For the festival itself, food was provided for by the Whitecaps Concession teams ranging from meat and veggie pasties to the obligatory beer fest staple smoked turkey legs. Even after a big breakfast, it didn’t hurt to complement our diets with some additional non-liquid sustenance after our first several beers. I was able to make most of the breweries on my list; highlights included Gravel Bottom which included a couple of homebrew-sourced recipes among their taps and Harmony with their Dark Ages Gruit and absinthe-themed Capricorn - a collaboration with local donut shop Propaganda. Word of mouth brought us to Witch’s Hat, and as always we missed out on a few beers/breweries that we’d hope to get to. Blackrocks Brewery was another I’d like to have hit based on word of mouth, and I made it to Stormcloud but missed out on the Cherry Dubbel which I’ve been wanting to try for sometime.
Collaboration beers were a great way to support multiple breweries; in addition to Rockford’s new year-round beer Paradigm M.P.A. (Michigan Pale Ale,) they were featuring the Polar Coaster; a collaboration with New Holland Brewing. Mitten Brewing also had their own Michigan sourced Bi-Peninsular IPA as well as the Ryelie Fingers collaboration with Our Brewing. Another standout for me was the Best Day Ever double-IPA from Osgood Brewing. Other big hits included the highly regarded B.O.B.’s Brewery Peanut Butter Stout and I had to show my props for my hometown Unruly Brewing which was one of 19 breweries making their debut at the fest. Their Oats N’ Hoes was another crowd-pleaser. Winter Beer Fest as always has set things in motion for 2014 which is sure to be another great year for Michigan Beer!
