August 1st – 3rd, 2012, New Holland Brewing Company (Holland, MI) and Founders Brewing (Grand Rapids, MI)

We took a trip out to “Michigan’s West Coast” this summer.  I’ve been to Grand Rapids several times, usually centering around the Winter Beer Festival.  I was familiar with New Holland’s beers, but had never visited the brewery.  We arrived at New Holland on Wednesday evening.  It was split into roughly 3 sections.  There was the very large bar area, which was geared more towards the “just liquids” crowds.  It had high tables and a massively long bar.  The other part was geared a bit more towards the “food & drinks” crowd with some booths and a few tables.  Nothing fancy or stuffy about it, just felt more like a restaurant atmosphere. 
The beer menu of course was long, and written on the obligatory giant chalkboard hanging on the wall. I opted first for the Dragon’s Milk on cask.  I like Dragon’s Milk, and I love cask ales so I figured this was a no-brainer.  It was good and smooth, but the cellar temperature as opposed to refrigerator temperature I think drug it down a bit.  So it didn’t blow me away.  I then switched over to the Mad Hatter IPA.  Again, something I’ve had before and liked, but it’s always nice to try those beers you really like “at the source”.  It usually adds a magical effect of freshness and awesomeness that brings up 1 full star rating on whatever scale you rated it before.  The Mad Hatter was a slam dunk there.  It was delicious.  I of course had another, too.

The 3rd part (if you’re still keeping track and wondering when I’m going to not leave you hanging any longer and will complete the 3-partness to this story) was a small strip of sidewalk seating at tables.  Not huge, but nice on a nice day like when we were there.  The brewery is quite a popular place.  On a Wednesday night at around 5:00 when we got there, we had no problem getting a table.  By around 6/6:30 when we were leaving people were standing & sitting around outside on the sidewalk waiting to get their number called.  The last bit of mention here is that the downtown area of Holland is really nice.  A couple blocks of very well maintained buildings filled with interesting shops and inviting restaurants.  You could probably get away with bringing the wife here and letting her stroll & shop the shops while you filled up space at New Holland.  You’d both come away happy, I’m sure.

On Friday we stopped by Founders for lunch.  My previous visits here have been usually after drinking outside all day at the Winter Festival, and this is the last stop of the night before bed.  We’re usually tired and weak but manage to choke down a beer or two before the pull of the bed just becomes too much to resist.  We got there Friday afternoon about quarter to noon.  It was already pretty full.  It was a fairly hot day and all of the inside tables were occupied.  The picnic
tables out on the front patio area were mostly wide open though, and we were able to score a table there pretty easily.  With their patio on the East side of the building, although you don’t get some nice afternoon sun on a Fall or Winter day, on a hot summer day it works out great.  We were well shaded, and although it was about 90 degrees outside, the patio wasn’t too bad.  I was actually surprised I wasn’t sweating, and eventually decided it was quite comfortable.  (And that’s all within the first beer, so the alcohol wasn’t adjusting my tolerance of the temperature if that’s what you’re thinking…)  I love Centennial IPA, so I started off with that.  I was disappointed.  It was mediocre tasting, and the temperature was just a touch too warm.  It was almost like it had been poured a half hour earlier and left to sit, or maybe the barrel hadn’t cooled off yet or something.  Whatever the reason, I of course decided to change it up on the next round.  I opted for the Red’s Rye.  Another known favorite of mine from Founders, and this time it hit a homerun.  Nice and hoppy, cold & refreshing- it was just what was needed on a hot summer’s day.  That went down extremely well so it was followed by another before leaving.  The food service was a bit slow for some reason, but the sandwiches were good.  They’ve got a good sandwich menu with interesting combinations of things, so it’s pretty easy to find something you might like.  Of course I’d come back here again.  I know their beers are good (even if my Centennial was a bit disappointing), and the quasi-family style seating in the main restaurant area lends itself to a relaxed and social atmosphere.  So it’s always a good combination for a worthwhile stop.

