We must be on an even year kick (
2008,
2010) or odd annual year kick for the Michigan Brewers Guild Winter Beer Festival in Grand Rapids (or rather, Comstock Park). This was our third time attending the event, and with each year, we've upped our game, however, we still have room to grow.
The weekend kicked off with a vacation day for us on Friday (for some reason, in the past, we drove up early Saturday morning) as we made our way through some slightly blizzard-like conditions to Grand Rapids. The snow did not really delay us much from arriving in the Grand Rapids area a little before 1pm for our first beer of the weekend at
Schmohz Brewery, a new brewery to check off our list. While lacking character on the outside, the inside also didn't provide much added identity; however, their friendly service and free popcorn satisfied us enough to stick around for a sampler. Plus, I was pretty fired up to see my
"friend" (and also brewmaster) from the
first beer festival we attended. I refrained from reminding him of the pictures Shannon and I took with him! Here's how our sampling turned out:
The afternoon continued as we checked into our most modern, eco-friendly hotel, the
City Flats. From there we walked over to
Founder's Brewing Company and pretty much parked it there through lunch and a few rounds of stouts notably their seasonal specialty, the
Imperial Stout. We also tried the other seasonal stout,
Breakfast Stout. Probably up there as two of our favorite stouts; however, it's worth mentioning that the Oatmeal Stouts (with and without CO2) were also very tasty. At one point, we even received a free sample of their latest draft beer, My Better Half or the Curmudgeon Better Half, which was explained to us as
"an old ale brewed with molasses and aged on oak; it becomes Better Half after aging—for 254 days—in bourbon barrels that have more recently been aging Michigan maple syrup". Basically, a sweeter version of the
Canadian Breakfast Stout (CBS) that we sampled last Fall.
While Scottie and I had a blast working our way through the stouts, the excitement really began once our card-playing, wine drinking,
B&B overstaying, lighthouse viewing, travel buddies arrived just in time for a robust happy hour at the brewery. The night continued on at
Hopcat where we devoured some dinner including the "crack fries", which as predicted were quite addicting! Back at the hotel, we had a hot game of spades going which included a transition from beer to coffee to coffee and baileys to wine and whiskey (for some of us). While Scottie and Steph creamed us in the first game, in the end, Matt and I somehow came back from the worst betting in history to crush their dreams of sweeping us. Or maybe we just sent them dreaming as we were all ready to call it a night.
The next morning, Scottie and I started the process of putting our gear on. If you recall, the
last festival we attended, I made an expensive trip to our friend's over at
REI for some thick socks and gloves, and this year, Scottie and I made another expensive trip to
Moosejaw this time to upgrade my coat situation. I was a little jealous of Scottie's
North Face coat purchases last year, so for V-day, Scottie found me a new pink coat with a whole lot of warmth, yet slim fitting. It also has a nicer hood and fun pockets! Plus I also picked up a lighter, yet warm jacket to wear as an additional layer. We love us some sales! Last year, we also purchased some snow pants in anticipation of our trip out to St. Joseph's with Steph and Matt for some snowshoeing that never happened. Lastly, Bode and Cindy found me a warm gear
Under Armour shirt to help keep in the warmth. Needless to say, we were all set this year in terms of clothing.
Breakfast for us was back at our old stomping grounds from
previous trips to Grand Rapids at
San Chez Bistro, where we both had the
Breakfast Wrap (mine without meat) plus some extra fruit (we returned Sunday where I tried the
Breakfast Quesadilla). We met up with Steph and Matt to cab it up to the festival for the noon entrance time for
Michigan Brewers Guild members. This year, we certainly upped our game and luckily, we managed to convince Steph and Matt to upp theirs too. However, upon arrival (at 11:50 a.m.), it wasn't as easy as being the number
5 and 6 entrants at the U.P. Fall Festival in Marquette, there was quite a long line.
While waiting, we already started to admire some of the creative "pretzel" necklaces at this year's festival. I thought we again we brought our "A" game by adding some of thicker pretzels to the necklaces this year, so they wouldn't get stale. But apparently, the new trend is to string just about anything from the necklace including cheese sticks, beef jerky, marshmallows, and even sandwiches.
While the line was long, once noon it, we moved pretty quickly into the festival and the hour early was again, definitely worth it as later in the day, lines grew much longer! Our first stop was at
Short's Brewing Company and from there, we made our way around to all the other tents at least once before the 1 p.m. crowd entered.
We found the traditional ice sculptures which included some tasting ice tables and an ice bar that was used later for the ceremonial firkin tapping (had to research the definition of firkin on
wikipedia as we were confused what this might be, so a
firkin is nine imperial gallons, seventy-two pints, or a quarter of a barrel). Later in the day, they also carved the beer festival logo out of an ice block.
More fun photos from the firkin tapping and the collection of photos from the random well-dressed festival attendees in my
photo album, but here's a sampling below plus our official ratings (using the double thumbs-up, thumbs-up, side-ways thumb, and thumbs-down) of the beers we sampled (or at least the ones that made our scorecard) from the
program. Thanks to Scottie for diligently tracking our ratings!
Cheers! Next year, we'll have to get the meat pies, Steph!
A pretzel necklace?! How clever. Nice recap of your beer tasting analysis. Loving the new layout. Very cool.
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