Michigan Brewers Guild's Summer Beer Festival

"At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely." ~W. Somerset Maugham

July 27-29: Okay, this is where the details start to get sketchy. I attended both days of the Michigan Brewers Guild's 10th Annual Summer Beer Festival. I was parked a few blocks away in the corner of the Corner Brewery's back parking lot, so I didn't have to drive. I tasted a lot of stunning beer, and I met a lot of fabulous brewers. Is that enough info? I didn't think you'd settle for that, so here goes...

Photo above was taken at the Corner Brewer (Arbor Brewing Company's Ypsilanti location) after the end of the festival but just before the Michigan Brewers Guild's 10th Anniversary party. L to R: Ron & Laurie Jeffries of the Jolly Pumpkin Brewery in Dexter, Ryan Hale of Corner/Arbor who was my email contact, Stacey Roth of Corner/Arbor, Matt Greff, Owner/Parter of Corner/Arbor, and Stacey's husband Tom Block.

On Friday of the festival I worked New Holland's booth as they were shorthanded. I made myself useful fetching ice for New Holland and Jolly Pumpkin. I had a great time serving beers because I like telling the little stories that go along with each beer.

New Holland's big draw was their Randall, which they called "The Hatterizer." They served their Mad Hatter Ale through the Hatterizer and customers came up to the booth saying, "Hatterize me." So we did. You can see their giant over-sized Randall in the photo above left.

FYI: As far as I know, the Randall idea was invented by Sam Calagione at Dogfish Head. It is a large filter cartridge housing packed with whole leaf hops, in this case Centennial, and the New Holland boys had two of them set up so they could swap out a fresh one every two hours.

Friday was also fun because ten minutes before the end of the festival the heavens opened up and it poured with thunder and lightening for a solid 25 minutes. That forced everybody under the tent right when we needed to shut off the taps. The photo above left was taken in the darkness under the tent as people crowded in and got cozy.

After the festival on Friday night, the New Holland crew dropped me off at my trailer as I didn't know my way around in the dark in Ypsilanti, and I sure appreciated that.

The next morning I made myself at home on the free wireless at Corner Brewery's pub and bartender Logan was kind enough to make me a cup of tea and share his bread sticks with me. After working on my blog and photos I walked over to the festival grounds to see if Corner Brewery needed my help at their booth. Found Stacey and Tom but they were all set with volunteers.
Stacey and Tom and I visited Joe Short of Shorts Brewery at his booth. (Photo on left, L to R: Tom, Joe and Stacey.) Tom and Stacey are newlyweds: they got married at the 2006 Great American Beer Festival!

Joe Short told us about his "Nice 'n Spicy" ale. He said that within a day or so after brewing his ale, he and his crew began zesting lemons and oranges. They kept at it until "there was enough in the fermenter," which meant about five days of on-and-off zesting. Then Joe cracked up a bunch of telecherry, pink, green and white pepper corns, and tossed that in for about two days. But only two days. Any more and the beer would have been too peppery. I can attest that the pepper was subtle and the beer tasted juicy in the citrus sense. Quite refreshing on a hot and humid Michigan day.

I also visited the Jolly Pumpkin booth where I met Owner/Brewer Ron Jeffries. I had heard great things about Ron's beers during this trip and my husband really wanted me to visit Ron's brewery, but I'd needed a rest day in Kalamazoo and had to skip my Jolly Pumpkin stop.

Ron had a nice collection of six or seven firkins pouring his unique sour beers. I was able to try five of his beers, Perseguidor #2, a blend of at least four beers aged in wood six months and then aged in the bottle (or firkin) another six months was my favorite. Hard to choose when each sour beer is so different from the next. Photo above of the Jolly Pumpkin crew, L to R: Sean Brennan, Laurie Jeffries, Ron Jeffries, and their son Daemon Jeffries.

Jolly Pumpkin's Bam Biere is a hoppy Saison type beer with an interesting name. Bam is their Jack Russell Terrier puppy who got bammed by a car and survived. Although Bam has a French name, most of the rest of Jolly Pumpkin's beers have Spanish names befitting their pirate-pumpkin-Spanish-Main theme. And in case you were wondering, no Jolly Pumpkin doesn't specialize in pumpkin beers each autumn!

