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Monday, July 21, 2014

Brewery Becker, Brighton, MI



Michigan continues to expand its craft beer offerings.  For the past year or so, I had been hearing rumblings about a brewery opening just north of Ann Arbor in Brighton, Michigan.   Indeed, I finally got word that it had opened in early July, 2014.  My wife and I headed over to the Brewery Becker after a nice day of golf at Whispering Pines Golf Course (which by the way offers an impressive variety of Michigan craft beers, but that is another post).  

Brewery Becker (http://brauereibecker.us/) is located in an historic building on Main Street.  They have really done a great job with the building that was formerly the Western House Hotel (1873).  The space is done in hardwoods and brick.  It has an Olde Town feel.  The staircase up the three stories is cast iron and pretty cool.  A beer garden is planned next to the brewery, but this is still under construction.




We arrived late afternoon on a Sunday.  The place was surprisingly empty.  The waitress was very friendly and answered our questions about the beer and brought us sample tastes.  Brewery Becker had nine beers available (the hefeweisen was sold out).  We tasted a couple of stouts, the saison, the Belgian triple, and the English IPA.  All were very good and represented their respective styles admirably.  I particularly liked the farmhouse style Saison.  The brewery also had what they called a Viking style beer (I don’t recall the name) that looked interesting.  I’ll try that the next time I visit.

The brewery does not really offer much by way of food.  It has popcorn, hummus and pita,  and what looked like pigs-in-a-blanket (those did not look too appetizing).  You can, however, bring in food and many of the local restaurants will deliver.   Our waitress even walked across the street to get a menu for us.  We ended up ordering a pizza from a place right across the street but had to go pick it up ourselves.  Good food with good beer.

It is clear that Brewery Becker is just getting started and I expect the place will continue to expand and attract beer-lovers from around the area.  Becker Brewery has two solid pillars on which to build:  a very cool building and excellent beer.  I look forward to a return visit.

Cheers,
Zymus

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Kaplan. Rustic Ales, Chelsea Michigan


The second offering from Rustic Ales has finally hit the stores near Chelsea Michigan.  This batch is called Kaplan and, according to the story on the label, is named after the Belgian Draft Horse that worked on Cecil K. Fecker’s farm.  (By the way, anything Belgian on draft is usually a great choice…).  The beer is described as an “Imperial Bronze Ale brewed with Morel Mushrooms and aged in Bourbon Barrels.”  I believe this is the first beer I have seen that had mushrooms as an ingredient and morels no less.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the elusive and coveted shroom, morels are highly sought after in the Great Lakes Region of the United States.  When they are in season, people spend days wandering the forests looking for this fungi and are very secretive about where they can be found.  There is even a morel festival in Northern Michigan each year to celebrate everything morel.  I hope Rustic Ales saved a few bottles for the festival.

The beer poured a nice bronze color as advertised and had a distinct bourbon barrel, alcoholic flavor.  I thought I could taste a hint of the morel in the aftertaste but this may have just been wishful thinking on my part. The others sharing the bottle with me, all thought they could taste some morel too. Nevertheless, Kaplan was a very nice beer.

I really like the labeling scheme used by Rustic Ales.  The labels wrap the entire bottle and are a great combination of artwork, information, and storytelling.  The story of the farm and farm creatures is entertaining and with this second beer from Rustic Ales, we are getting the next chapter in the story.  One nice touch is the hand-written bottling number on each bottle, including the inevitable typographic errors that occur when humans communicate in written form.  I bought two bottles of Kaplan, one is bottle number 1121 of 1151 and the other is bottle 1112 of 1150.  How many bottles were made?  
Clearly, Kaplan is being distributed in very limited quantities, so if you like trying new beer you better start searching for this beer right away.  Kinda like the search for morels which will be starting in the next few months here around the Great Lakes (and no I won't tell you where I found mine!).

Cheers,
Zymus

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Grand Rapids Brewing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan



At the end of long day visiting breweries in Grand Rapids, I finally made it to the brewery named after the city.  The brewery is located right downtown a short distance from hotel and other breweries.  We arrived about 10:00 pm on Friday night and the place was packed.  I was surprised at the level of patronage at all of the Grand Rapids Breweries that I visited. 



We were told there would be a 30 minute wait and after leaving a cell number for them to call, we discovered an opening at the bar where two of our party of four could sit.  Eventually, some folks left and we had four seats.  After just a few minutes, we received the call that a table was ready.  Since we weren’t eating, we decided to stay at the bar.

They had a good selection of beers.  We tried several of them.  All were really good, but none stood up to the beers we had sampled at breweries earlier in the day. My two favorites were Philanthropist and the La Noir Vitesse (which I think means Black Speed).  The service was excellent, but the beer tenders were far too busy to chat much.  After the first pint, we decided to order a few appetizers.  The mac and cheese was really good as were the scotch eggs (what a concept!).

 











This brewpub lives up to its namesake Beer-City USA.

Cheers,
Zymus