Soon, a brewery in Boulder, Colo. is expected to begin brewing Founders Brewing Co.'s All Day IPA.

Founders, the largest brewer in Michigan — and 14th-largest in the United States — with its co-owner, Spain-based brewing company Mahou San Miguel, has made a deal to buy 70% of Avery Brewing Co., according to a news release this week from Avery.

That's a big deal. Founders appears poised to be the only existing Michigan brewery to have its beer brewed out of state for distribution. Detroit's historic Stroh Brewery Co., now owned by Wisconsin-based Pabst Brewing Co., is no longer based in Michigan.

Back in 2000, Founders' two founders bought a pair of bolt cutters after their landlord threatened to lock them out of the fledgling, Grand Rapids craft brewery facing bankruptcy. They changed their approach, making the bigger, more complex and flavorful beers that they enjoyed; consumers went for it, and it helped spur the growth to get Founders where it is today, as the brewery website describes.

They got some big help in 2014, when it was announced that Mahou San Miguel was buying 30% of the brewery. For years, Bell's Brewery, based in the Kalamazoo area 50 miles south of Founders, was bigger. Bell's has remained independent.

Founders surpassed Bell's in volume in 2017, shipping 466,700 barrels to Bell's 464,000. Last year, the difference was bigger: 563,700 to 476,712. With Avery taking some of the load (along with, of course, making its own brand of beers), Founders' growth streak appears sure to continue.

One of several recent mergers in a fast-evolving industry, this one coincides with a Monday announcement from the Brewers Association trade group that, even as national beer sales volume in general declined 1% last year, craft breweries grew 7% and comprise a 24.1% market share. And the United States in 2018 had 7,346 craft breweries, up nearly double from 2014 (3,814).

Neither Avery (which sold 30% to Mahou in 2017) nor Founders is considered by the association to be a craft brewery, because its self-imposed guidelines don't consider them independent. But that doesn't seem to make a difference to most people who like good beer.

Founders appears to have lost some fans after a racial-discrimination and retaliation lawsuit filed last August by a former manager. And the brewery, while publicly denying several of the claims, has since announced the hiring of a director of diversity and inclusion.

The state's largest brewery, founded in 1997, made big strides in production volume just in the past couple years:

In 2017, Founders increased production by 34%, producing 466,700 barrels (a beer barrel is 31 gallons).

In 2018, it shipped 563,700 barrels, about a 21% increase over the previous year.

That's impressive. And if you're wondering about that 1% decline in non-craft breweries, look to traditional macro-brewers such as Bud Light. The Belgian-based AB Inbev-owned brand, which this year kicked off controversy by touting that it doesn't use corn syrup in beer (it uses rice), had declined by 6.2% in 2017 compared with the previous year, having shipped 33.1 million barrels, according to a report from USA Today.

So while people are drinking less beer in general, the craft-style beers are still growing in popularity. And the most growth appears to be occurring with approachable beers that don't go overboard with hops or alcohol content.

Easy-drinking All Day IPA (4.7% alcohol by volume) has been Founders' flagship beer; it was 62% of the brewery's output in 2017. The brewery now distributes to nearly all of the United States and parts of Europe, so it isn't surprising that it was looking to expand west with production.

"We are currently working toward brewing All Day IPA at the Avery facility – testing is underway and we won’t release anything until we are fully confident in its consistency and quality," according to an email from Founders. "The goal with brewing some All Day IPA in Colorado is to help minimize the distance the beer has to travel to arrive at the West Coast. We want to make sure our West Coast customers are getting the freshest beer possible."

The companies will continue operating separately — so don't look for Avery beers at the Founders taprooms any time soon.

A few other Michigan breweries to merge in recent years include Traverse City-based Right Brain Brewery with Royal Oak-based Roak Brewing Co., as well as Comstock Park-based Perrin Brewing Co. with CANarchy, a group that includes Tampa Bay, Florida-based Cigar City Brewing Co., among others.

More:Michigan beer merger: Roak Brewing Co. to acquire Right Brain Brewery

It's all quite a leap from the modest, do-it-yourself craft beer beginnings of many of these breweries over the past few decades.

And as the Brewers Association continues to recognize Samuel Adams Boston Lager-maker Boston Beer Company as a craft brewery, even though it's publicly traded and brews millions of barrels across multiple states, the meaning of "craft brewer" is as murky as a trendy New England-style IPA.

More:2019 Michigan Brewery Madness: Vote in the Elite 8!

More:Bud Light taunts corn in beer: Why Michigan craft brewers use it

Spirits of Detroit columnist Robert Allen covers craft alcohol for the Free Press. Contact him: rallen@freepress.com or on Untappd, raDetroit and Twitter, @rallenMI and @SpiritsofDET.