Friday, May 15, 2015
STAMPEDE WIN!!!
Congratulations to the Sioux Falls Stampede! 2015 USHL Clark Cup Champions! Glad we cut our vacation short to see it in person!
Home
2450 miles, 30-some breweries, 7 states and a whole lot of GM vehicles with headlights out and here we are back home. The weather sucks and it's supposed to storm all weekend so I got out and mowed down the jungle around our house while Terri did some payroll and laundry. Tonight we cheer on our Sioux Falls Stampede hockey team as they could potentially win the Clark Cup - the USHL league championship. Go Herd! I've got a couple posts to catch up from earlier in the week, then I'll do a wrap up and post the results of the automotive frontal illimination reliability study. No surprise there - GM doesn't fare well. Time to grab a burger and a pint at the hometown favorite, JL Beers before heading the the Denny!
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Call the Dr.....
No...don't call the doctor. But I'm sure there's on nearby since we're in Rochester, MN. The old home town is growing up - there are two breweries open and two more under construction. Our good friend Pat lives in Rochester and works at Mayo...and we're fortunate enough that he was available to visit Rochester's first brewery Kinney Creek. It was a cool little startup just a few blocks to my alma motter John Marshall High School. They have 15 total beers on tap, but surprise surprise we chose the pale ale, wheat and the west coast IPA and DIPA. Pat got the bock, stout, DIPA and one other. With only a salad for lunch, he was feeling a little tipsy pretty quick with the 7-9.5% ABV choices he made :-) The west coast DIPA was something different...very smooth and no hop bitterness. It was Terri's favorite! Mine, too actually.
Since Pat is such a lightweight I had to drive his car back to his house then we piled into the already full 4-Runner and went downtown to Newts for burgers. Craig, Jane and Parker have been to Newts, so they can vouch for how good their burgers are. The peanut butter burger and the juicy Lucy :-). The onion rings were really good too. We're gonna have to do a little dieting when we get home!!
Rockin' Rockford...
Rockford, IL that is. We left New Buffalo, MI at 9:00am eastern time and made our way around the Windy City in morning traffic. When we saw the Rockford Brewery opening at 11:00am central (because we're now in central time), we decided it was time for a flight and a pub pretzel! The brewery is in a really old warehouse kind of building right along the river. They've got an outdoor patio with docks right on the water and several different indoor seating areas. Very cool facility. The tap handles are old wrenches, drill bits, etc.... They had over a dozen brews on tap, we settled on the pale ale, west coast IPA, special black and blue blackberry and blueberry infused kolsch and the vanilla kolsch. The black and blue was by far the standout. It was very light and mildly sweet with blueberry flavor. This beer was brewed for summer! And it would be easy to drink a lot of it! The black and blue's sibling, the vanilla kolsch was a very light kolsch with mild vanilla flavor. The brewers here have the kolsch recipes perfected. Sometimes they can be kind of heavy...like a Budweiser or something...but these were light and crisp. The best kolschs we've had. There wasn't anything real special about the pale ale or west coast. Both were very mild...no over the top hop here. These brew masters must appreciate subtlety and they do it very well!
We also split a huge pub pretzel with honey mustard, cheese and jalapeño herb cream cheese dipping sauces. Awesome. We didn't think about taking a picture until after we had started eating ... But it was an awesome sight!
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Bush. Greenbush.
No, it's not the name of the latest Irish Bond girl...although some would argue that would be redbush. Anywhoo, we're 15 miles south of our last stop in Sawyer, MI. We've been told how awesome the food is here, but we were hungry at the last place, so we just ate there :-). Hey - we've been rebels this entire trip...why change it up. We got a small flight of 3...even though their flights are usually 6 - that's the rebel thing, you know. The Traktor golden cream ale was a light cream ale. Good, but still a cream ale :-) Next up was the Emptiness Apricot Wheat. It had plenty of apricot flavor...and was a little heavier brew. To say it was light, refreshing and drinkable would not be quite accurate. We could split a pint, but that would be it. Any more would just be too much. Last was the Starchicken west coast IPA. Now we're talkin'.