I must mention that I ended up scheduling myself through Ypsilanti for this festival because Doug Beedy of Fort Street Brewery brought it to my attention via an email. Luckily, I hadn't scheduled the second section of my trip yet, so I just delayed myself visiting more breweries in Wisconsin and made it to Ysilanti in time.

Since Corner Brewery didn't need me to pour beer at their booth, I visited Rex Halfpenny who publishes the Michigan Good Beer Guide. Rex has a been a huge supporter of craft beer, and especially Michigan craft beer for a very long time. (Photo right.)

Then I wandered back to the New Holland Booth where Elvis was helping the crew pour beers. Elvis is plaster so he's pretty fragile. New Holland drilled a hole in his backside and the beer hoses come out at the taps along his right arm. In the photo below, L to R: Adam Le Claire, Alan Kort, Elvis, John Stewart and Brett VanderKamp. (Please send me an email if I got the order mixed up!)
Nobody who attended this festival could claim that Michigan brews whimpy beers. I even met a beer fan named Erik who drove all the way from Connecticut to attend.

On this chalkboard sign (below right) from Arbor/Corner Brewery you can see choices like Hoppelbock Barrel-Aged Dry hopped Czech Bock at 8% ABV and Cousin Jax Barrel-Aged Imperial Pale Ale at 10% ABV and 120 IBU. And Corner Brewery's Espresso Love Stout was silky good.

Another fun sign I saw behind the bar at Corner Brewery was this one (below left) that someone took a Sharpie pen to.

Corner does something I haven't seen anywhere else. They have a 10-gallon homebrew system for a pilot brewery called, "The Rat Pad." I've seen keg-based pilot systems, but what I haven't seen is that they let local homebrewers completely run the pilot brewery. The homebrewers brew anything they want and each Wednesday at 6:00 pm the pilot brew goes on sale. The day I left bartender Logan was going to brew his Pistaccio Porter on the system.

Back at the festival, at the end of the day I helped New Holland break down their booth. Elvis had to go into their horse trailer first. I heard Fred Bueltmann call out, "Mind Elvis's finger!" as they didn't want to break his plaster hand. Photo below right, L to R: Fred, Adam, Alan, Elvis and John Stewart. They closed a gate behind Elvis once they got him situated so that the kegs, taps, and ice horse troughs wouldn't roll into him.

Post-festival was the Guild's 10th Anniversary Party. I had saved a couple of bottles of sour beer to share with the Jolly Pumpkin brewers, so I broke out a bottle each of La Folie and Cuvee de Tomme. Everybody had a great time at the private party in the brewhouse, and I even got myself out to my trailer at a reasonable hour.

The next morning I called Corner Brewery and spoke to Renee Greff, Owner/Partner about finding a shower. After two days of hot and humid barrel-aged beer drinking, I was ready and Renee set me up at her and Matt's house.

Then off I drove, headed to Buffalo, NY via Canada.

P.S. Thank you to Flying Bison Brewing Company for letting me hog their business computer to update this blog.

Pink Boots at Bells

"Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work." ~H. L. Hunt

July 24-26: Drove from Holland to Kalamazoo, but took the wrong exit. Bell's Production Manager, John Mallett and his son Linus met me and I followed them to the home of Bell's Packaging Manager, Mike Furst. John handed me a Bell's Lager and we silently climbed a ladder in the barn to the hayloft, which had been made into a recording studio. Three musicians and a singer were about to record a song. John's son and daughter Anna were amazingly still and quiet during the recording session. It took a few minutes for our eyes to adjust to the darkness as the only lighting was the recording switchboard and strings of white Christmas lights hung across the rafters.

After the recording sessions I followed John's truck to his house. John and I pushed my trailer up the driveway as Kalamazoo has a no overnight street parking ordinance. I was able to settle in for three nights there, which was a real treat on this fast-paced trip.

John, Anna and Linus had a tour of my trailer, and the kids both declared they would love to sleep there. Unfortunately there's just room for me! John had baked homemade bread and we enjoyed fresh basil and tomatoes from the garden while we waited for John's wife Maggie to get home.

