I May Have Found Heaven

A few of my fellow beer loving friends have been talking about this store called 8 Degrees Plato Beer Company in Ferndale lately. A few weeks ago, while out in Ferndale, I had some time to kill before meeting up with some friends so I thought "what the heck, why not stop in and check it out!". Boy am I glad I did. What an AWESOME place. I checked out their inventory list on their website before going there, so I knew they had a lot of selection, but I never imagined it to be as cool as it was. They carry beer from 23 different breweries in Michigan (and a TON from all over the world, including Germany, England, Japan, Poland, and basically anywhere you can think of). This is not your typical beer store. It's not a liquor store or anything of that nature. This is a nice little shop that carries only beer, beer related items like books, antique beer and bar collectibles, and cheeses from around Michigan. It's a great place and the owners are great! I talked to the owner, Tim, for quite a while. He suggested a few different beers for me based on my favorites and I loved all of them. He really knows his stuff! The place is really neat because you can pick up one single beer, or you can build your own six pack from their unbeatable selection. Another really neat feature of this shop is that every Friday evening, they do FREE beer tastings from 6-8 pm. They feature 2 or 3 different beers and usually have a theme to go with it. Very cool if you ask me! Here is a photo from their Facebook to give you an idea of how awesome the place is. :)

Photo taken from 8 Degrees Plato Beer Co. Facebook

You can also check out the article and video news story from Fox right here
For more information about 8 Degrees Plato Beer Company, check out their website here

What is YOUR favorite place to buy hard to find beer?? I'd love to hear about them!

Tourin' the brewery at Atwater

Last Thursday, I got to do something I've always wanted to - tour a brewery. Lucky for me, it was the brewery that makes my FAVORITE beer, Atwater Brewery. Atwater is located in Detroit’s historic Rivertown district, and housed in a 1919 factory warehouse. Atwater Brewery was founded in March of 1997 with the purpose of carrying on the rich history of breweries in Detroit. It is a very unique place and atmosphere. It basically looks like a giant warehouse with a bar placed in the middle where you can hang out and have all of your favorites, or try some new ones. I went with a few friends - each of us had a pass for a brewery tour and a beer tasting that I got us for Christmas. I know, I am so thoughtful! The coolest part of the brewery tour was seeing where everything is bottled and labeled on a  little assembly line. Real interesting stuff. It's surprising to me how Atwater's production is so small scale compared to other places such as Bell's. Atwater has been experiencing tremendous growth in demand the past few years, and plans to continue expanding. Some interesting facts I learned while visiting Atwater:

• 80% of their grain waste is used in compost piles to feed the hungry
• It takes about six weeks for beer to be made from start to finish
• Each tank can hold about 1,000 beers
• There are only 18 people working there (There were only 2 when I was there!)

 Check out this video from Atwater's YouTube page. You might laugh. :) 

And if you want an inside look on the brew process, check out this video and article from Fox 2 News
Fox 2 News Atwater Article

Happy American Craft Beer Week!

This week I'm going to take a break from celebrating the beer from the great state of Michigan, and celebrate it from all over America because today is the first day of American Craft Beer Week. What is American Craft Beer Week you ask?? Well, according to CraftBeer.com:

"Beer weeks are giving craft beer fans across the U.S. ever-increasing options to enjoy and share the beverage they love. Beer weeks celebrate the culture and community of craft beer, and give breweries and beer businesses the opportunity to connect with the fans. The Brewers Association, the national non-profit association on behalf of the majority of today's U.S. breweries, and publishers of CraftBeer.com, celebrate the culmination of these events each May with American Craft Beer Week (ACBW), The Mother of All Beer Weeks."

American Craft Beer Week will be recognized May 14 - 20, 2012 and offers an exciting opportunity for small and independent craft brewers and the community of better beer retailers to celebrate the ever advancing beer culture here in the U.S. Plus, tens of thousands of today's beer beginners, beer enthusiasts, and hard core beer geeks make time to toast the week. Watch the video below for a little more info, it's actually pretty cool.

Photo and video both taken from CraftBeer.com

 

 

Some places around Michigan celebrating American Craft Beer Week include:

• Rusty Bucket Restaurant & Tavern in Bloomfield Hills
• Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti
• Old Chicago in Southgate
• Kuhnhenn Brewing Co in Warren 

For a full list of events this week, click here
 
What is YOUR favorite American craft beer? :)

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Today I went to the Tiger's game with my sister and a few friends. It was my second game of the season and I noticed something new this season - the Michigan Craft Beer stand. How cool is that? Not only do they sell ONLY Michigan made beer, but they also have food and some frozen drinks so it's a good one-stop shop. The sign read "Michigan Craft Beer Proud Supporters of Michigan Beer". Of course I had to go in and check it out. There were about six choices from Bell's and one from Atwater. This made me extremely happy. I LOVE seeing Michigan products being supported and sold and places like Comerica Park. I know Comerica has had the Atwater beer stand for quite some time now (it's the only place I'll buy a beer there), but seeing the addition of the Michigan Craft Beer area was just awesome. There were a lot of people in there, too. It really got me thinking that this whole Michigan beer scene is getting pretty darn popular these days. If any of you have been to Joe Louis Arena lately, you will notice they, too sell a whole lot of Bell's beer these days. It's pretty awesome if you ask me. Very proud to see these places supporting Michigan like they should be! If you're wondering where you can find these awesome places, the Atwater Brewery stand is in section 108 and the Michigan Craft Beer area is around section 104. Keep up the good work Comerica and go Tigers! :)

Here are some photos from the day:

Atwater Brewery stand at Comerica Park

Enjoying my Atwater Dirty Blonde. Dorky, I know.

