Kent’s beer culture: MADCAP Brewery looks to expand

Arcade games, cards and freshly brewed beer.

While many people flee to downtown Kent at night to take the edge off, a brewery in sits just a few miles away on Mogadore Road.

MADCAP is a one story white building and when it first comes into view, you can’t really tell it’s MADCAP until you see the giant yellow glowing sign from inside the windows. It’s surrounded by quiet, especially at night, which is different compared to the commotion of downtown Kent when the sun goes down.

That’s exactly what owners Gia and Ryan Holmes wanted for this location. They didn’t want it to be crazy; they wanted it to be a place where everyone’s friends and family could come, and have a great time.

However, that’s not where MADCAP started.

“Yeah we started in like 2013. My husband had been brewing for 10 years at that point and he really just wanted to make it a career,” Gia said. “We started with our friend in his dad’s garage. We built like a pull-barn off his garage next to Stow High School.”

From there, they moved into a storage unit in Stow, off of Allen Road. But when they found the location in Kent, they couldn’t turn it down.

Kent Economic Developer Tom Wilke said thanks to the uniqueness of the bar, it attracts people to the city all the time.

“They run an excellent business and what they’ve done is that they’ve created a destination,” Wilke said. “That’s what makes it unique. It’s a destination. A lot of times, people will come to downtown and then decide where to go. In this case, they know they’re going to MADCAP brewery and that’s why they’ve come to Kent.”

And now, because of their success, Gia and Ryan are looking to expand the property.

“Our main thing is a patio. We are waiting for the weather to break completely, to have that laid out on the side of the building,” Gia said. “It’s kind of in-between the building next to us and us because really, when the weather got nice like last week, we didn’t have a lot of people there but you drove other places that had patios and guess where everybody was?”

While they wait for the weather to break, they will continue to host events in their tap room to drive more people to Kent.