After a few months off we're back with two beer and grilled cheese pairing events. The first pairing will be held on Tuesday, August 25th at Midtown Brewing Co. and all the the artisanal grilled cheese sandwiches will be made in-house. This event will feature 5 handcrafted beers from Tri-City Brewing Co.

Celebrate suds, snow and early spring fun with the 4^th Annual Brew-Ski Festival at Boyne Highlands Resort on Saturday, March 9. Brew-Ski Festival features craft beer sampling, live music, brats on the grill, and the enjoyment of early spring skiing and snowboarding.

This is the fourth year of the Michigan Brewers Guild Detroit Fall Beer Festival and it has been growing bigger and bigger each year. In fact, this festival has grown so much that the Brewers Guild decided to make it a two-day festival! For Paul and me, this was our second time attending this festival. I really love the fact that it is located in the heart of Detroit at the popular Eastern Market. I love the Eastern Market. We try to make it down there whenever we are in the area on a day that it is open. I am glad that the Brewers Guild decided to just extend the festival to two days rather than move it to an alternate location. I really feel that there is no better location within the Detroit City Limits to hold this wonderful festival.

Hopcat is already the third best beer bar on planet Earth (per Beer Advocate magazine,) and they obviously have their sights set now on inter-planetary dominance based on this year’s Hoptoberfest festival. 40 Michigan breweries took over Ionia Street to celebrate. Standouts included Hudsonvile’s White Flame Brewing Co. which in addition to their astounding Bourbon Barrel aged Black Sheep IPA, also featured a beer drinking, cigarette smoking “G Man” super hero mascot making the rounds throughout the festival. Although there was no German beer tent this year, instead a booth of rotating taps featured such speciality pours as the Hopcat Rapture Wild Ale and Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout.

More than twenty brewers will participate at The Michigan Bier Celebration, a taste of Oktoberfest, to be held at the Harvey Kern Pavilion in Frankenmuth, MI on July 21, 2012 from 1-11 p.m.

On Thursday night we went out to the Shark Club in Howell for their Barrel-Aged Beer Night. The Shark Club is a big place that can fit around 300 people and at this event there had to be at least 150 patrons out enjoying barrel-aged beers. It’s cool to see this kind of turn out since barrel-aged beers are more of an acquired taste and probably not the first choice for an average beer drinker. I must say it’s nice to see people appreciating great beer and the quality of the beer bring them in the door instead of a $2 beer night.

In today’s beer lingo, the words big and flavorful have taken a back seat to terms like intense, extreme, and the often used “imperial”. For over 250 years, one style, Russian Imperial Stout, has been living up to and often exceeding those descriptors. This big and dark beer started life in English breweries and evolved into a style that would allow it to survive the trip to Russia and the Baltic States. Early attempts to ship beer from England resulted in the receipt of spoiled beer by the Imperial Court of Russia. To deliver a drinkable product, brewers increased the amount of both alcohol and hops in the brew, both ingredients acted as preservatives. The recipients of this big rich brew were delighted to say the least. The isolationist tariffs that the Russian Government imposed in the 1820s applied to all imports, except stout. Now that is a testament to the love for this intense brew.

Boyne Highlands’ third annual Brew-Ski Festival takes place Saturday, March 10 and features more than 100 varieties of craft beer, including nearly 50 from Michigan breweries.  This festival is staged at the base of the slopes where beer lovers can gather and enjoy suds, grilled brats and spring skiing and riding.

The sold out Michigan Brewers Guild Winter Festival is just days away and the excitement is building. There will be 61 breweries showcasing over 450 beers and the festival layout has been expanded to accommodate the increased number of beer enthusiasts. This festival will be the largest single day event the Guild produces. Many of the beers that I picked to preview will only be available at the Festival. I have selected the following beers based on brewer/owner recommendations, personal intrigue, or the fact they just sounded cool. Some of these will be released at special times so check the event program and plan your attack.