Michigan Craft Beer stand. Photo courtesy of The Detroit News

Where have you seen Michigan beer being sold lately??

Bell's Eccentric Cafe: My Kind of Place

Last weekend I had the pleasure of visiting Kalamazoo to visit my cousin for her birthday. Lucky for me, my cousins agreed to go to Bell's with me. I was very excited because I've never really experienced one of the "big beers" breweries. The place was actually called Bell's Eccentric Cafe. There was a brewery/bar on the inside, a beer garden on the outside, and a store attached. We went on a Saturday afternoon, and it was surprisingly packed. There were people in there eating, doing beer tasting, and even touring the actual brewing area (something I'm bummed I did not get to do). The place was a lot different than I expected it to be. The decor was rather interesting. The walls were covered with old beer advertisements,strange looking tribal masks, tattered flags, and even some really cool license plates. There were large stained glass windows with beer bottles built into them. Pretty cool looking, just not what I was expecting.

Inside of Bell's Eccentric Cafe

License plates on the walls

On to the beer tasting: we each ordered a flight of six different beers. They had about 20 or more to choose from (including a sangria made with beer and a mead), so the three of us all got a different variety. I went with all of the lighter ones, because that's just my style. The trays used to serve them were in the shape of Michigan - you either got an upper peninsula or a lower peninsula...I got an upper. I thought it was a very nice touch. It definitely showed off Bell's Michigan pride. :)

All of the beer choices

My upper peninsula :)

The beers I tasted were (in order):
Winter White - a Belguin style white ale (which is one of my all-time favorites)
Oberon - a wheat ale with fruity flavors (the beer that turned me onto Bell's in the first place)
Hopslam - a double India Pale Ale with a very high ABV of 10% (this one even costs a dollar extra to taste it)
Lager of the Lakes - a light, crisp pilsner
Experimental 2011 - part of the "experimental hops series" and only available at the brewery in Kalamazoo (kinda neat I got to try it)
Third Coast Beer - American pale ale with floral and herbal aromas

The funny thing is that ended up being the order I liked them, too. Probably because I picked the ones I knew I liked first and then just randomly picked ones that sounded good at the end. I just HAD to have the Winter White since it's one of my favorites and only offered in winter, making it very hard to find these days.

After we finished our beer and lunch, which was great by the way,  we headed over to the general store. There, they had all sorts of fun things like pint glasses, t-shirts, sweatshirts, bumper stickers, six packs of cold beer, and a whole slew of beer making supplies. Pretty cool if you ask me!! I opted to only purchase a pint glass as a souvenir of my fun that day.

All in all, I would say this place was a very fun time. Great food, great beer, and great atmosphere. I would love to go back in the summer and spend some time outside in the beer garden because it looked really nice. Unfortunately the weather wasn't so great for us that day. If you are ever in the Kalamazoo area, I recommend stopping in there, it's definitely a neat place to see! I'm very happy my cousin took me there (thanks Kristen!!)

Check out some info on Bell's Eccentric Cafe here.

Tell me, what is your favorite Bell's beer??

Top Notch Brews

Two days ago, The Brewers Association released its annual list of top 50 craft beers in the U.S., based on 2011 beer sales volume. Of the top 50 overall brewing companies, 36 are small and independent craft brewing companies.

Congrats to Bell's Brewery and Founders Brewing Company for representing Michigan in the top 50!

Lucky for me, I'm going to visit Bell's Brewery for my first time this weekend.

You can check out the article and full list of companies here.
 
Also check out:
Bell's Brewery
Founders Brewing Company
The Brewers Association

Betty Knows Her Beer

I'm new at this whole blogging thing, so bear with me while I figure it out. :)

That said, let's talk about beer. It's a known fact that craft beer has become very popular in the state of Michigan recently, mainly in the metro Detroit area. As I've become a little older, I've grown to love a great craft beer. They are so much easier to find these days, with breweries all over the place, and great places that don't actually brew any beer, but serve mass amounts of it, like the new spot in Ferndale, One-Eyed Betty's. One-Eyed Betty's first opened up in February 2012 and has been a VERY popular hot-spot ever since. I remember trying to go there on a random Tuesday for dinner and there being about a 30 minute wait just to get in. That's how popular this place has become in just a few short months. I think the main reason is, people LOVE their craft beer. They also love the fact that they finally have a place to go sit and enjoy it that's not the typical brewery type setting. This place really supports Michigan beer and serves up beer from Arcadia Ales, Atwater Brewery, Bell's Brewery, Founders Brewing Company, Kuhnhenn Brewing Company, Motor City Brewing Works, New Holland Brewing, and Short's Brewing Company, just to name a few!! One-Eyed Betty's has 44 beers on tap, 74 beers in a bottle, and even a couple in the can. And this beer list is always growing and changing. You can find their current beer list right here. I've noticed they've taken out one of my favorites, Bell's Winter White, for their new seasonal, Bell's Oberon. I'm glad I got to have a few Winter White's there while it lasted. Besides beer, Betty's has a great menu including breakfast (they even do brunch on the weekends), lunch, dinner, and dessert items. A favorite among my friends is the beer cheese soup. I highly recommend you check it out. If tons of great beer and food isn't enough to get you in the door, maybe their pinball machines and live music is. they even have special events, like beer dinner parings, featuring brews from Michigan. Hopefully you've had the chance to check out this little gem for yourself, but if you haven't yet, here is some info for you:

One-Eyed Betty's Website
One-Eyed Betty's Facebook
One-Eyed Betty's Twitter

A few beers on tap at Betty's

Go check it out. If you love beer like I do, you will love One-Eyed Betty's! Located at 175 West Troy Street in Downtown Ferndale.