So mug club membership is a huge thing here. Check out the bottom photo - everything you see on the wall are mugs. Almost every place we've been do this - it's a way to raise startup and I guess ongoing capital. Members buy mugs for a set amount - $100, $250, whatever ... Depends on the brewery. Sometimes it's a one time, lifetime investment other times it's annually. In return members get their mugs filled at a discount or the same price, but a larger pour. Regardless, it's pretty cool. Odd Sides Ales where we stopped earlier today had ceramic mugs that members hand painted themselves. All mugs get a number, and that mug is that members' mug. Similar to what Old Chicago does for it's members after 10 full tours...but in most cases a lot cheaper!
Hey SHP folks - we're at Tapistry. Not Epic....
We're working your way down the Great Lake coast with only a couple more stops before we call it a day. Tapistry Brewing is a nice little place in Bridgeman, MI. This place comes highly recommended and so far it doesn't disappoint. The sampler started with the Mr Orange Belgian wit. Very light and refreshing. Not unlike the cherry wit at Arclight, but orange flavor instead of cherry of course. Next was their IPA with coconut. Wow. It's just as it sounds. The gal brought us a sample of the IPA without the coconut for comparison. As IPAs go, this one isn't one of the better ones we've had on things trip, but the addition of coconut is really interesting. The fruity flavor of the hops combined with some coconut flavor creates a sort of piña colada flavor. Very different. Te next brew is the 100 Watt Amp Kicker DIPA. At 115 IBU and 10.5% ABV this one was a palette challenger! Huge, floral notes...like a strong Myrcenary, but very good. All that ABV, though, gotta take it easy. We've got a couple more stops and a few more miles before we call it a day! Last was the Ruckus DIPA.
Benton Harbor
We're forging our love of beer here at the Livery in Benton Harbor. In lieu of a sample we just had a couple shorties and a few tasters. Then Terri heard the magic word "sour". Apparently they had seven on tap not that long ago but are down to 4 now. She really liked the barrel aged slow peach...
Watervliet Happy Hour
It seems like our stops today are all about 30 minutes apart, and this stop we find ourselves in Watervliet, MI at Arclight Brewing. It's a huge flight - six 6oz tasters starting with the citra sun summer wheat. It's light, crisp and a little citrusy. Very drinkable...thirst quenching. The cream ale and blonde were also very good. The blonde was light and fruity-sweet. I skipped ahead right to the IPA which was very mild, also sweet and had fruity notes to it. The aroma was kind of like skittles or fruit loops...clearly an IPA for folks that don't like IPAs - Roger :-)
The remaining samples were the cherry wit and Velvet Elvis Peanut Butter Porter. Yeah, I know...not really our thing...but hey doesn't it sound interesting? Plus, we needed one more to complete the flight of 6. :-). Anywhoo, just got done chatting with one of the owners, Dave. He had several suggestions for the rest of this evening and confirmed this building used to be a car dealership. He and his partner are laying a paver patio out back today instead of brewing :-).
Back to the Elvis...light peanut butter flavor with maybe just a hint of banana. Maybe :-) no coffee flavor which Terri was happy about ;-)
Last one was the cherry wit...much better than the one at our last stop, Saugutuck. Light, refreshing. Reminded me of the first year version of Granite City's blueberry ale...except cherry of course. Very good. Could sit on their patio and drink a lot of it :-) But unfortunately need to finish up and head down the road ;-)
Unlike a lot of the breweries we've hit on this trip, Arclight was pretty easy to find. Hard to miss the big black building with "BREWERY" painted on the front located right on the main hi way through town. Lol. Looks like it may have been a service station or car dealership in a former life.
Saggy what??
