GRAND RAPIDS, MI — On his way to a TV interview, Dave Engbers decided to swing past Founders Brewery about 7 a.m. March 10, 2012, to eyeball the line outside.

Engbers, co-founder and vice president at Founders, expected to see maybe 100 in line that Saturday morning for the release of KBS, or Kentucky Breakfast Stout, the brewery’s popular barrel-aged coffee and chocolate stout.

The beer had a reputation and a line was expected.

More than 1,000 people in a queue that wrapped around the building was not.

“It’s remarkable and humbling how many people hold this beer in such high esteem,” said Engbers, who started talking to some folks in line, asking where they were from. Many were from Michigan. Many others traveled from out of state.

“One guy shouted that he’d drove straight here from Louisiana,” he said.

While a 1,000-person line may have been a surprise two years ago, much has changed since then. KBS is a legitimate phenomenon now, and the surprise turnout in 2012 was a watershed moment for Founders’ rollout of a beer that was hard to sell when it was first brewed.

On Tuesday, the first KBS Week begins around Grand Rapids. Fifteen bars and restaurants are getting a KBS keg and their own release party in an attempt by Founders to spread the love this year.

The brewery has partnered with Grand Rapids hoteliers to offer special room and merchandise packages to beer aficionados traveling from afar.

“We’re trying to get retail involved, the city of Grand Rapids involved, a charity that’s giving back to the Grand River, and celebrate this KBS phenomenon,” said Founders CEO Mike Stevens. “We’ve tried to control that success and do some good with that.”

An internationally known beer

But what exactly is this phenomenon? What makes someone willing to drive from Louisiana to buy it?

The brew, which pours midnight brown, is not so much a beer as a drinkable collector’s item; something people hold onto for the “right occasion” or buy simply to gift or trade. Popping the cap off one feels unnecessarily serious, as if the actual consumption of a hot commodity like KBS is somehow irresponsible given the lengths necessary to procure a bottle.

The beer is known internationally and local brewery owners who travel to Europe say it’s a reference point for Founders and Grand Rapids. It’s not uncommon to find people hawking bottles online at inflated prices, which Founders hates.

KBS scores very well among the online reviewers. RateBeer.com ranked it the "Best Beer in America" this year, one of several high rankings over the years. KBS has a rare 100 percent "world class" ranking on BeerAdvocate.

At 11.2 percent alcohol by volume, KBS is definitely a strong brew. For most, it’s a one-off; either sipped carefully among friends or followed by something lighter.

For folks who seek it, KBS often plays the unicorn — somehow you just missed it. Either the keg just tapped out just after you sat down, or the quiet case the brewery slyly opened in the company store empties out moments before you arrive.

Because of its popularity, KBS has been both a blessing and a curse for Founders, which built its barrel-aging clout around the popularity of this beer.

The success has outgrown the supply, frustrating many who want it. Like anything highly sought-after, there will always be folks who are left with a slightly bitter taste after deciding that getting some wasn’t worth the hype or the hassle.

Founders had to unexpectedly ration cases at the 2012 release and the move to a ticketed release system in 2013 was marred by server issues that resulted in a tongue-lashing for the brewery from upset customers.

The brewery chose EventBrite for this year’s ticketed release, which was much smoother. Tickets to the brewery’s bottle release on March 22 sold out in a half hour when they went on sale March 1, and, not surprisingly, the Founders social media team had some muted grousing to contend with online.

“We don’t brew the buzz,” Engbers likes to say when asked about the popularity.

Nonetheless, he says, “I don’t want to deny the fact that it’s fun for us to watch the hoopla that surrounds this beer.”

At first, KBS was a tough sell

The seed that grew into KBS was planted in 2001 when Founders was still a young brewery figuring out the business end through trial and error. Engbers and Stevens were bartending at the old taproom in the Brass Works Building on Monroe Avenue when the inspiration struck for regular Breakfast Stout.

One Saturday afternoon, a taproom regular came in with a bag of chocolate covered espresso beans and gave some to Dave, who often worked through lunch. When he washed them down with a sip of porter, a light bulb went off.

About 1,000 people waited at Founders Brewing Co. in 2012 for the limited release of KBS. About a third walked away empty-handed due to limited quantity and high demand.

“None of the flavors overwhelmed each other,” he said. “You could still taste the coffee and the chocolate, but more than anything, you could still taste the beer.”

A couple years later, around 2003 (the partners’ memory gets a little fuzzy on the exact date), Stevens called down to Lynchburg, Tenn., on a whim and asked the Jack Daniel’s distillery store for a couple of spent whiskey barrels.

Barrel aging beers, hugely popular now, was still a new practice at the time. “There were a couple other breweries messing with it,” said Stevens. “I think we caught wind and thought, ‘Hey that’s a cool idea.’”

The lady who answered the phone at Jack Daniel’s was perplexed.

“She just thought it was a silly idea,” said Stevens, who was told the barrels were usually thrown away, but he could come get some if he wanted.

He came back with two barrels, which were filled with Breakfast Stout and left for six months. After sipping the first test batch, Stevens and Engbers were sold.

They switched up the recipe and used an imperial Russian stout with espresso beans and chocolate for the first formal batch. “It needed a much bigger backbone to hold up all the bourbon and vanilla notes,” said Engbers — and made more. For the first formal batch, they switched to oak bourbon barrels bought from what Stevens termed a "wandering barrel salesman." That's today's recipe in a nutshell.

KBS was the most expensive and labor-intensive beer the brewery had ever produced and distributors initially balked at it. They asked, “How do you expect us to sell a beer for $20 a 4 pack?” said Engbers.

Building buzz

The tune changed after Founders took KBS to the Extreme Beer Festival in Boston in 2005. Engbers said the chatter in the online beer threads began to spike and wholesalers received escalating requests from retail accounts.

“That was kind of the start of the legend, I guess,” he said. “That’s when I think the buzz really caught on.”

After Boston, demand for KBS grew alongside the overall growth in the U.S. and Michigan craft beer markets. Founders is now the state’s second largest brewery. The company plans to make roughly 200,000 barrels of beer in 2014.

The KBS batch size doubled every year until, due to space constraints on Monroe Avenue, the company began to age the beer in a local gypsum mine-turned storage facility. The cave-aging novelty also lends KBS a certain marketing cachet.

Barrel-aging has grown as well, at Founders and elsewhere. Only a handful of breweries were using barrels when KBS was developed. Now, everyone does it. Founders buys about 3,500 bourbon barrels every year for beers such as KBS, Backwoods Bastard and certain taproom one-offs.

That number makes Founders among the largest brewery barrel-aging programs in the U.S., said Stevens.

A marketing photo of KBS.

Turning this year’s KBS release into a weeklong event was something Engbers said he’s been mulling over in some form since the 2012 release went off the rails.

The brewery has a responsibility to ensure its customers can get access to the company's products, he said. Although KBS output has grown every year, Engbers said the supply will probably never match demand.

“This is a beer that’s really driven by consumers,” he said. “Part of our philosophy is that we want our beer to be discovered. We don’t want to push it on people. This one found its way into the hearts of the beer community.

“We’ve never really had to market it.”

Garret Ellison covers business, government and breaking news for MLive/The Grand Rapids Press. Email him at gellison@mlive.com or follow on Twitter & Instagram