A Michigan Beer Tour: Part 1

by Matt Dunn

The state of craft beer in the state of Indiana is not good. If we want to talk numbers, craft beer makes up only 0.7% of the market share here. Know what it is in the Pacific Northwest? A little over 20%. Indiana is something like 4th lowest in the nation for craft beer market share. That sucks.

So when Jim Schembre, head honcho up at World Class Beverage in Indianapolis, wants to give his crew an in depth look at production breweries, he can't very well do it in the Hoosier state, to his great chagrin. Instead, he takes them all to Michigan, where, for some reason or another, the craft beer scene is huge. And sometimes, he's kind enough to bring along aspiring beer writers like yours truly.

So two weeks ago, the World Class Beverage crew, several retailers and myself piled into company vans at 8am and hit the road, Michigan bound. First stop was Dark Horse Brewing in Marshall. Then it was on to Bell's new production brewery just outside Kalamazoo. Then the infamous Bell's Eccentric Cafe in Kalamazoo. From there, after we finally reestablished the caravan, it was off to Battle Creek and Arcadia Brewing Company, ending up in Holland with our excellent hosts, the New Holland Brewery folks, for the night. Day three saw a longish drive past Hell (literally Hell, MI) to Dexter and the somewhat unlikely Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales. From there it was off to Ann Arbor for a quick stop at Grizzly Peak Brewpub for lunch. We were supposed to stay the night in Ann Arbor and check out some other breweries, but to be honest, we all needed to "dry out" a bit so we hit the road and made it back to Indy a day early.

I'll try to do this in three parts, as per the norm, so check back soon for part two.

You ever see that Simpson's episode where Homer has to go pick up his car in NYC? Maybe my favorite episode ever.

"Mountain Dew or crab juice.

Eeeeewwww, blech ahhh. Give me a crab juice."

Anyway, you know that scene where Bart goes to MAD Magazine headquarters and the secretary tells him that it's just a place of business and nothing exciting really goes on there? Well, that's kind of how I felt about beer business. But in reality, much like MAD magazine, it IS all it's cracked up to be.

We arrived in Marshall around noon on Thursday and proceeded to sample all Dark Horse's beers, plus some special treats, in about 2 hours. Whew. That'll do you right. Nothing like drinking a lot of really good beer in the middle of the day.

Dark Horse is a great little brewery. They are really small. They made only 396 barrels of beer last year, which is 12,276 gallons. Compare that to Michigan's biggest brewer, Bell's, who're shooting for 1,860,000 gallons this year, and you get a sense of scale. But size doesn't really have anything to do with quality of the brew, that's for sure.

Dark Horse was founded by Aaron Morse. He draws all their very cool labels by hand and is generally in charge of things up there. All of the beers we tried were quite tasty, but a couple things really stood out for me. Their Amber isn't your typical everyday Amber. It's a Belgian style brew that's fruity and spicy yet still nice and easy to drink. I'm glad people are getting creative with their Ambers. As we'll see, Arcadia is doing something along the same lines.

Of course it was their big beers that impressed me the most. Their Tripel style brew, Sapient, is really quite nice. At 9% abv it may be odd that this is their summer seasonal, but that's how they do it up there, just a little bit differently. And I think that is pretty freaking cool. It's also pretty freaking cool that they keep this big beer at the same price as their other flagships. So, in some sense, you're really getting twice the beer for the same price. The Sapient is a pale, hazy golden color with big fruity esters in the nose and on the palate. It's a little hot in the alcohol department, but I like that in a Tripel, reminds you that this ain't no session ale.

Their Reserve Special Black Bier is also a treat. A beer that more or less defies style, it's big and roasty and thick, but fairly clean and drinkable. At 8% abv, it tastes somewhere between an amped up German schwarzbier and a smallish British Imperial Stout.

But the beer to beat all beers was certainly their Double Crooked Tree IPA. Their standard Crooked Tree IPA is pretty freaking good. But Aaron doubled everything for the Double (go figure), except the water. Unfortunately, but necessarily, the price about doubled too.

This is a scathing beer. I think it actually stripped some enamel off of my teeth.

My tongue curled up in the fetal position behind my lower left wisdom tooth and whimpered softly through tears something about being sorry for not liking American Pilsners.