Lol....you said "saggy".....short for Saugatuck, that is. The Saugutuck Brewery which is not located in nearby Saugutuck, MI as you might expect....but rather just a couple miles south in an equally small town Douglas, MI. The Red Cross is here today for their "pints for pints" blood drive event. Give blood and get a free pint glass. Hmmm....great promotion, but maybe not for us. :-). The sixer sampler had a blonde, starburst hoppy wheat, 3 IPAs and their cherry wit. The blonde and the wheat had that strange "amateur brewer twang" to them. The first IPA, backyard, was a session...probably the best of the three. Our palettes are spoiled from the great beer we've had so far today, so these are mot as good by comparison...but definitely not bad. The Mandarina IPA must have been a DIPA with 8.2% ABV. It was mild, sweet with a deep copper color. Nice fruity notes.
It's been a long time since breakfast so we ordered baked potato bites...very tasty. On to the cherry wit...very good! Pretty light, drinkable and mild on the cherry. It drank like a lighter wheat, and the cherry flavor was refreshing.
Take a Walk on the Odd Side
From Grand Haven to Holland and back to Grand Haven in 2 hours :-). Just to hit Odd Side Ales a neat little joint in an old restored building downtown. It's an indoor mall...sort of. Lots of little shops / businesses. Very cool. The exterior entrance has no sign...just small white text on the door. We walked right by it the first time ;-). The fiver had the grapefruit wheat, raspberry wheat, session IPA, josh on the beach IPA and citra pale ale. The real standout here was Josh on the Beach...a pineapple IPA aged in rum barrels...and it sure tasted like it! It hits with a slight boozy flavor presumably from the rum barrel aging. Terri thought it was pretty strong, but I could drink a pint of it. The raspberry wheat was exactly what you'd expect....sweet, raspberry-y and refreshing. The grapefruit wheat wasn't over the top grapefruity, but still light and drinkable. The citra pale ale was loaded with piney flavor. Similar to the New Holland Pale Ale. Very good.
That pattern you see on the bar is actually different color grains. Someone spent a lot of time doing it!
New Holland Brewery
Apparently not all the breweries in Michigan open before noon :-) so we started in Grand Haven and dropped down to Holland to hit the New Holland Brewery. There are a couple more breweries in Grand Haven so we'll drive back up there here in a bit. Then back here to Holland for a couple more before heading on south. Our flight here at New Holland had their white sour ale, IPA, white pale ale and Michigan pale ale. Those of you who know Terri know she's big into sour beers right now...and lucky for her a lot of places are making them. The white sour here was 4% ABV, so a l ither sour...a session sour if you will. It had plenty of sour flavor...not sweet at all. Terri liked it :-) Next up was the IPA - which exploded with piney flavor....which I love. This is probably the best IPA we've had on the trip and honestly one of the best I've had. Period. White ales aren't generally our favorite, but New Holland's was very good. It had a pleasant fruity citrus flavor - nothing like your run of the mill Shocktop or Blue Moon. This was a much lighter brew by comparison....more drinkable. Very good. So far we're 3 for 3 here :-) Last up was the Michigan pale ale. Again, very good. A session pale ale, it was very light...but still had strong fruity piney flavor. More than just a milder version of their main IPA lighter in several ways. Very drinkable. Why could easily sit here and have a few pints of all these beers. But then we'd never make it to the next place!
Monday Rewind - part deaux. <<-
Even though it's 5:00 Wednesday, I need to rewind to one more brewery we hit Monday night in Kalamazoo - Gonzo's Big Dogg. And since the flight here at Arclight is so huge, it seems I have the time! Not sure if Terri has notes on what we drank at Gonzos...but hey here's a picture! It was the last in a long line of stops and quite a few miles driving up from dads in Hillsboro, OH, so cut us a little slack :-) The one thing I specifically remember is the cook shelves similar to what we have in in our closet bar. One of the old beer cans way up high had slid forward to the way edge of the shelf. The little chicky working the bar carefully used a long pole to puch it back into place whilst being heckled by a few college guys. Fun times....
Enlightened Side Project
Since we're spending a lot more time driving than tasting beer, we decided to do a formal automotive frontal illumination reliability study. That's short for the - "hey Brian - I told you GM vehicles always have headlights out" official study. We're tallying up all the headlights we've seen out and the makes and models and will post the results here. Today is day 7 and we've seen approx 115 headlights out. Detailed stats to follow.....
