Original Gravity Brewery Visit, Milan, MI

I’d had Original Gravity beers at past Michigan Beer Festivals and hadn’t been impressed.  But the convenience of a brewery far enough out of town to feel like a roadtrip, but close enough to not require serious planning or an overnight stay, was too hard to pass up.  So when I decided I’d make a Sunday afternoon trip to the Milan dragway with my 2 young boys (ages 3 & 7), I of course sweetened the plan by Google-ing the location of Original Gravity Brewing.  The building is nothing quaint or interesting from the outside, and it’s not in an interesting old downtown or anything.  It’s just a small plain building with a small parking lot, near the railroad tracks in Milan.  But from the outside I did spy a sizable beer garden area behind a high wall with colorful outdoor table umbrellas peeking up over the top.  This looked interesting.

Walking inside, we were greeted by the sweet, delicious, grainy smell
of beer brewing in process.  To me, it was awesome, and I quickly forgot the non-descript building exterior.  My 7 yr-old didn’t have the same reaction, and the pinching of the noise and loud complaining almost matched the reaction he had at the State Fair the weekend before.  Ignoring him in the same way I mastered at the State Fair, we walked in and checked out the place.  The inside was much more appealing.  Nothing too exciting, but a lot of dark wood with an inviting small-town comfortable feel.  A long bar in the middle of the room, and tables laid out throughout much of the place ranging from small 4-seaters to much longer tables for big groups.  And of course taking up a very large portion of the floor space was the brewing equipment just behind the bar.  Not in a sealed-off area with big windows or anything for you to peer through and feel you’re peeking in on a brewery in process.  But rather like you’re sitting in the brewery yourself, part of the process.  The fresh boiling grain aroma attesting to that if there was any doubt.  So overall you end up with a very inviting feel of sitting in a brewery like you’re working there, but at the same time in a relaxing small town tavern just idling the day away.

The kids gravitated to the 2 video games in the corner.  Next to it was a small bookcase filled with a collection of board games.  The board games served us well to kill time while waiting for our sandwiches.  It kept the kids entertained and from complaining about the brewing aroma, and allowed me to sip my beer in comfort without having to chase them down for running around, or making too much noise, or all the other usual things that stress me out in a restaurant with the kids.  I had the Southpaw IPA and it was very good.  It had a glow about it, combined with a thick, unfiltered haze that made it seem extra fresh and special.

Rounding out my tour of the place, I checked out the outdoor patio.  Beer “garden” is a bit of a misnomer for this place of all concrete on the ground, and high walls surrounding it so you only see the tops of the trees if you look up.  There are a number of picnic tables out here, some with large colorful red patio umbrellas to shelter from the sun or rain, I suppose.  Although not spectacular in any way, it did serve the purpose of an outdoor drinking environment with a relaxed feel similar to the interior of the place.  Before leaving, I looked in on the brewing area.  I saw them brewing in what looked to be a sophisticated homebrew all-grain set-up.  I don’t know if they were doing some special small-batch brew, or if that was typical.  I’m not a brewing expert.  Just an expert consumer…

August 9th & 10th, 2013, Short’s Pub Visit, Bellaire, MI
  After enjoying a good tour of Traverse City beer joints, we headed east to Bellaire.  Bellaire is a small town, with a tiny 2-block main street with a handful of shops/restaurants.  It seems like a sleepy little town, until it comes around 4-5:00 in the afternoon when Short’s starts getting packed.  We found a great rental house that was walking distance (~1/2 mile) from Short’s.  It was a palatial “cabin-like” 3500-sq ft 5 bedroom, 3.5 bath house with a giant screened in porch, deck, and private backyard backing onto a canal.  The first night we strolled down the street around 7:00 thinking we’d hit Short’s.  Our naivety was soon realized when we saw a crowd standing on the sidewalk outside Short’s.  Walking by their giant picture window front, we could see it was filled to the gills.  After a brief walking period surveying our dining options, we ended up at Lulu’s.  This was a great restaurant with very good atmosphere, amazing food, and a good beer menu with a few on tap and good select craft beers in bottles.  Our dinner ran late, so on the walk back to the house, we were able to find a spot to fit in and order a round.  The Huma Lupa Licious of course was amazingly delicious.

