Creation David Manson and Andy Langlois founded Blackrocks Brewery in Marquette, Michigan, and opened its doors on December 28, 2010. Both were former pharmaceutical salesmen who were laid off in company downsizings during the late 2000s
Great Recession. The two were keen
home brewers, and they had discussed turning that hobby into a craft brewery after retirement. Once they lost their jobs and incomes, they accelerated those thoughts and opened Blackrocks. Manson and Langlois took the brewery's name from a set of rocks in Marquette's
Presque Isle Park from which people jump into
Lake Superior. Manson later said that the name was also an analogy for the two men's "leap of faith" in starting a brewery despite little prior experience in the industry.
Taproom Blackrocks Brewery's customer-facing location is in a pair of former houses at 420 and 424 North Third Street in Marquette, Michigan. A fence running along the back edge of the taproom's property incorporates used skis, including some donated by patrons of the brewery. Blackrocks started in 424 North Third Street, a Victorian-style house that was over a hundred years old when the brewery opened. It was described by the
Star Tribune in 2020 as looking like an "out-of-place ski chalet". In 2017, they expanded that patio to . In wintertime, the establishment erected temporary
igloo-shaped outdoor structures to increase its available seating. As Blackrocks' popularity grew, the taproom's small size limited the brewery's patronage, particularly in winter. This mixed-use building had previously hosted apartments and three businesses. Blackrocks planned to use the additional space for events and to expand their limited amount of indoor seating, as the new house had two floors and doubled their available indoor area. They also built in a stage for musical acts, a second bar, a fireplace, Blackrocks had hoped to open the new building by December 2020, but the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March significantly disrupted their plans. Instead, the interior of the new location opened on the last day of 2021, and an upper outdoor deck followed in 2022. In 2024, Blackrocks began construction on another taproom expansion. The work was intended to add more space, to increase the size of its outdoor upper deck, and to triple the on-site brewing capacity. Knowing that people had been a fan of the porch, its columns were integrated into that expanded upper deck. The work was finished by 2025. By 2013, the number of mugs reached 1,100. == Operation ==