Jim Perialas of Irish Kilt Brewing Company

Jim Perialas built a career and life teaching high school in Roscommon, but after retiring, he began a new role as economic developer for the village. Using resources from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) Redevelopment Ready Communities (RRC) program, he provides guidance and support to local businesses, advises on regulations, engages the community, promotes best practices and facilitates redevelopment projects. 

He also runs a brewery.

When an MSU Extension study showed a gap in Roscommon County’s tourist amenities, Jim and his wife Carrie stepped up to open the Irish Kilt Brewing Company and offer the community a new gathering place that emphasizes their county’s kinship with its namesake in Ireland. “Irish Jim” is a core part of the Roscommon renaissance, and he’s hoping that new housing and other developments will pave the way for the next generation to step in and let him ride into the sunset.

A Bold Vision

“I grew up in Big Rapids, Michigan. My father was an administrator at Ferris and my folks had a horseback riding stable where they would rent horses in the summertime, quite often to the Ferris students. But I was allergic to horses, and I never ended up working for my folks. Long story short, before I went off to Michigan State University, my best friend and I went to Mackinac Island, and got jobs driving horses, of all things. I was a carriage driver there for several years and met my wife Carrie on Mackinac Island.

I went back to my hometown, got a teaching degree at Ferris, became a business education and social studies high school teacher for 30 years and raised three kids here in Roscommon. 

I retired three years ago. My former principal, Ron Alden, ended up taking the job as village manager of the Village of Roscommon, and along with Dan Scow, my predecessor, worked diligently to earn RRC status for the village.  When Dan was ready to retire, Ron asked me, after I had dipped my toes into the water of real estate for a bit, ‘How'd you like to do some grant writing, the whole RRC thing and economic development?’  I decided, let’s give it a whirl.

Three to five years ago, we had many empty storefronts and more people leaving than coming. Now we have all our storefronts filled. We have boutique-style, walkable shops. Prior to that, we had a utilitarian downtown where you'd have maybe a doctor's office, law office, maybe a beauty salon. Locals might have reason to go downtown occasionally, but we weren't really bringing in visitors.

We’re very close to Higgins Lake and Houghton Lake, as well as Lake St. Helen. Roscommon County is known for its three big vacation lakes, all with a very distinct identity. Higgins Lake has an identity closer to Torch Lake: sandy, crystal clear. My vision was to see Roscommon become more like Torch Lake’s Bellaire, a support community that has a brewery, restaurants, and walkable shops. 

We had some bold, courageous business owners who took a chance and looked at the tools we were using through RRC like Match on Main. Our local DDA initiated a facade grant program, and we proactively started to work with business owners to get the facades done, cleaned up, and help them with other types of resources, even if it's not money, but advice, tutoring. 

A Reluctant Brewer

As I joined the economic development team at the village, I also joined the Roscommon County Economic Development Corporation/Committee (RCEDC.) At that time, in 2023, they had just engaged MSU Extension on a Rural Tourism Assessment. We paid them to send secret shoppers of various demographics to our county, to each of our large touristy areas. 

Their report mentioned, ‘We went canoeing on the river. We did some camping, but man, something like a brewery would have been great.’ At the time, there was no brewery in the entire county. That piqued my interest a little bit, but I was in my late 50s and not interested in opening a business, let alone a brewery. 

I met the developers of the old Chase Bank, right downtown. They came up with this concept of a food court with BC Pizza, a new Coney Island-style restaurant, an arcade for kids, an ice cream shop, a coffee shop, and as the crown jewel, a brewery. They asked me, as the director of economic development, ‘Hey, could you find us a brewer?’ 

We tried. Attracting somebody with brewing knowledge to Northern Michigan is somewhat difficult, especially if they're making market wages in Jackson or Mount Pleasant. Finally, the owners of the building said, ‘Why don't you and your wife open the brewery?’

