Bellaire Brown Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Maple Smoked Bacon

I created this recipe in honor of those of you that think you don't like sweet potatoes. This dish rocks -- I mean, beer? Bacon? How could you possibly go wrong? It's sweet, salty, smoky, and tangy, making it a great complement to practically any meal. If you haven't tasted the Bellaire Brown from Short's Brewing Company yet, it's very bready with just the perfect hint of spice that you want with your sweet potatoes. It has a nutty, sweet, caramel maltiness with hints of dark chocolate and is a very enjoyable brown ale. So give this recipe a try, and let me know how things work out for 'ya. Here's what you're going to need: 2...

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Dark Horse Brewing Company

Thousand mile brewery, folks. We found one. Marshall, Michigan is not a convenient city to get to. The center-west of the state suffers from a minor transportation issue; while it is a straight shot for me to get to Lansing or Kalamazoo in a short amount of time, there is no highway directly between Grand Rapids and Marshall. One needs to drive through Kalamazoo and Battle Creek to get there – inevitably passing Bell's and Arcadia brewing companies, two top notch breweries. It begs the question, is it worth driving the extra time to get to Dark Horse? The answer is "yes." Aaron Morse started Dark Horse brewery in an old, rough looking building...

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Weekend Update

There are two great beer festivals going on in Michigan this weekend -- The Art of Beer Festival in Benton Harbor and the Suds On The Shore Micro Brew Festival and Home Brew Competition in Ludington. We will be pouring beer for Mount Pleasant Brewing Co. today at Suds On The Shore and hope to see you out there supporting your local home brewers and microbreweri...

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Old Boys' Brewhouse

There is an imponderable something that appeals to me about visiting breweries -- something beyond the simple fact that they serve delicious beer. Perhaps it is the eclectic vibe that just can't be found in an average chain restaurant, and is somehow beyond the reach of any neighborhood bar. We are immensely fortunate to have several such places in Grand Rapids: HopCat, The Hideout, Founders, and Grand Rapids Brewing Company, just to name a few. When you walk into these places, there's an amicable feeling of belonging, as if by purchasing a pint you become almost family. It's comforting and keeps you coming back for more.When Seth and I visited...

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Odd Side Ales

Visiting Odd Side Ales, a brand new (and tiny) brewery in Grand Haven, was a very interesting experience wrapped in a quest and surrounded by confusion. Located in a nondescript plaza on the main drag of Grand Haven, it has no easily recognizable sign out front, and shares the building with a boring looking Italian place (which Laura informs me is actually delicious), a reception hall, a coffee shop, and several corporate offices. In fact, as we were wandering, lost, a wedding party was also wandering around the building. To make matters worse, Odd Side Ales is not yet listed on the corporate business list.Once you do find it (enter, take...

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The Livery

Within the wheelhouse of every high schooler straining to perfect the questionable skill of writing a 5 point essay, there lies a desire to begin every one of those essays with a definition of a word, and then cleverly tie it to the point of the paper. Much to my dismay, I meekly acknowledge that my first impulse was to begin this piece with a definition of a livery. “After all,” my high school brain implored, “people should have a starting place from which to understand why this delightful brewery got its name.” My post high school brain, tempered with experience with wielding a peerless command of the language, replied: “dude. It's still...

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