title: Laravel RoleMiddleware, class role not found
body: <p>I'm trying to add a simple middleware to check if a user matches a role.  I'm running into an issue when I use the middleware, I get an Exception:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>ReflectionException: class role does not exist</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I do not attempt to call a class named role so I assume this is happening magically in Laravel somewhere.</p>
  
  <p>My middleware:</p>
  
  <pre><code>class RoleMiddleware
  {
      /**
       * Run the request filter.
       *
       * @param  \Illuminate\Http\Request  $request
       * @param  \Closure  $next
       * @param  string  $role
       * @return mixed
       */
      public function handle($request, Closure $next, $role)
      {
          if (! $request-&gt;user()-&gt;is($role)) {
              return redirect('/login');
          }
  
          return $next($request);
      }
  
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>In the users table, I have a role field and in the User model I have:</p>
  
  <pre><code>/**
   * Check if a user is a certain role
   *
   * @param $role
   * @return bool
   */
  function is($role) {
      return ($this-&gt;role == $role);
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The route group:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Route::group(['prefix' =&gt; 'support', 'middleware' =&gt; ['role:admin', 'web']], function() {
          Route::get('threads', 'ThreadController@index');
  });
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>In Http/Kernel.php:</p>
  
  <pre><code>protected $middlewareGroups = [
      'web' =&gt; [
          \App\Http\Middleware\EncryptCookies::class,
          \Illuminate\Cookie\Middleware\AddQueuedCookiesToResponse::class,
          \Illuminate\Session\Middleware\StartSession::class,
          \Illuminate\View\Middleware\ShareErrorsFromSession::class,
          \App\Http\Middleware\VerifyCsrfToken::class,
      ],
  
      'role' =&gt; [
          RoleMiddleware::class,
      ],
  ];
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this ReflectionException?</p>