The next night, we planned ahead and hit Short’s around 5:00.  The place was busy/full, but we were able to squeeze in at the end of a long table with our party of 5.  Short’s Brewery Pub in Bellaire spans 2 side-by-side buildings that they obviously blasted some holes in the joining wall and made it bigger.  You’ve got all the great red-colored historic brick walls, and a number of high tables with chairs, and old hardwood large board floors.  There’s a moderate-sized bar in one building where all the ordering of food & drink is done (and this actually flows quite
smoothly/quickly for as big as the place is), and the ordering of all of your great Short’s logo wear is sold that is up on display on the wall.  The joining building was lower tables and had a stage at the end with live music.  The menu had some sandwiches and pizza.  The pizza was awesome.  We had a few pints of some of the beers we thought sounded great, and a few of us also did 5-glass taster because there were so many we wanted to try but a pint of each would be devastating.  Every beer coming out from behind the bar had that magical glow of freshly-made deliciousness that made you drool as it went by.  By far my favorite was the Awww Jeah (double Huma Lupa IPA).  It was 9.5% ABV, but the taste was very well balanced, not quite as hoppy as the Huma Lupa straight.  Of course the 9.5% ABV took its effect later in the evening as we were sitting around the campfire and watching the clear starry night.  Definitely worth the trip- but make sure you show up early and get a seat.

Traverse City, MI Self-Made Walking Tour

This summer trip had its origins of wanting to visit the Shorts Brewery in Bellaire.  I convinced some friends to come in from out of state, so we started off with an overnight stay in Traverse City, with the airport there.  I’d had a couple Traverse City brewery beers at the Michigan Beer Festivals, so I had 2 points on my map to hit.  With some very basic research, I came up with a nice, easy walking tour that hit several good stops.

Right Brain Brewery.  This was in a large industrial building off to the side of a residential area.  A nice, easy 20 minute walk from our hotel downtown.  The building looked pretty new and was nicely painted and done up inside.  It was a large space, and made the bar at the far end look almost under-sized for such a large building inside.  Interesting art hanging around added to the atmosphere.  I had an IPA that was quite good, but didn’t get a chance for another or to try something different, as one of my travelling buddies was jumpy to get to the AT&T store to try to repair his iPhone that mysteriously had stopped working.

 Brewery Ferment.  This was back into the downtown business area, on the edge as we left the residential area.  Although this was directly on our walking path, it was not a planned stop.  However, the inviting old fashioned storefront feel to it was alluring, and when we found out the AT&T store was across the street, that sealed the deal.  The brewery is pretty new (couple months, if memory serves me correctly), and their freshly opened building clearly showed the
newness with the bright, light-colored wood flooring.  At the small bar, they only had a couple options, and I of course had the “most IPA-like” thing they had.  It had a fresh, raw, taste to it that actually
complemented the fresh, woody feel of the décor coupled with historic pictures on the wall of Traverse City in the olden days.  This was the same beer I had at the Summer Beer Festival and gave it 2 out of 5 stars.  In the brewery, I say it was up in the 3.5 – 4 stars out of 5 range.  Fresh beer tastes great, almost no matter what kind it is, and an attractive environment helps tweak your brain’s experience as well.

  North Peak Brewing.  I’ve had several of these beers in the past at beer festivals and they were always high quality, plus they have a good distribution in the state, so I’ve bought several at my local party store.  They had a big footprint, with a large space inside an old historic looking brick building that had lots of warm wood colors on the floors, tables, and chairs.  We sat outside in a sort of beer garden layout with a lattice overhead structure and open-air walls.  There was a band playing at the far end, and we had a good meal outside while enjoying some beers.  The scenery wasn’t all that special as the beer garden sat between the large parking lot and the main road.  But the good beer and food allowed us to overlook that.

