Michigan brewpub/brewery/winery tour

We are currently in Bellaire. Short's was on our "short list" and we spent the evening there. The pizza and good, and the beer was GREAT! We meet some other beer tourist, and ended up spending the evening talking with them. It was a great night!

Yooper_Brew said:

We are currently in Bellaire. Short's was on our "short list" and we spent the evening there. The pizza and good, and the beer was GREAT! We meet some other beer tourist, and ended up spending the evening talking with them. It was a great night!

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If you make it to Founders, I dont know if it is out yet but their Harvest Ale is one of my all time favorite beers. I dont know if you have tried it being from around there and all, just figured I would mention it.

jturb said:

If you make it to Founders, I dont know if it is out yet but their Harvest Ale is one of my all time favorite beers. I dont know if you have tried it being from around there and all, just figured I would mention it.

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I'll look for it! Founder's in Grand Rapids is about 500 miles away from where I live, so I'm not exactly local!

If your lucky they will have "Looking Glass" on tap. Its Double Trouble iipa aged in Brandy barrels. SOOOOOOO DElicious.

We're currently in Traverse City. Today we went to three wineries, and four microbreweries. The wineries were awesome, and we found several wines that we loved. All of them had a 2007 cabernet franc, but Peninsula Winery had the best. Free wine tastings, and very reasonably priced bottles made them our favorite. We enjoyed many others, but one of the guys that waited on us in the tasting room in Peninsula Winery had all of the "ins" and "outs" of the operation. We loved it the best!

For breweries, today we went to Jolly Pumpkin (north), Mackinac Brewing Company, Right Brain, and North Peak. The best was Right Brain, but North Peak had a very good selection also! North Peak and Jolly Pumpkin are basically the same company, so JP had north Peak as well. I loved Right Brain. The best beer was a cask conditioned IPA on a beer engine, and during happy hour they had $3 pints!

Tomorrow is Ludington, and Bob picked out Jamesport Brewing Company for dinner.

Right Brain is my fav up there too. Not a fan of Mackinac at all. I wish JP actually had JP beer on tap. When we were there they didn't have any sours. I had to buy a couple bottles to go.

Have a great trip Yooper. And the new photo/avatar is great.

We went to Shorts, Right Brain, and Jolly Pumpkin over the Labor Day holiday. I really enjoyed sampling a wide variety of beers at Shorts, but Right Brain's Black Eye-PA was delicious. I had some of their Bitter too which was very good. We ate at Jolly Pumpkin in addition to trying their beer. The food was very good, even one very picky eater in our group liked it. I had the IPA there which was good and sampled a buddy's wheat which was also nice, but the Truffle oil french fries, well, lets just say I'm pretty sure I could live off those. Yum.

We're in Ludington tonight. We went to Johnsport Brewing Company tonight for dinner and beer. The beer was pretty good, and the food was great! We spent the day hiking the dunes and wooded areas in Sleeping Bear Dunes, and I'm beat! My legs burn like crazy.

I don't know if it's too late for suggestions, but assuming you're still headed south, IMO the Livery is the best unknown brewery in Michigan (assuming you count Founders, Bells, Dark Horse, Jolly Pumpkin, and Short's as 'known'). It's in Benton Harbor.
http://www.liverybrew.com/

slowbie said:

I don't know if it's too late for suggestions, but assuming you're still headed south, IMO the Livery is the best unknown brewery in Michigan (assuming you count Founders, Bells, Dark Horse, Jolly Pumpkin, and Short's as 'known'). It's in Benton Harbor.
http://www.liverybrew.com/

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Bob just shook his head and said "NO!" when I mentioned Benton Harbor! We're going to Founder's and Hopcat with FSR tomorrow night, and that's about as far south as we're going unless we go to Saugatauk on Friday AM.

I have heard great things about the livery. Someday soon I will make it there. If you go to Saugatuck, you might as well stop at Oddside Ales in Grand Haven since you have to drive through there to get home.