Our first answer was, ‘No, thank you.’ They came to us again. And a third time. Finally, we relented. It was not that I would say, ‘Oh, I've always dreamed of opening a pub or a brewery.’ I thought with my wisdom, I'd be able to stay away from starting a business this late in life. But here we are. 

An Irish Spirit

To have a foundation of basically everybody in the community knowing us and wanting to support our business was huge. We weren't people from out of town. 

As a teacher, I did work on a master's degree in business administration, not that I thought I'd ever use it, but that has helped. I didn’t think I could come in with an MBA and just start this successful business and ride off into the sunset. There have been trials and tribulations, and I looked toward local mentors and other small business owners to help us through this process. 

Opening the brewery has been wonderful, a great addition to our community. We hear it every day. BC Pizza, for example – with the synergy of now having beer in the same building, their sales are up about 50%. 

In the mid-1800s Charles O’Malley, a Michigan state legislator of Irish descent, chose four Michigan counties to be renamed for Irish counties: Antrim, Clare, Wexford, and Roscommon. When we were looking for names for our brewery, we thought ‘Irish Kilt’ was cool and catchy. The kilts aren't as popular in Ireland as they are in Scotland. In Scotland, there are tartan designs for hundreds, if not thousands of different families. In Ireland, however, there’s a tartan design for each of the 32 counties, but that’s it. Hanging in our bar are 32 banners with the 32 distinct tartan plaid designs of the 32 counties of Ireland, including Antrim, Clare, Wexford, and Roscommon. 

People have been calling me ‘Irish Jim.’ However, my father is Greek and my mother was Korean. No Irish blood, but the Irish spirit is there! 

A Downtown Refresh

After they saw how our communities reacted very positively to their study, the MSU Extension team applied for and won a national award. They're going to be recognized in October [2025] in New Hampshire with a national Excellence in Tourism award for the study they did here in Roscommon County. The Village of Roscommon was also a finalist for the Michigan Municipal League’s Community Excellence Award for 2025.

We’re looking to get a little bit bigger, but not too much more. Our community has very loudly said, ‘We’re a nice little small town, and let’s keep it that way, but let’s clean some things up. Let’s be a place that people like to visit.’ 

We’re getting a lot of feedback from tourists. Our social media following has increased by about 30% over the last six to eight months. I've had thousands of students over the course of my career. A lot of them are coming through town, saying, ‘I've never seen my hometown like this. There are actually people walking through the streets and through the shops.’

It's not quite ‘Mackinac Island’ crowded. But we’ve got music playing above the businesses downtown, we’ve got the new canoe launch at Hiawatha Park and the new gazebo. Back in the day when we moved to the area in the early 90s, the storefronts were empty downtown, but now we're seeing kids on bikes riding through town, kids in the neighborhood, going to the parks. They're not on their screens, sitting at home; they're out. They show up at this new arcade. They park in the bike racks downtown and visit the new pump track and go over to the river and swim. It's been very refreshing.

A Lasting Legacy 

We call ourselves northern Michigan's best-kept secret, a Hallmark community. We have Forest Dunes, which consistently is rated one of the top golf courses in not just Michigan, but in the entire United States. We have world-class golf, world-class fly fishing and canoeing. We have the county’s top-rated restaurant, the Beechwood. 

A lot of people retire to Roscommon County. People vacation here, they buy cabins, and then they end up retiring here. We did a pretty comprehensive housing study, and we just met with folks from MSDHA and MEDC as well as Rep. Borton on this new 200-unit housing project. I would really like to see greater county growth. Regulated growth, nothing too big. We don't want to become Gaylord overnight or anything like that. 

We’re looking at succession planning. Carrie and I want to ride off into the sunset at some point. I want to see the young people, the 20- to 40-somethings that are raising families, continue the momentum. So, bringing young families, having housing that's affordable, is really what we want. It’s a rebirth, a renaissance. Whatever you want to call it, we're quite proud of it.”