Workshop Brewing.  This place got added to our list during the tour.  Right Brain had a handy little “breweries of Traverse City” pamphlet that showed the in-town breweries, and at another stop someone pointed out The Workshop Brewing Company was brand new, having only opened a couple days prior.  So we stopped off there and found a
brightly-lit industrial type building with lot of use of the color red and silver.  The place was fairly empty, still being new.  And they only had 2 beers on tap so far.  The beer was good, and they seemed to have an interesting menu for food, so hopefully they do well.  We had an interesting conversation with the owner about his glassware.  He said he only wanted to stock 1 type of glass, not manage different glassware for each style.  So he picked the glass that would best showcase his beers, which was the tulip glass.  We had been having a discussion earlier that evening of the tapered-in cone at the top of the glass and how that made IPAs taste great (funnels the hop aromas to make a more concentrated cone directed right at your nose).  I, of course felt vindicated that my opinion was vetted by the owner’s selection of glassware.

 7 Monks Taproom.  This was our last stop of the night, as it completed the natural loop progression of our tour before hitting the hotel.  It was in the heart of the downtown business area.  I’d heard lots of good things about the place, and as we walked in, I saw that many other people had, too.  It was filled with many a beer reveler, enjoying various on-tap beers.  I believe they have a minor specialization in Belgian beers, as you would assume by the name.  But knowing my dislike of the yeasty flavors there, I steered toward my usual IPA selection.  They had a few, and of course would give you tasters- as any good beer bar should.  I had the Griffin Claw IPA, which was awesome.  I don’t know if being the last beer on the beer tour sets you up to be the best of the night, or the most non-memorable.  But I now have this new brewery added to my list of favorites and will seek it out at the next Michigan Beer Festival, or if it shows up in the store.  The atmosphere inside the place wasn’t all that special.  You definitely go there for the beer.  The inside was rather non-descript collection of tables and booths, lightly colored, low lighting and high “industrial-like” ceiling.  It didn’t feel very “monkly”, but the beer overshadowed the décor.

 Michigan Brewers Guild Summer Beer Festival, July 26th, 2013

Riverside Park (Ypsilanti), MI

I hadn’t been to one of the Michigan Brewers Guild’s beer festivals in what seemed like a very long time.  Kevin & I are regular attendees at their festivals.  The Winter festival is a blast being outdoors in the
   winter enjoying beer, followed by a great Grand Rapids nightlife.  The Summer festival is also a blast but for enjoying the outdoors in the exact opposite season.  And the Fall festival sort of bridges the gap between the Winter and Summer festivals.  We’d missed the Fall festival the previous year, and the Winter festival, so the Summer festival would be 1 full year without hitting one of these awesome events of spending a relaxing afternoon around so much good beer.

This year’s festival didn’t disappoint, either.  We went to the Friday evening session (5pm – 9pm), since we didn’t get our plans together until a couple weeks prior and all of the Saturday tickets were sold out.  It was a nice sunny summer afternoon, and as usual, the weather was perfect.  We had good “long Michigan summer daylight hours” providing sun for great atmosphere, but being far enough away to not melt us while we meandered about the park sampling beers.  The venue had expanded.  Each year it seemed it got a little bit bigger with another tent here, or another offshoot serving area there.