I've known John for many years as a fellow GABF and World Beer Cup Judge. He is one of the smartest people I know and could probably brainstorm his way out of any brewing or brewery engineering problem. Call Larry Bell a genius for hiring John Mallett and you wouldn't be wrong!

The next day I rode with John to the old Kalamazoo brewery. John worked on a Firkin washer while brewer Dan Barrett showed me around. The most interesting feature about the brewing equipment still at this original location is that they have two mash/lauter tuns: One is 15-barrels, the other is double-size so that they can make gigantic beers with double the grainbill.

The last time I visited Bells was in 2000 when I was Eccentric Day guest brewer. They definitely use the double-size mash/lauter for their Eccentric Day Brew. If you are in Kalamazoo around St. Nicholas Day in December, be sure to dress in your whackiest costume and join in the fun at Bell's Eccentric Cafe on Eccentric Day.

Then we went to Bell's new brewing plant in Comstock outside of Kalamazoo. The batch size there is 50 barrels and John has designed some interesting features into the new brewhouse. Currently they have two lauter tuns, one larger than the other. They also have two kettles, but one is used as a heating wort receiver. The wort receiving kettle has an external collandria, and the newer kettle has an internal "underground" collandria, which allows Bells to brew smaller batches of specialty beers.

Another neat thing that Bells has been doing for the last three years, is they've put Oberon, their summer strong wheat seasonal ale, into 5-liter custom-painted aluminum cans. You heard me right: five liters or 1.32 gallons. Each year they change the label design, and each year they sell out. Some folks have taken to collecting the cans. The big can acts like a growler with a longer cold-shelf life; once opened the beer should be consumed the same day or it goes flat. Photo at left is of the 2005 can.

John and Brewhouse Manager Ken Belau drove back to the Eccentric Cafe for lunch where we ran into Bell's brewer Tom Bohs enjoying a pint on his day off. (Photo at top of page, L to R: John, Teri, Ken and Tom.) Tom remembered me from the 2000 Excentric Day brew and party. That night I played card games with Anna and Linus while John made dinner.

The next day (July 26) I was scheduled to drive to Dexter, Michigan to meet with Ron Jeffries, Owner/Brewmaster of Jolly Pumpkin Brewing Company, but I was getting worn down with the pace of the trip. Therefore I elected to stay another day with John and his lovely family, sleep in (a lot!), do laundry and blog. So that's what I did. The Mallett household in Kalamazoo was a nice relaxing stop for me and I needed it.

Thank you to John Mallet for gifting me a mixed 12-pack of Bell's beers.

Pink Boots at New Holland

"Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future." ~Charles F. Kettering

July 23-24: Pulled into Holland, Michigan just before dinner. Met Brewmaster John Haggarty at New Holland Brewing Company's production brewery, where I parked my rig for the night. John drove us to an Italian restaurant where brewer Ben Fris and Partner Brett VanderKamp were waiting. A special guest of my Holland, Michigan adventure is my old pal, Bill Owens. Bill publishes American Distiller and is on his own 5-month road trip visiting and photographing America's small boutique distilleries. (Photo above, L to R: Ben, Brett, Teri, John and Bill.)

Tried to blog from my trailer as John had given me New Holland's wep-key to get into their wireless system, but I was too tired and just posted photos of my van and trailer.

The next morning I overslept! Ben knocked on my door at 7:00 am, but somehow I had slept straight through my alarm. I threw my things together and was mostly ready in five minutes. Ben drove us to New Holland's brewpub where we met up with Bill Owens.

New Holland is the first brewpub on my journey to have both a brewery and a distillery onsite. Bill had arranged with Ben to distill a 100% wheat whiskey on this day. Ben brewed the wash last Friday: 100% wheat malt with rice hulls mixed in to create a good filter bed.

We watched while Ben pumped the wash up from the basement fermenter into a small holding tank in the still room. Then he pumped 50 gallons into the still and began to heat it.