Well you can stuff you sorrys in a sack mister. This beer is freakin' awesome.

I'd even call it wicked. Or ferocious. It does it right and and it knows it does it right. It's 13.6% abv and probably about 17,000 IBUs. It's freaking massive. Absolutely massive. And Aaron was kind enough to break out 2 precious bottles of the stuff to share with our crew. He had stashed a case away to cellar and to send to the Great American Beer Festival, where it would almost certainly win a medal, but he just can't keep his hands off the stuff and now has only 4 bottles left. I hope he can manage to save them for the GABF. Anyway, they only brew it once a year so when you see this magnificent brew, snatch it up and snatch it up quick. If you like aggressive beers that is.

Then there was that three year old Barleywine holy fruit. Big sour cherry, apples, raisins, maybe some cinnamon? They do it right up there.

From left to right, Mike the PR man with a strange grimace on his face, Trent the lead brewer, and Aaron, owner/man in charge.

From Marshall it was a rainy, somewhat drunken ride (not for the drivers of course), over to Bell's new production facility, where beer consumption, luckily, slowed considerably.

Bell's, or Kalamazoo Brewing Company (I really don't know how that all works), is pretty big and rapidly growing bigger. Of this year's American Brewer's Association 'Tiger Brewer' rankings, a list of the fastest growing breweries in the country, Kalamazoo ranked #6 behind the likes of New Belgium and Deschutes and ahead of Magic Hat, Rogue, Harpoon and Kona. That's impressive. They are growing at about 20% a year. That is fast. They expect to make 60,000 barrels of beer this year, which shouldn't be hard considering they just installed a new 68 barrel Steinecker brew house. And do you know from where they acquired this system? Wolfgang Puck. Apparently he started up a brew pub in California, but really didn't have much of an idea what brewing is all about. He bought the best brew house money could buy, used it only a handful of times, then sold it to Bell's at a very good price. Nice for Bell's huh?

Here are some pics of the shiny new brewery. It really is quite impressive.

Ahh push button brewing.

This is what Oberon looks like when it's just a couple hours old.

This is a picture of Bell's three 200bbl fermenters.

Here's cellarman Dave Hale cleaning out one of the massive 200bbl fermenters after a bottling run of Two Hearted. Remember, two 200bbl batches and Bell's has already made more than Dark Horse makes all year long.

Here are a couple magnums, Expedition Stout and Sparkling ale, undergoing bottle conditioning in Bell's warm room. I was tempted to grab them and make a break for it, but they were keeping a close eye on me. Dammit.

Here's a shot of the temp monitoring board thinger. They have a lot of temps to monitor up there. Did you know Two Hearted ferments at a balmy 74 degrees F? Neither did I.

So Bell's is doing great things. They have a fully equipped microbiology lab with 3 biologists, a state of the art bottling line, a big shiny brewhouseÖand great beer. One of their latest offerings is a Cherry Ale. We tasted it straight out of the fermenter, only 4 days old, and it was really good. I can't imagine how nice the finished product will be. Look for it in World Class Beverage's Summer Sampler pack. It's a fairly light colored brew that will finish around 7.5% abv, maybe even higher. A nice tart, but not overwhelming, cherry flavor will make this fairly strong beer pretty easy to drink.

After our tour at the production facility we headed into Kalamazoo and the Eccentric Cafe. We had an open tab. It got a little ugly. A goodly portion of Two Hearted was consumed. Thankfully, I don't have any pictures. But I did have a chance to chat with Stan, owner of the Heorot in Muncie, mostly about cars and politics, but did you know he has one hell of a cellar up there in Muncie? He's got casks of JW Lee's Harvest ale several years deep. Holy crap. I need to get up there and check that out for sure.

OK. I've already overstayed my welcome I am sure. So get out there and pick up some Dark Horse. And definitely keep your eyes peeled for their Double IPA. As for Bell's, I'm sure you pretty much drink it constantly already so keep it up. And look for that Cherry Ale.

Check in soon for part II, where you'll learn of our impromptu driving tour of Kalamazoo, traditional English brewing in the cereal capital of the world, how to make wheat beer with lager yeast, what New Holland brewer John Haggerty REALLY thinks about filtering beer, and much, much more. So please, stay tuned.