This year, the back corner along the river went back even deeper into the park.  Far enough that they had to put in 2 music areas.  The main shelter had a good band playing near the entrance, but as you moved to the back area, you couldn’t really hear/enjoy the music so they put a girl with a guitar and a microphone to provide live music to the rest of the area.  In addition to the new bigger area, and 2nd live music artist, we noticed there were a ton of new breweries.  It seemed like most of the breweries were ones we hadn’t heard of before.  Of course I knew about the ever-growing Michigan brewery list, and the newbies seemed to be well represented.  So we still hit our known favorites, but we also sampled a lot of new breweries.  Some good, some not so much.  But it added some new places to my list of breweries to visit on future road trips.  Which its always good to have a list like that when travelling around the state with the family…  “What?  There’s a brewery in this town?  I had no idea.  I guess we can go eat there.”  My ratings below…

5 Stars

• 51 North, Kraken Kolsch
• Founders Brewing, Centennial IPA

4.5 Stars

• Witch’s Hat, Big Doedish
• Cellar Brewing, Monkey Wrench IPA

4 Stars

• Odd Side Ales, Dark Citra Pale Ale
• Sherwood Brewing, MonoHop Mouteka 2IPA
• Hopcat, Fish Ladder IPA
• Saugatuck Brewing, Cluster Fuggle
• Short’s Brewing, Hopstache

3.5 Stars

• Frankenmuth Brewing, Batch 69
• Dark Horse Brewing, Edacsac Dekoorc Eert
• Eaglemonk Pub & Brewery, Annie’s IPA
• Cranker’s Brewing, Professor IPA
• Bell’s, Roundhouse IRA

3 Stars

• Bell’s, Two Hearted IPA
• New Holland, Dragon’s Milk Cask
• Paw Paw Brewing, 2Paws IPA
• Kuhnhenn Brewing, Loonie Kuhnie

2.5 Stars

• Atwater Brewing, WRIF Lager

2 Stars

• Brewery Ferment, 45th Parallale

Trip to Bell’s and downtown Kalamazoo, MI

Having sadly missed the Michigan Winter Beer Festival, we decided to plan a “make-up” trip.  We needed something to substitute the overnight stay out of town combined with craft beer.  Having visited Bells before on a brewery bus tour, and of course loving my favorite Bells beers, I thought a trip to Kalamazoo would be good.  There was also an interesting beer bar I had read about a while back and had been wanting to try.  After checking into our Residence Inn hotel on the edge of town, we were trying to get them to call us a cab when we found that they had a hotel shuttle which would be glad to run us into town- for free.  Needing to kill a half hour before the shuttle driver came on shift at 4:00, we naturally decided we should have a beer.  Luckily, I had brought a couple along in a small cooler just in case.  “Always be prepared”, I learned in the Boy Scouts.  And I’m certain that was exactly the type of scenarios the slogan creators had in mind when they came up with it.  After all, what goes more naturally with camping in the woods than drinking beer?  Of course we weren’t camping in the woods, but I was using the Boy Scout slogan there, so I felt I should try to draw some loose kind of connection…  Anyway, the shuttle driver came on shift and we caught a ride downtown.

First stop was the Kalamazoo Beer Exchange.  The premise of the place sounded much cooler than it was in practice.  They had about 30 beers on tap at the bar on the lower level.  On the upper level was their restaurant seating.  We of course sat at the long bar downstairs.  It was a good beer menu.  The gimmick was the prices of the beers went up or down based on stock-market-like principles that whatever was in high demand and being bought, the price would go up.  Whatever was not being bought, would drop in price.  It sounded like a fun drinking game built into a bar.  That’s what lured me here.  Of their extensive beer menu, there was only a couple that I really wanted, so when we found the stock ticker didn’t start running until 6:00, I realized I had made a planning mistake.  We’d have to drink beers for about 2 hours until the stock ticker started.  And then the prices didn’t adjust continually in real time, but adjusted every half hour.  Since this was the whole premise of why we came to this spot, we had to sit it out through at least one price change.  So from a planning perspective, I wished I had planned to start at Bells first.  So we sat there watching the clock, waiting for the exchange to start in a fairly quiet time on Saturday afternoon, wasting my BAC on average beers, when I really wanted to be over at Bells trying all their experimental IPAs.  But we made it through, then made the short walk over to Bells.

