they would be more winter styles of beer.

“The ones we are doing now are more Mexican lagers or more summer style of beers,” Morin said. “In the winter, we would do more of a winter variety of beer — something darker and more winter appropriate.”

Sister Lakes Brewing Company also has released a new beer, the Black Bird Black IPA. One of the brewery’s owners, David Morin, works for Spectrum Health Lakeland in St. Joseph. He has known Trip Immer, a fellow manager, for the past eight years. When Immer and his wife opened the Blackbird Waterhouse, a bar and restaurant in Coloma, they wanted to have a partnership with a local brewery that could brew a beer for them. Immer and David talked through the process, met at the brewery and created the new Black Bird Black IPA, which is exclusively on tap only at the Blackbird Waterhouse or occasionally on tap at the Sister Lakes Brewing Company.

“Their mission is similar to ours,” David said. “Ours is very community orientated. We want to support local communities, local businesses. They are the same way.”

So far, David said customers that have never been to Sister Lakes Brewing Company have been stopping by to try more beers after having the Black Bird Black IPA at the Blackbird Waterhouse.

“Every beer we have has a story about it,” David said. “It’s a really good way for us to share customers and spread the word about what each other is doing.”