Michigan's largest brewery is bowing out of Detroit's biggest beer event of the year as it faces a racial discrimination lawsuit that reached a boiling point this week.

Founders Brewing Co. has pulled out of this weekend's Michigan Brewers Guild Fall Beer Festival, which takes place Friday and Saturday at Detroit's Eastern Market and will host more than 130 Michigan breweries serving 850-plus local beers, the Michigan Brewers Guild confirmed to the Free Press on Wednesday morning.

"Occasionally we have brewery members drop out of a festival, and while that is unfortunate, the celebration this weekend will be about all the great Michigan breweries and beers that are present," the Michigan Brewers Guild told the Free Press in an email.

Founders has not responded to a request for comment.

Founders, based in Grand Rapids with a second taproom in Detroit, has long been a mainstay of the Michigan Brewers Guild's annual beer festivals and regularly hosts among the largest and most popular beer stands at the events. But the pending racial discrimination lawsuit against the company that was filed last year reached national attention Monday, when a Detroit Metro Times story first revealed a leaked deposition involving one of Founders' general managers.

In the deposition, the manager — Dominic Ryan, who fired the plaintiff, Tracy Evans, last year — would not answer whether he knows Evans is black, and proceeded to say he doesn't know the race of Barack Obama, Michael Jordan or former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick because he has "never met" them.

Evans, a former events and promotions manager at Founders' Detroit taproom, filed the lawsuit last year, alleging Founders tolerated a "racist internal corporate culture," was passed up for promotions because of his race and that the company fired him in retaliation for complaints to human resources. Founders has denied most of these allegations, though it admitted that in two instances, employees used the N-word around Evans and weren't immediately fired (full lawsuit response here).

The leaked deposition, along with Founders' statement provided by legal counsel, sparked a social media firestorm this week that's led to a barrage of angry comments from customers and craft beer enthusiasts. A local brewery, Eastern Market Brewing Co., said Monday night it was backing out of Fall Beer Festival because it doesn't believe Founders deserves to be at the event.

"While Founders may have a taproom in Detroit, they do not represent the diverse community that is the city of Detroit," Eastern Market Brewing Co. wrote.

On Wednesday afternoon, an Eastern Market Brewing representative told the Free Press that it would decide later on Wednesday whether the brewery would return to the festival, now that Founders is out.

Meanwhile, 8 Degrees Plato, a popular craft beer store on 3409 Cass near Founders’ taproom in Detroit, said in a Wednesday Facebook post that it will no longer carry Founders products beyond what’s already on the shelves in its store.

“We are choosing to no longer carry Founders products until the current situation resolves itself in a positive outcome,” owner Tim Costello said in the post.

Nationally, news outlets such as the Washington Post and Newsweek covered the drama. Meanwhile, Founders has been silent on social media for nearly 48 hours.

Founders had a big week planned. This weekend is also its widely anticipated Canadian Breakfast Stout release, the final such release it's planning. CBS has long been Founders' most highly rated beer and among the top-rated beers on Beer Advocate, a craft beer review site.

But the lawsuit, as well as Founders' plans to sell a 90% majority stake to Spanish beer company Mahou San Miguel in January 2020, have sparked tension in the local beer community.

Entering Fall Beer Festival this weekend, Founders Detroit collaborated with local brewers as part of the annual Detroit Beer Experiment, in which each brewery creates a beer based on a theme. This year, the theme is cocktail-inspired beer.

Stephen Roginson, owner of Detroit-based Batch Brewing Company, told the Free Press the Detroit Beer Experiment will go on as planned, as the beers have already been made, but also expressed disappointment in Founders.

"The condemnation from craft beer consumers has been visceral," he told the Free Press. "As the biggest brewery in Michigan, you'd hope they could be a beacon of corporate responsibility, as opposed to a cautionary tale."

Other popular Michigan breweries attending Fall Beer Festival include Bell's Brewery, Short's Brewing Company, Odd Side Ales, Atwater Brewery and Blackrocks Brewery. See the full list of beers here (though, as of this writing, Founders' beer list is still there.)

Spirits of Detroit writer Brian Manzullo covers craft alcohol for the Free Press. Contact him: bmanzullo@freepress.com and on Untappd, bmanzullo and Twitter, @BrianManzullo and @SpiritsofDET.