In the meantime Ben and I went to mash in our India Pale Ale. A few weeks ago, Ben and John had asked me to send them a recipe - anything I wanted to brew, so I suggested a Pacific-Northwest-style IPA. Click here to read the recipe for New Holland's West Coast IPA. Ben had ordered all the ingredients and was willing to go along with my preferences. Above photos are me mashing-in and pulling out spent grain - both with the same canoe paddle! I told Ben all about the amazing abilities of the mash hoe, and recommended he make one. Click here to learn more about mash hoes.

Ben was very patient with Bill and me. He sure had his hands full with both of us hanging around all day! I had a great time running back and forth between the brewery, the distillery, and down to the basement fermentation cellar and whiskey wood-aging cellar. New Holland's cute little still is made from a big commercial soup-pot bolted to the upside-down-cone from a small unitank beer fermenter. It looks like what you'd get if you mated R2D2 with the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz (photo left).

In between all the action, Bill and I took over a table in a quiet section of the pub and worked on our blogs, newsletters, trip planning, and other online stuff. (Photo above.)

In addition to the brewing and distilling, Ben transferred some of New Holland's just distilled Rum to an oak barrel in the basement whiskey aging cellar. But first he and Brett had to lift the empty yet heavy just-soaked soggy oak barrel into position on the rack. (Photos below.)

At the end of the day Brett drove me back to New Holland's packaging brewery where he gave me a New Holland t-shirt and baseball cap (it's pink!), and John gifted me two cases of New Holland beer. I'm not done with the New Holland folks yet - I plan to volunteer at their booth at the Michigan Brewers Guild's "Michigan Beer Festival" this weekend in Ypsilanti.

A Vacation from my Vacation: Munising, Michigan

"Love and magic have a great deal in common. They enrich the soul, delight the heart, and they both take practice." ~Nora Roberts

July 2 - July 6: Not driving during these days except for an allergy shot, groceries, gas, and other uneventful trips. We are in Munising, Michigan with Jon's family and I am enjoying a vacation from my vacation. Happy 4th of July to everyone!

Photo above, L to R: T-Mom, Cathleen, Jon, Teri, Zach and Jay. Photo below: Happy 4th of July Potluck inside and Happy Parade-watching outside, and yes, that is Jon in the doorway enjoying a cold can of Blatz on a very hot day.

P.S. If you are jonesin' to read of road trip adventures while I am "on vacation," click here to read the tale of my 1999 Teardrop Adventure.

Drive: Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin to Munising, Michigan

"Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars." ~Henry Van Dyke

July 1: Drove all day from Chippewa Falls to Munising, Michigan, which is where Jon grew up and where his mom lives. Didn't take any photos as I was working on the computer all day.

The most interesting thing that happened is that we almost ran out of gas. Jon was so excited to shoot for "home," that he forgot to watch the gas gauge. Luckily I do watch the road a bit even if I'm not driving or taking pictures. The van lurched and coughed, giving us the old "I'm just about out of gas" signal, and I remembered seeing a gas station in a little town about a mile back. Jon turned the rig around and we made it to the gas station just before the bugger ran dry. The fill took 25.47 gallons. Glad it coughed when it did!

Got to Munising, a town famous for its location on Lake Superior near Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, and famous for its wooden bowls, rolling pins and other woodenware. The Munising Woodenware Co. produced wooden household products until the 1950's, so all the pieces are antiques these days.

Jon is a minor collector of these pieces of Americana, but Jon's father Ken was a passionate collector. Growing up on a dirt-poor farm in Kansas during the depression, Ken fell in love with Michigan's beautiful upper penninsula when as a young chemist, the US Army assigned him the job of studying the effects of cold, snow and ice on various types of rubber tires. (Yes, it really is Siberia USA up here.)

After his army stint, Ken moved to Munising to work as a chemist at the local paper mill. There Ken met and fell in love with Jon's mom, Tina. Ken died unexpectedly last January and the loss is still quite palpable. The photos on this page are of just a small sample of Ken's Munising woodenware collection which is displayed profusely on nearly every surface in the family's kitchen.

We arrived early enough in the afternoon to spend lots of quality time with Tina. The Fourth of July always brings friends and former neighbors back to Munising, so we've been able to join Tina in welcoming the returning loved ones. It has not been an easy time for her, and we are so glad to be here with her.