After stopping at their logo wear store first, and scoring some good gear, we went to the Eccentric Café (what they call their brewery bar).  The inside was busy and full, so we headed to the outside garden area.  They had 2 quite large areas with picnic tables and the like outside, with the far end of one of those areas looking like it had an outdoor concert stage.  We had sandwiches and a couple of beers (that of course were delicious) while sitting outside.  As it drew later, we saw they had another room inside that was like a small concert hall.  They had a band playing and they were charging something like a $10 cover.  We didn’t want to pay the cover, but wondered if we could just walk in like we were supposed to be there.  Didn’t work, and the guys at the door saw through what was probably a very common tactic and shut us down.  At that point we had already left our seats outside and the place was getting more crowded, so we decided to wander.

First stop was at a place called Shakespeare’s Pub.  They had an upstairs and downstairs in a long building.  We hit the basement first as there was a band playing- for free.  They were pretty good, playing kind of 80’s punk rock/alternative.  They had a few decent offerings on tap.  The music was really loud, so we left after our beer and headed upstairs.  Upstairs had many tables and booths with an interesting old diner type of décor.  There was a massively long bar running through the middle of the place, and they had tons of taps.  Maybe something like 40 taps.  They also had a large outdoor patio seating area with picnic tables.  The tap list was really good, and I was lamenting again all that wasted BAC at the Kalamazoo Beer Exchange that even if I hadn’t been soaking up Bells Experimental IPA batches, I could have been at this place which had several very good beers I was interested in.  Oh well, such is life.

Sitting outside on the patio, we could see this ~10 – 15 story office
building a couple blocks away that had an alluring blue-ish neon glow from its rooftop where you could also see this white canopy tent top.  Since my ability to sit and drink and enjoy a great tap list had left me about an hour ago, we decided we’d go check this building out.  It turned out to be an interesting bar complex, with 3 or 4 different themes on various floors.  We went to the top via the elevator and ordered some drinks while enjoying the rooftop atmosphere.  It started to sprinkle so we huddled with the others underneath the massive white cool-whip-looking tent top.  As the rain picked up in intensity, people by the hordes started to crown the elevator bank to bail on their rooftop adventure.  That turned out to be good for us because as the wind picked up a bit, the rain started to angle in under the edges of the tent so we needed to mover more towards the center.  We had a good table and some comfy chairs, and pretty much our own personal bartender since everyone had mostly cleared out.  So we sat up there for awhile before deciding to explore the other levels.  One of the levels I think was closed, but we hit the “red room” which everything was red or hot pink in color and was playing rap music.  The place was packed.  We did a bit of people watching, then went to the other area which was the “normal bar” area where you came into the place through.  We were able to get a seat at the bar and figured we’d have another drink, listening to the music.

When ready to go, we pulled out the phone number to call the trusty hotel shuttle.  The college kid who drove us there was quite friendly and said that his shift ended at midnight.  But since he lived about a block from the hotel, if we were out later, we could just call him on his personal cell phone and he could walk over to the hotel, get the minivan, and come pick us up.  Very cool we thought.  Kevin & Ivan both independently thought, “I’ll give this guy a good tip to make sure he’s available to come pick us up later.”  So when he dropped us off at the Kalmazoo Beer Exchange, they both produced $10 at the same time.  So the guy got $20.  Surely locking in our after-midnight call for a ride back.  Not so.  No answer at the hotel shuttle phone number, or his personal cell he gave us.  So our great find of a free hotel shuttle turned out to be a $20 taxi ride into town.  And we had to call a taxi to take us back to the hotel in the end- that cost us less than $20.  So in the end, I learned several things I would do the same, and some I’d do different for my next Kalamazoo beer overnight trip.