Yooper_Brew said:

Bob just shook his head and said "NO!" when I mentioned Benton Harbor! We're going to Founder's and Hopcat with FSR tomorrow night, and that's about as far south as we're going unless we go to Saugatauk on Friday AM.

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I'd love to meet you guys down there but I just don't think I can make it. I've been craving some Founders for a while now. Last time I went I picked up some kegs from an HBT member but it was 90+ degrees out and we had brought our dogs on our way to the in-laws, so I couldn't stay.

Homercidal said:

I'd love to meet you guys down there but I just don't think I can make it. I've been craving some Founders for a while now. Last time I went I picked up some kegs from an HBT member but it was 90+ degrees out and we had brought our dogs on our way to the in-laws, so I couldn't stay.

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Well, if you can possibly make it, we'd love to see you! Do you have my phone number? I'll PM it to you anyway, just in case!

We're going with FSR at 4-4:30 to Founder's.

When are you guys coming back...I havent even raided your beer fridge yet

Sounds like you are having a blast. Darned retired people have all the fun

lschiavo said:

When are you guys coming back...I havent even raided your beer fridge yet

Sounds like you are having a blast. Darned retired people have all the fun

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Speaking of retired people, when are you going to do that electrical work I'm hiring you for? Anytime after the 24th is good for me!!!!! :cross:

I found that very, very funny by the way!

We won't be back until Sunday night. The good beer is at the cottage. Help yourself!

We went to Founder's, the Hideout, and HopCat on Thursday. It was a great time, and we went to FSR's homebrew club meeting with him where I got to meet some great people. Some of them I "knew" from HBT!

Then we went to Muskegon, and to the Michigan Irish Music Fest. That was fun, and today we're heading to Henry Hill's for the brewday.

We stayed at boostr20's house last night. They are awesome people, and we enjoyed that.

I didn't even drink much beer yesterday- all the stops in GR had me slightly under the weather yesterday.

We visited Michigan, Indiana and some eastern states from the Netherlands in April/ May. In Michigan and Indiana, we visited New Holland, Bells, Roundbarn, Uplands and Lennies. Enjoyed Roundbarn the least, and Upland and New Holland the most. The latter probably because we are from Holland, and feel at home with the glasses.

Following advice was particularly useful. On the road around dinner time switch on smartphone and take your pick:

pqjulie said:

check out www.pubquest.com for every craft brewery in the state...and enjoy!

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New Holland is great! I had a Mad Hatter last night with our dinner. Nice area to visit as well.

LeFreek said:

We visited Michigan, Indiana and some eastern states from the Netherlands in April/ May. In Michigan and Indiana, we visited New Holland, Bells, Roundbarn, Uplands and Lennies. Enjoyed Roundbarn the least, and Upland and New Holland the most. The latter probably because we are from Holland, and feel at home with the glasses.

Following advice was particularly useful. On the road around dinner time switch on smartphone and take your pick:

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Happy to help! We're considering expanding PubQuest to your awesome country as well. We will be beercycling there in September.

pqjulie said:

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Happy to help! We're considering expanding PubQuest to your awesome country as well. We will be beercycling there in September.

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"Beercycling". That sounds like a dangerous combination of words. Good luck. Need any advice from a local?

It sounds like you are involved in PubQuest. Compliments with this great initiative. I see that PubQuest is restricted regionally to US and Canada. Would the Netherlands be the first European country? Or are you planning to include a larger part of Europe (which would make sense)?

LeFreek said:

"Beercycling". That sounds like a dangerous combination of words. Good luck. Need any advice from a local?

It sounds like you are involved in PubQuest. Compliments with this great initiative. I see that PubQuest is restricted regionally to US and Canada. Would the Netherlands be the first European country? Or are you planning to include a larger part of Europe (which would make sense)?

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Beercycling is about seeing new places, getting exercise, visiting breweries and tasting beers... not about getting drunk. For anyone interested in doing a trip in Belgium or the Netherlands, check out www.beercycling.com.

As for expanding PubQuest, the Netherlands would be the first but we hope to do more (it's hard enough keeping track of 300 breweries in the U.S. and Canada!). Would love to chat with a local... [email protected].