Cleveland or Detroit or Minneapolis?

[HarborTownBrewing]

Here's a curveball: Traverse City, MI.

Right on Lake Michigan in an awesome part of the state. There are a lot of breweries in TC, and Shorts is about a 45 min drive just north of TC if you want to venture up there. There is some awesome food as well.

If you are in to wine, there are some good places up there I could recommend if you are interested. There are around 30 wineries within a 1 hr drive - I have about 4 or 5 that I recommend as having great wine.

In terms of beer though, there are about 10 solid breweries up there (http://www.traversecity.com/wineries/microbreweries/), and really great scenery. I've driven a lot of the Midwest, and the roads and scenery in that area are my absolute favorite - driving around windy roads right alongside Lake Michigan.

That's my suggestion; I did the trip recently from Chicago and I was able to make the trip in just a hair over 5 hours.

 

[unionrdr]

My son's been to a lot of the breweries/brewpubs here in NE Ohio. Fatheads has good food as well. But what I liked about Great Lakes is the fact that their old school bar is the very one that Elliot Ness drank at when he was here in Cleveland! Thirsty Dog & Hoppin' Frog in Akron are good as well. Thirsty Dog's Cerberus Belgian-style ale is pretty good too. Many have glasses, both regular & taster-size available with their logo on'em as well. We also have John Christ winery over on Detroit Rd (State route 254) in Avon that has many good wines for sale by the bottle. Not too far from our house.