Tahquamenon Falls Brewing Company

Michigan’s Upper Peninsula sports many state parks.  These areas showcase swaths of virgin forest, unsullied wildlife, and majestic waterfalls.  One of these state parks, the Tahquamenon Falls State Park, also hosts the third most voluminous waterfall east of the Mississippi; rust brown torrents of water scream down at 50,000 gallons per second.

Near the middle of the park – a few miles from either campground (there’s camping areas near both the lower falls and upper falls) – one finds a kitschy area that sports what looks like eight different gift shops stocked full of the type of souvenirs one expects from Upper Peninsula gift shops – shirts with Yooper slang on them, moose/bear/wolf themed clothing, and various hand crafted goods.

Oh!  There’s also a brewery here.


To my knowledge, the Tahquamenon Falls Brewery is the only brewery that’s actually inside a Michigan State Park.  It’s decorated exactly like how you would expect a restaurant in a state park in the Upper Peninsula to be decorated – lots of wood, lots of wood accents, lots of stuffed animals (literally stuffed fabric made to look like fuzzy versions of animals…there was no taxidermy level stuff that I could see), and a very attractive all-glass wall behind the bar, showing off the brewing equipment.

The people were exactly how one might expect people in a Michigan State Park – friendly, polite, lovers of Michigan who all smelled pleasantly of campfire.  Laura and I split nachos and a whitefish sandwich.  The nachos used liquid cheese like a baseball stadium vs sticking only to shredded cheese melted in an oven, while the whitefish sandwich was more bread than fish.  Coincidentally, they use the same type of French fries that Hopcat uses, albeit without the crack fry seasoning.

The beer brewed on premises at a state park was probably what I should have expected at a tourist destination.  There was nothing flashy or exciting or original at Tahquamenon Falls; the four drafts included a nitro stout that was literally advertised as “Guinness style,” along with a frightfully cloying cherry wheat beer that could suppress a cough.  The red ale – cleverly named Falls Tannin after what gives the water its deep red hue – was the best option, giving a slightly metallic burn to an otherwise malty red ale.

If you’re a Yooper, or if you’re visiting Michigan’s untamed beauty above the bridge, there are dozens of places you can go for excellent, carefully crafted Michigan beer.  That said, there’s only one place you can camp within earshot of Tahquamenon Falls.  If you've forgotten your growler from somewhere else, there’s always the state park brewery.

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