Beer Kegerator Purchase, March 13th, 2013

In college I wanted a kegerator.  But at that time, that meant a full-size fridge that could fit a full-sized keg (OK, technically it’s called a half keg) and had a tap running out of it.  At that time, the idea was party, party, party.  A big giant barrel full of beer that was always cold, and ready to go meant that surely a party could break out at any
moment for even the slightest of reasons.  I remember many a night of boring, frustrating homework sets being ended with a call to the fraternity house and finding out there was beer on tap downstairs.  That usually got us motivated for about 30 minutes longer of work then hurrying down the fastest path from the dorm to the house.

Fast forward to adulthood, and being a grown, responsible parent.  Somehow at some point, some ad caught my eye that had a little dorm-sized fridge with a tap head coming out the top and 2 spouts on it.  That image stuck in my mind.  Several weeks later, I got a bonus check of sorts from work and was feeling like I deserved spending it on myself for something.  I don’t normally treat myself with presents, as it seems my money is constantly going to boring things like food, utility bills, groceries, dance lessons for the kids, etc.  So I had these 2 thoughts bouncing around in my head simultaneously, unbeknownst to me.  After a few days, the 2 ended up on the same bounce trajectory and I came up with the idea of spending some of the bonus money on buying myself that kegerator with 2 taps.  I searched the internet to find those pictures again and saw that the kegerators I was looking at held 2 smaller 1/6 barrel kegs.  That’s 5.16 gallons of beer, or roughly (60) 12 oz. servings- but if you’re drinking from a keg, why constrain yourself to artificial limits imposed by the lesser vessels of cans & bottles?

Anyway, with the smaller size of the kegs, I wouldn’t feel like I had gobs of beer hanging over my head needing to be “taken care of”.  And some brief internet research said that once tapped, and kept on CO2, the beer will last for several months.  With the dual taps, I decided I could get one keg and use for homebrew (possibly resurrecting my meager homebrew career), and the other I could buy 1/6 barrels of good craft beer.  I could just buy the good stuff that I already had and wouldn’t need to experiment with 6-pack roulette constantly.  I’d always have a supply of something really good on tap, and then in bottle I could have the new/random stuff to cycle through and try out.  With the side benefit of re-inspiring my homebrewing, it sounded like it couldn’t lose.

I bought from an online store that let me configure the fittings of each tap connection so I could have one for the homebrew kegs, and one for the commercial kegs.  It arrived and I excitedly set out to put it together.  It came with 2 sets of instructions on assembly.  One from the manufacturer, and one from the retailer that I bought it from.  I meticulously read both sets of instructions, wanting to be sure to not put this special piece of equipment incorrectly.  So I slowly started off in the assembly sequence.  About half way through, I started getting stuck.  One set of instructions said to specifically assemble in one order, and the other said to do it in another order.  Both gave reasons as to why it was important.  I was stressed.  Which one was right?  After bouncing between the 2 back and forth, I suddenly realized this was making it all too complicated.  It was only a few plastic hoses with fittings and screw clamps.  I didn’t need instructions on how to put those together.  So when I stopped trying to read and just put it together, it went much quicker and I was done.

After a couple commercial kegs and one homebrew keg, I can tell you it’s a success.  It’s working out exactly as planned.  I haven’t fully cleared the backlog of my leftover 6-pack experimental purchases gone wrong yet, but knowing I have a good trustworthy beer on tap, I don’t feel obligated to buy a 6-pack or two every time I come across a good beer selection in a store.  So in a round about way, I guess it’s probably saving me money.  The 1/6 barrel of craft beer is roughly the same price for that same beer buying by the 6-pack in bottles, so you don’t get a direct savings like you would if you had a full ½ barrel of a high volume beer like Labatt’s or something.  But I never bought it with the intention of saving money, it was just to add some fun, cool variety to my beer at home.  And I’m a happy camper.