Brunch Brew at Old Boys'
Good morning from Spring Lake, MI! A small town about 15 minutes south of Muskegon with three breweries. Old Boys is a cool, canine-themed brewery with a good variety of brews on tap. They also make spent grain dog treats. Our flight had their summer wheat, Dogtail IPA, DIPA and Nutsack chocolate/pecan porter. Terri says the summer wheat would be a nice, summer, sit on the porch and sip beer. The Nutsack was interesting. You could definitely taste the roasted pecans, and it finished with a nice chocolate flavor. It would be REALLY good on nitro :-). The IPA had strong citrus notes...very grape-fruity. It would be easy to throw back a couple pints of it! The DIPA was smooth....smoother than a Myrcenary. Not overly floral or hoppy, but a good sipper.
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
All together now....
Harmony Brewing. You can see on the lists which brews we had in the flight, and they were all pretty good. Nothing really, REALLY good. However the cheese breadsticks with balsamic drizzle were AWESOME! We could have eaten several orders of them...but saved the carb calories for beer!
All's Good...
...in Osgood. Michigan, that is. Osgood Brewing was actually our first stop today - right at noon. Unfortunately they had just run out of their IPA, but there were a couple others that went down well :-). In lieu of a sampler, we just had tasters of a few and settled on a pint of the heritage harvest wheat and the 358 pale ale. Both were pretty good. Their menu looked awesome, but since we had a late breakfast we weren't hungry enough to order anything. Osgood was a quiet place....other lunch patrons read books or their tablets. Terri did some work and I blogged about the past weekends brewery hops. Next on the list was Harmony Brewing in Grand Rapids. That review will have to wait til tomorrow. It's midnight here which means we've been sampling, blogging and driving for 12 hours. Time to call it a day!
Pigeon Droppings???
Droppings of beer that is. At Pigeon Hill Brewery in Muskegon. Just a short walk from Unruly is a more traditional, small town brewery with a handful of homegrown brews. Our sixer sampler included the Walter blonde, Shifting Sands IPA, French toast Russian imperial stout, almond joy LMFAO stout porter, renegade white double IPA and skeeter on my wheater.
So this of you who know us are thinking "French toast Russian imperial stout"??? Yeah, it came highly recommended, so we had to try it. It hits hard with a true French toasty kinda flavor that gives to a lasting French roast coffee flavor pretty quick. It was unique enough that we're glad we tried it, but probably wouldn't want a full pint. The other oddball was the almond joy LMFAO it was which was on nitro. Guessing it was a stout, the nitro made it rich and creamy...a lot lighter than it looked. After a long day of pale ales, IPAs and fruity stuff both of these were kind of nice.
It's almost 9:30 local time and we started today's beer journey at noon at the Osgood Brewey in Osgood, MI so it's about time to call it a day. With any luck our room will have a great view of the lake :-)
Gettin' Unruly!
The 8th stop on today's brewery hop marathon is Unruly in Muskegon. In the pick your own four sample we tried their shovel head cream ale, blueberry wheat, orange Julius Belgian wheat and the Revel Rouser west coast IPA. The shovel head was a mild cream ale, nothing as strong as New Glarius Spotted Cow...which is fine with us. The blueberry wheat had the "sweet tart" blueberry flavor...not like the other sweet, fruity ales we've had on thins is trip. It's light and drinkable and would taste good on a warm day...which this is NOT! Maybe tomorrow :-). The Orange Julius Belgian was light - a nice departure from the strong Belgians we had earlier at Vivant. Still, it had the "Belgian yeasty" flavor that I just can't quite put my finger on. Not sure it was a good decision to try the west coast IPA last, but after my palette adapted from the lighter fruitiness it was used to, the west coast went down pretty smooth. It was a more mild west coast than some and very drinkable.
