Michigan’s Rich Colors with Marion Cornett-Repost from 2016 Everyone Should Reread!

Have you ever held up a freshly-poured glass of tap beer, allowing the light to filter through so you can admire the richness of color, the clarity, while noticing your taste buds salivating for that first sip through the required foam?  If this already has you thinking about a tall and tasty brew from a local micro-brewery, then you might be a Michigander or you need to come to our great state.

We’ve always been known as the “Great Lakes State” but, more recently because of the influx of so many great breweries, our state has been referred to as the “Great Beer State,” ranking within the top of five across the country.

With brewers and breweries crafting flavored beer as well as the “usuals”—such as wheat and brown ale—the market has exploded like no other time since the end of Prohibition.  Of course, in the 1920s, a few select companies survived making root beer and ginger ale and, even those, are popular to this day with most breweries offering their take on these drinks.

Why are we talking about beer?  Well, our country has always had a love/hate relationship with drinking.  While doing research for my historical novel, “Juniper and Anise,” I found the Volstead Act (creating what we know as the Prohibition Era) to be ineffective.  If men or women wanted to drink, they found a way.  My story revolves around a woman bootlegger surviving during these hard times by flavoring rye mash with juniper berries and anise sprigs, and she had loads of willing customers.  As back in the day, today you can find all sorts of “moonshine” or “bathtub gin” in your local liquor store, right alongside beers, wine, and alcohol.

With all of this in mind, my husband and I did a little research of our own.  There are nearly a couple hundred known breweries in Michigan but we had time to visit only three in recent months.  Founder’s in Grand Rapids and Bell’s in Kalamazoo are well-established while Block Brewing in Howell is the new kid on the block (pun intended).  All are well worth your visit in our great state.

Mike Stevens and Dave Engbers opened Founder’s in 1997 to lukewarm reception but, within a few years, established themselves as master brewers by winning World Beer Cup awards as well as numerous other medals.  Bell’s Brewery is slightly older, opening their doors in the early 1980s.  It was a slow start for Larry Bell but now, they distribute beer to over 23 states as well as Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.  Tom Block had a passion—make tasty craft beer and team it with great barbeque.  Block Brewing opened their doors a couple years ago and they are going strong!

Success stories are great and every time my husband and I visit a brewery, we look for the history, the people behind the success, the “why” of their passion to make beer.  Maybe that’s the reason temperance in our country draws me in.  We, in Michigan, are a sociable group.  We like to have a beer, a glass of wine, or a mixed drink while we suss out our hectic lives.  Maybe that’s why breweries are so prevalent.  Maybe that’s why the experiment of Prohibition didn’t work.

 

But, all of this said, please visit our wonderful and beautiful state of Michigan, with sandy beaches, dense forests and numerous lakes, scenes to calm the soul, and a brewery around every corner to quench your thirst.