Bottled Michigan: Short's Good Humans Dry Hopped Brown Ale

Beer trends are hard to track. My most trustworthy sources are the brewers themselves; I'm not able to find published data of Michigan beer shipping broken down by style, so in no way can I be sure that IPAs are the most popular current style of craft ales, with sour beers enjoying some major momentum.  I can't be sure, but that's what I've been told by several brewers, and it makes sense anecdotally.  IPAs are huge (even in the frozen December, when my palate turns to browns and stouts to protect me from the wicked cold), and sour ales are becoming ever more available.  Belgian style beers seem to be riding a wave of popularity...

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Sacred Cow Shrimp Tacos

Tacos and Beer: A Love Story This past week has been really cold.  I mean really, REALLY (expletive) cold.  And seeing as though it's only the middle of December, sadly, it's only going to get colder.  Honestly, I’ve already shifted into hyper-hibernation mode, seeking out comfort food in preparation of the inevitable coming months of Snowmageddon imprisonment.  But for some reason last week, I got a hankering for some delicious tacos.. probably because I really just wanted to forget about how cold it was and how hard it was snowing.  To me tacos scream summer time.   Perhaps it's all of the bright...

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Schmohz Brewery -- Ladies Ale Society Beer Tasting Event

Nearly 35 women packed into the brewing facility at Schmohz Brewing Company in Grand Rapids, MI on November 6th.  Around picnic tables and folding chairs, they chatted and nibbled from appetizer and cheese plates as servers poured 15 different samples of the beers available at the pub. Chas Thompson "Swirl it around, smell it, and then take the first sip," Chas Thompson, the brewer and leader of the evening's tasting event instructed us. Yet another wine tasting?  Hardly. The participants were sampling the first delicious brew of the evening: the golden and sweet Valley City Cream Ale. That's right -- beer tasting.  And it...

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Hopcat

For a few years now, Grand Rapids has been home to Hopcat, a brewpub focused on bringing everything I want to the city in which I live. They are a bar focused on Michigan beer that also offers a spectacular selection of American and international beers. They have a robust and ever rotating tap selection. To my knowledge, nowhere in Grand Rapids is there a superior draft selection, and very few competitors even come close. I have yet to discuss beer with a Hopcat employee who was not intimately familiar with the art of crafting and drinking fine beer. And to top it all off, they have a friendly, knowledgeable, and very original crew manning...

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Bottled Michigan: Short's Bloody Beer

Short's likes to keep things fresh. Everyone knows and loves their staple beers, but it is their new and experimental tastes that have made a name for the little brewery in the north. The most recent beer I tried is not for everyone: the Bloody Beer. The beer pours a strong red-copper, with a whole lot of haziness going on. I'm convinced that the haziness, which is thick with small particles that suspend without moving in the copper fluid, are actually pieces of tomato. (this is probably not true.)  The head is thin and off white, colored slightly by the copper hue of the beer itself. Have you ever had a bloody mary before? Not one...

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Vicious Doughnut Balls

Recently, I resolved to set aside a lifelong fear of deep frying at home to try making my own doughnuts.  My favorite type are yeast-raised and glazed, and rarely do I stray from that standard when visiting a local doughnut shop.  But after deciding to make my own at home, I thought it would be best to start with a simple cake doughnut on my first go-round (or I guess I should say the second half of it).  And while the “Hot Now” sign at Krispy-Kreme may make your heart flutter, I’m telling you that nothing compares to a doughnut fried up in your own kitchen.   Although I expected the frying to be the challenging part of...

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Short's Brewing Company

Here at Michigan Beer Blog, we talk a lot about Short’s Beer. A disproportionate number of the Bottled Michigan posts reference Short’s Beer. I regularly use them as a poster child for a Michigan brewery not afraid of experimenting and occasionally making a beer that few will enjoy. When talking of Michigan beer, Short’s is one of the “Big Names” in the industry, well known throughout the footprint (mitten print?) and beyond. So what’s it like to go there? A few weeks ago, my wife and I, flush from our successful outing in Traverse City (which included stops at Right Brain brewery, North peak Brewery, and Mackinaw Brewing Company), made the...

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Screaming Pumpkin Doughnuts

I have never met a variety of deep-fried dough I didn’t like. Yet, given that most doughy fried items out there are rather mediocre — say, the ones found at our local grocery stores — I don’t find myself indulging this habit as often as I’d like.  The exception to this rule is pumpkin spice doughnuts, which I am absolutely weak in the face of.  Despite the fact that even the loveliest looking ones at our local markets tend to disappoint, I eat them anyway. Because it’s fall and crunching through ochre-tinted leaves, wrapping your fingers around a paper cup of mulled cider, and eating even lackluster pumpkin spice doughnuts is the right...

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The Mackinaw Brewing Company

If there’s a lesson that public schools fail to teach kids, it’s that not everyone is great. Not everyone is perfect at wood shop, not everyone is a great singer, and not everyone is a great chef. And that’s okay; there is a whole world of mediocrity out there, supplying thousands of jobs to people who just aren’t the best at what they do. Most people are average, despite what their schoolteachers tell them, and there’s nothing wrong with being a C student. Look at the macro breweries. No one claims that they sell a perfect product. No one even claims that they sell a great product, and yet more people drink Miller Light and Budweiser than...

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