Unruly is a bold hipster kind of place with a stage for live music and specialty "rebel pies" (pizzas). If we hadn't had such a great dinner at Perrin Brewery we'd probably be up for a pizza! Too bad they. Close in an hour and a half...we might need a late night carb load! We could see Unruly in one of the older buildings in downtown Sioux Falls. It would do well and we'd be there often!
Round on the ends and high in the middle
To clarify: this post was from Friday afternoon.....
Perrin it Down
Lucky #7 of the day - Perrin Brewing on the north side of Grand Rapids. It's BBQ pulled pork Tuesday, so we planned to hit this at dinner time. A review on their pork coming up. We got a fiver flight as appetizer - the Q-Stew pale ale, the IPA, grapefruit IPA, ain't no sunshine Belgian and the raspberry blonde. The pale ale was brewed with a variety of hops that I don't particularly care for, but it was more mild than others I've had. Next up was the IPA - it had a similar hop flavor, but clearly mixed in a few different kinds of hops to mellow it down even more. It was an ok IPA, not the best we've had on the trip :-). Word has it Oscar Blues out of Colorado bought Perrin. Oscar Blues is where we had our first Hugo Logo - a tasty blend of IPA and wheat brews. Grapefruit IPAs are apparently all the rage this season with Abita and Traveler leading the way. Perrin's grapefruit IPA isn't as good as the others - I didn't pick up much grapefruit at all actually. The Ain't No Sunsnine tasted very similar to the grapefruit IPA - not sure how that is. All the brews so far had a similar flavor...which may be due to the yeast they use. The idea reminds me of Boulevard Brewery...not the flavor at all...just the idea that all the brews taste similar. On to the pulled pork...not bad. Sweet flavor in the beginning with heat that builds as you go. It came with a side of baked beans with big chunks of pork. Really good! For dessert we had the raspberry blonde which was a sweet, tart blonde worthy of a pint.
Vivant!
The Brewery Vivant specializes in Belgian style ales. High end Belgian style ales. This brewery is in a converted funeral chapel that felt more like a tiny Catholic Church complete with the marble arches and stained glass windows. Lol. The server was great - she helped us navigate through the unfamiliar menu and we settled on four brews...and she brought a fifth just to be nice :-). Trust me when I say this was not a place full of Shocktops! There's dubbels, tripples, and all kinds of other Belgian styles we don't know much about.
Quick - Hide!
Is it still Tuesday? Yep....it's been a busy day :-) In the true free spirit style, I'm HOPping right to current time - the Hideout Brewey in Grand Rapids. This is our 6th stop of the day, but maybe one of the coolest. It's on a hidden back street through several apartment complexes clear at the very end and the building has grown up foliage all around it so you can't even hardly see the front door :-) so we get in there, look at a beer list (32) and ask if they have their own. Lol. Yep - all 32. Duh. The samplers come in 5, 10 or 25. Clearly a place for the hard core. We started with 5 - the. IPA (nitro), ginger peach cider, Polish potato ale, tea infused lemon shandy and the west coast session IPA. We started with the ginger peach cider and it was awesome! Subtle ginger and a fair amount of pear...very light and refreshing. Next was the standard IPA on nitro. Gotta love an IPA on nitro - smooth, velvety frothy head. A mild IPA, one even Roger would like :-). Next up was the Polish potato ale - a first for us. I didn't pick up any potato flavor...it was just a mild generic ale. The tea infused lemon shandy was a great follow up to the potato ale. Another crisp, refreshing brew. Very light tea flavor...and light lemon, too. This is NOT a Leinie Summer Shandy! The last sample was the west coast session. I love west coast IPAs, but they tend to get overwhelming very quickly. This was a great, lighter west coast IPA. So the bottom line is that we'd like to hide out here at the Hideout Brewery for the. Rest of the day...but alas, there are some miles between here and Muskegon!