Downtown Detroit Self-Made Walking Tour, plus Atwater Oktoberfest (Detroit, MI)

There’s several good beer bars around town lately, where you can find good craft beers on tap and interesting atmosphere.  Downtown Detroit excels as a good concentrated grouping of them making for easy walking distance in between.  Although I have some friends or work colleagues that would be scared stiff of even the concept of driving into Detroit due to misinformed illusions of what they hear from news headlines, I am a bit of the opposite.  Having lived downtown for a few years, I am a big fan of the city and the efforts to bring it back to vitality.  And just being down there, you can feel that spirit and enthusiasm by the city’s residents and business owners.  Combine this with the same “fighting spirit” of the craft beer wave sweeping through, and it makes for some good times.

Being that there was an Oktoberfest event going on this Saturday, we had to cut short our downtown bar tour and just hit a couple high points.  We started off the afternoon at Rub BBQ & Pub, which is on the North side of Grand Circus Park, just West of Woodward Avenue.  Rub’s been open a couple of years and they’ve got good BBQ (as you would assume by the name).  I can’t tell you their particular specialty of BBQ, but I can tell you it’s good, and they’ve got great homemade sauces.  There’s a large long bar on one side with some tables, and a collection of tables & booths on the other.  The bar has the typical collection of large-screen TVs playing various sport stuff.  Their beer selection is quite admirable.  Maybe about half of it is Michigan craft beer, the other half a wide-spanning distribution from mass-produced commercial stuff (this close to Tiger Stadium and Ford Field they must try to cater to the pre & post game crowds), to a few unique ones spread in between.  Altogether, I’d estimate about 20 different beers on tap.

After some good food and a couple tasty beers, we walked around the corner to the Park Bar.  I think there’s some interesting back story to this bar, but I can’t exactly remember it.  I know the owner remodeled/restored the bar a few years ago, and has/had big plans for further restoration and work on the building.  I can’t recall if any of that succeeded or where he’s at, but I don’t really care because the bar is a great place to go, regardless of anything else he may have going on.  There’s a huge circular bar in the middle of the room, with tables at the outside edges.

Two of the 4 walls are windows top to bottom with high 14 ft ceilings (or is it 20?  don’t hold me to it, I’m not a carpenter), so there’s plenty of interesting light coming in.  Now there’s not that much interesting to look at out the window between the 2 deserted buildings and the empty lot, but being just a block off of Woodward, and near a couple hot spots, you still see a fair amount of foot traffic to gawk at.  And of course you can always pass the time speculating about what’s going on with the deserted buildings across the road- whether they’re in the process of being restored, prepped for demolition, or just gathering dust.  They have a very good beer selection here.  A good amount of Michigan craft beer on tap, with some of it fairly rare (we had Kuhnhenn’s on tap, which was awesome), and a mix of some other notable craft beers from around the country.  There was a small take-out restaurant directly attached (maybe owned by same guy?) called the Budapest Grill.  That seemed to do a fairly healthy business and most of the people would get the food next door and walk it across and sit at the tables around the bar.

Last on our walking beer tour was a trip down to my favorite downtown spot, the Grand Trunk Pub.  Now this used to be called Foran’s Irish, then Foran’s Irish Grand Trunk (I think), and then Foran’s Grand Trunk.  Now they finally settled in on Grand Trunk Pub.  The last name is the one that seems to make the most sense with its original roots, as a ticket office of the Grand Trunk railroad.  This place is really cool.  It was bought out a few years back and the new owners wanted to take it in a different direction.  I’d never been into it under the former owners, it always looked like it would be a scary dive bar.  It’s a narrow place right on Woodward Avenue halfway between Campus Martius and Jefferson Avenue.  You walk inside and you find these huge 14 ft cathedral ceilings with interesting architectural coves, exposed brick walls, and old aged wood carved bench and paneling.  There’s a large bar that runs the length of this long, narrow place.  They bought the restaurant next door a couple years back and knocked down a section of the wall in between for easy passing back & forth.  They serve food of a fairly basic but good quality.  The highlight is- can you guess?- their beer selection.

They have about 14 different brews on tap, and everything is Michigan made.  They always have the good stuff from the powerhouse Michigan breweries (Bell’s, Founders, Arcadia), but also a few others thrown in for fun.  There’s also a good crowd in here of a wide-ranging mix- young, old, artsy, professional.