Michigan Brewers Guild Summer Beer Festival

July 28th, 2012, Riverside Park (Ypsilanti), MI

This was the 15th annual summer festival, coincidentally, the Brewers Guild has been around for 15 years.  You may wonder why I know this, as I would wonder why I knew that as well.  The beer festival was loaded with breweries that had their version of the 15th anniversary brew.  Supposedly they were all versions of a Wheat IPA, and each brewery did their own interpretation of the same recipe- many with Michigan hops and Michigan malted hops.  I sampled a few of these, and they were all quite good.  As usual, the weather at the festival was great Michigan summer weather- warm & sunny and not too hot.  Our bus trip was not quite up to par as we were disappointed to find when we got on board that there was no keg of MI craft beer.  At first I thought, “No big deal.  Not like I need to drink beer on the way to a beer festival.”  But then they guys about 2 rows behind us started passing cups of beer up to their buddies that sat in the 2 rows in front of us.  Each one looked delicious and as we inched our way through one traffic jam after another, each subsequent one looked better than the last.

According to the statistics on the brochure, there were 62 breweries on hand, and over 500 different beers.  It was the typical layout of tents, various stand-alone bars, etc.  The one exception to the typical was Dark Horse Brewing.  They had a secret little cave-like tent set up with air misters going on the inside.  With blue tarp walls up to
provide extra blockage against the sun, it was a cool respite from the hot sun.  Inside they had good tables going with lots of the usual good stuff- and more.  Without counting  (because I don’t want to be bothered), I’d say there were about 30 different brews available.  But that wasn’t all.  After working your way to the back, there was a staircase going up into a refrigerated trailer.  In the trailer there was
jamming hard rock, another beer table, and best of all- an ugly-patterned old couch and a couple of armchairs.  They were nice and broken-down like reminded me of something we’d have picked up to decorate the living room in the fraternity in college.  We took a couple tours through a couple times until finally scoring a couple of prized seats on the couch.  It was great fun, having one of the 5 available seats as hundreds of people streamed by and looked on jealously like we were the kings of the festival.  We of course gave up our seats to some people that looked worthy, and went on about our exploring.

So on to my ratings.  One thing that struck me as odd was that all the usual favorites just didn’t seem to be hitting the mark.  After disappointment after disappointment, I was worried I was going to be doomed to a day of mediocre beer for some strange reason.  But luckily a few old favorites pulled their weight, and I came across a few other good ones.

5 Stars

• Big Doedish Double IPA, Witch’s Hat Brewing Company
• Huma Lupa Licious, Short’s Brewing Company

4.5 Stars

• Double Crooked Tree IPA, Dark Horse Brewing
• Centennial IPA, Founders Brewing Company
• Diabolical IPA, North Peak Brewing Company
• Grand Circus IPA, Atwater Brewery

4 Stars

• Mad Hatter IPA, New Holland Brewing Company
• IPA, Arcadia Brewing Company

3.5 Stars

• 15th Anniversary Ale, Bell’s Brewery
• Olde Peninsula IPA, Olde Peninsula Brewpub

3 Stars

• Sven & Ollie’s IPA, Lilly’s Seafood
• 15th Anniversary Ale, Copper Canyon Brewery
• Hoppopotamus IPA, Hopcat
• Loud Mouth Soup, Greenbush Brewing Company (I don’t know if that’s the proper name, but my handwriting is near illegible from my beer directory, so we’ll pretend like that’s what it was called.)

2.5 Stars

• Crooked Tree IPA, Dark Horse Brewing (I have no idea why this one didn’t taste very good.  It’s one of my all-time favorites…)
• GingeRed Imperial Red Ale, Dark Horse Brewing
• Entire Buzz Honey Porter, Sherwood Brewing Company

2 Stars

• Back Way Double IPA, The Hideout Brewing Company