Monday Rewind <<-
Holy schizophrenic blog posting Batman! Yeah, yeah, I know I'm posting out of order, but just trying to catch up! So yesterday (Monday) we drove from my Dad's in Hillsboro, OH to Kalamazoo, MI. We stopped at Dark Horse in Marshall, MI on the way (separate post), and from there went to Latitude 42 Brewing just south of Kalamazoo somewhere. It was more of a restaurant brewery kind of like a local Granite City...and had awesome pretzel bites with beer cheese dip! What did a sampler that included the Beach Cruiser hefe, I.P. EH!, Lilikoi Wheat, the Spankdog Pale Ale, a "moon-something" IPA, and a melon lager of some kind.
The melon lager and the Lilikoi Wheat were the standouts. The Lilikoi was brewed with passion fruit that lended a light, fruity flavor. Don't know what kind of melon was used in the melon lager, but it was subtle and really gave a nice finish to what could have been a really bold Budweiser like lager taste.
The sampler had the citra melon, KUA, raspberry wheat, south branch pale ale, regular wheat, and 2 paws IPA. There were a few locals in there that recommended some of the better stops in the Grand Rapids and Muskegon areas. In fact, I'm typing this at one of them right now - Harmony in Grand Rapids :-). Back to Paw Paw, though....the citra melon was the standout. We're looking for it at local liquor stores as they didn't sell it on site. Speaking of packaging...Paw Paw is in the process of deciding whether they will bottle or can their beer...in addition to kegging of course. A lot of breweries are moving to canning, but cans have a "cheap" connotation to a lot of folks, so they are onion earned about their sales suffering. Before committing to either system, they are having a mobile canning service come in to do their canning. I'd love to get a look at what a mobile canning system looks like :-) but it sounds like a great business opportunity!
Now that I think of it, Bell's WAS NOT our last stop yesterday :-) we hit Gonzos Big Dogg quick before calling it a day :-). But that will need to wait for another post. We're ready to head to Founders!
From Latitude 42 we drove southwest to Paw Paw, MI and stopped at the small Paw Paw Brewery. On the way we passed a lot of vineyards for the nearby Welches juice factory. The bartender at Paw Paw explained the region from there up to norther Michigan had the ideal climate for growing concord and some other white variety of grapes. Very interesting.
The last stop yesterday was at Bell's. Bell's has been around since 1985 and has a couple facilities in Kalamazoo. Their tasting room/general store/restaurant is called the Eccentric Cafe. It's an eclectic place where you order at the bar (food and beer) and then pick it up at a window :-). Terri's favorite was the Wild One sour that she compad to the Sour Bomb from Bank Brewing in Hendricks, MN. So not an overwhelmingly sour sour...just a mild sour. The bartender was a larger friendly guy...reminded us a lot of BJ from Walnut River Brewery in El Dorado, KS. She also really liked the Oarsman which was a light, summer tart ale. We found a 6-pack of that to share with friends when we get home :-)
Saturday Recap
Saturday we spent most of the day visiting with family, including my aunt and uncle who are just awesome people and had a lot of great recommendations of things to see in Michigan.
This pic is a little shout out to our good friend Dave Gebauer at Bing Bang in Des Moines who'll be spending a lot of long weekends at the Knoxville Raceway shooting footage for their Dirt Dreams TV show on MavTV!
My sister organized a family dinner in Cincinnati where we had another great visit with more family. Couple nephews talked us in to going to Mt. Caramel Brewery which was just a couple miles down the road from where we had dinner. Actually, they didn't have to talk to hard to get us to go, but we did have to. Work on my sister Jill a little. Actually I think it was her daughter in law Molly that probably talked he into it ;-) We had visited Mt. cRamel briefly in 2013 and it's a very cool little startup in a residential neighborhood. It's the owners house actually...well...it was. The business got so big he had to move out! He told us on our last visit that the tap room used to be his kids' playroom :-). Anywhoo, they've grown a lot since then and have built up a real nice park like setting in the back yard. We did a sampler, but since we were visiting we didn't really take any notes. They had a special blueberry brew that was awesome, though. My nephew Austin left with a growler of that!
Since we had an hour drive home, we slowly sipped the sampler and a pint of the blue, said our goodbyes and headed back to our cabin in the woods :-)
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