After a few good beers there, we were into the cab over to Atwater Brewery.  Atwater is a bit off by itself.  There have been a few other places near there that have come & gone over time, and I think right now they’re pretty much gone.  Atwater has gone through some changes over the years.  They were Atwater Block Brewery for a
while, then they added a restaurant onto the brewery.  It initially did well, then was almost always vacant.  Then they were Stoney Creek Brewery for a bit, then that closed.  Now it reopened under the Atwater name, but they dropped the “Block”.  They also scrapped the dining room thing and went for a more industrial beer tasting atmosphere.  They’ve got an aisleway down the middle of their brewing area, and you sit in between these giant stainless steel brewing vessels on the bare concrete floor like someone snuck you in the back door to hang out in the brewery because you’ve got “connections”.  It’s a very different atmosphere from a typical brew pub, or any of the good beer bars we visited that day.  But with a lot of competition on the craft beer scene lately, trying something different isn’t a bad thing.  They were having an Oktoberfest here, but it wasn’t overly populated.  It was rainy outside so not the best weather for sitting outside and enjoying a fresh fall day.  It still made for a fun “family picnic”-like atmosphere.  That’s meant as a compliment by the way, as in a gathering of a bunch of people having carefree fun on a Saturday laughing, hanging out and playing games.  Not to be confused with the family picnic you hated going to as a kid and despised your parents for making you hang out with your weird cousins who you only saw once a year for a few hours of forced uncomfortable socializing.  I’ll have to reserve full opinion on the brewing floor brew pub layout as there was a special event going on, and it was the last stop on a very liquid pathway that day.

Harvest Moon Festival (Farmington, MI)

September 27th, 2012

Downtown Farmington has had this festival a few years.  We went in its inaugural year, and it seemed like a good idea that just hadn’t reached its right audience yet, as it was sparsely attended.  This year was about the 3rd year or so, and it definitely had found its crowd.  We went on Thursday night for the “beer tasting”.  They tried to polish it up and make it sound sophisticated by saying there would be people on-hand to talk about pairing your beer with food, and you could “talk to the brewers”.  In actuality, it was just a nice drinking festival.  It cost $10 to get in with 10 drink coupons and little 3 oz. plastic beer sample mug.  Being in the early fall, you’re just starting to get those cool evenings where it’s nice and refreshing to sit outside, but you definitely need your jacket and long pants.  They take over the town square with tents set up with tables for the beers to be dispensed, and a bunch of tables set up under the open sky.  It’s all very close quarters so it’s a short walk over to fill up your beer sample glass then have a seat at one of the tables under the fresh night air while listening to some music.  They had a guy with an acoustic guitar that was also singing.  Made for nice background.  They also had a big selection of wines there also available for samples, in case you traveled there with some non-beer fans.  Finally rounding it out they had food there being prepared by some local college culinary arts students.  It all looked pretty good, and the nachos hit the spot later in the night.  I’d definitely do it again next year, now that it’s drawing a decent-sized crowd, has a large & good beer selection, and makes for a nice evening out.  The only downside is that it’s on a Thursday, so there’s always work to contend with the next day.

There were 52 different beers on tap, and they spanned the spectrum.  There was a good collection of some Michigan breweries, a few mass market entries, a few larger “semi craft breweries” (aka Sam Adams), and some good national craft brews from outside Michigan.  The beers, in order of my ratings:

5 Stars

• Kuhnhenn DRIPA
• Lagunitas IPA

4.5 Stars

• Shorts Huma Lupa Licious
• North Peak Diabolical IPA
• Cheboygan Lighthouse Amber
• Right Brain Sping Norman

3.5 Stars

• Brooklyn BLAST!

3 Stars

• Sixpoint Brewery Bengal Tiger
• Hacker Pschorr Oktoberfest

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