We went to the Winter Beer fest Saturday in Grand Rapids. It was a pretty good time. The location moved from Lansing here to GR. The good part of it was there was more room, easy to get to off of the freeway, and decent parking at the site. The bad part was everything was pretty spread out, on multiple levels, and in the open. There was really one area that had tents for people, and the rest of the tents were more for serving beer. Those tents were way on one side atop a long narrow stairway, so it wasn't at all practical to grab a sample and go drink it somewhere warmer. So, most people were hanging out drinking beer in the wind and cold. Ann Arbor BC seemed to be the only smart people and brought a couple umbrella-style propane heaters. Add to that, ice wasn't really cleared out. The parking lot was all ice, and lots of ice all over the walkways and stairs. Some of the brewery booths were basically hidden with poor paths for traffic. The best description was an ice maze.
I would love it if it could come back to Lansing. I'm not thrilled with the setup in Old Town, but that's nothing another tent couldn't help fix. I really didn't like the multi-level setup in GR. Everything was laid out in sort of hubs, and there were limited space to move between hubs, plus the exposed crowds. If it was a real winter day, I think it would be pretty miserable with west Michigan wind and snow. Yeah, yeah, it's a winter beer fest, but by the end of February, I'm tired of being unnecessarily cold.
So anyway enough complaining... the beer! We got there about 11:00 and got in an hour early with the guild card. This is an awesome promotion and I'd guess there was less than 100 or so people. It was kind of like my own personal beer fest. Just walk up and get what you want, and the breweries have time to chat. We were only there a couple hours though, since we needed to go all the way across the state to Detroit later that day. In all, we put on 350 miles Saturday. It was pretty easy to get beer early on, so I had my fill. Basically I just used up my tokens and chatted for a while and we were on our way. Kellie kept track of what I had, and everything else is from memory, and that's a bit foggy.
Dark Horse Reserve Special Black Bier - When I think of DH, I think of this one and Crooked Tree. Both are excellent beers. This is something like a big Stout/Strong Ale.
Dragonmead Special IIPA - This was a beer I think they made for the fest. It was pretty good IIPA.
Jolly Pumpkin Madrugada Obscura - The beer was slush in the glass... Too cold. To me, JP's beers aren't easy to approach, and this one was OK. It was a sour stout. I really couldn't drink much of it though since it was basically a slushy.
The Livery Steep Canyon Lager - A little too buttery for me, even though it's a Bohemian Pils.
The Livery Cousin Jack IPA - A very nice IPA.
The Livery Liverator Doppelbock - I'm wondering if I've got a thing for doppelbocks right now because I seem to be really liking them. Maybe I'm just finding some excellent beer without trying. This was fantastic.
Copper Canyon Rye-PA - A rye Pale Ale with a ton of hops. This had a ridiculous amount of hops, maybe they had a randall hidden back there, if not they must have jammed a bunch of dry hops in the serving keg. Either that or they made hop soup. I'm not sure I got much more than intense hop flavor.
Founders Black IPA - I really like Founders, and this was an awesome beer. I don't think I've seen this one before. Unless it was the Black Rye beer. I don't remember that one well enough to compare, other than I remember liking it also. It was dark, malty, and very hoppy, but yet very smooth.
Michigan BC Winter Warmer - I was actually going in for the Bourbon barrel RIS, but they said they weren't tapping it until 3 PM. So I got this instead.
New Holland 2005 Black Tulip Trippel - A 2005 vintage of the popular Black Tulip. It was very nice and smooth. Makes you appreciate aging great beer.
Short's Black Cherry Porter - This was pretty good. Made with fresh Michigan cherries, the porter and cherry went well together, the head had a tint of red to it.
Short's Huma Lupa Licious - This is a great IPA. Big hops and a nice malt.
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The Michigan Brewers Guild should push the ballpark/venue into giving them some of their money back since they didn't clear all of the snow/ice out of the walk ways or parking lot. And they didn't have the venue properly set up for an event. There were people in wheel chairs and crutches that could probably only get to about 1/8th of the beer available.
I was in Lansing two years ago and had a much, much better time there. I only stuck around for an hour and a half this year before I got fed up and went downtown to Hopcat/Founders.
With all that said, there was some really good beer here, but it became more hassle than I wanted to put up with.
I didn't have the problem of moving between venues and the line for the bathrooms were long but at least when I was in them they were fast moving.
All in all,I had a great time. MI has some great breweries and they brought some excellent beer.
I emailed Scott Graham about the location, and the gist of it was they're looking at lots of ideas, but they in general seem happy with 5/3 Park and seems they think they can make it work there. So, unfortunately for at least the mid-Michigan craft scene, it seems to be staying on the west coast.