I Mitten You!

As many of you already know, some sectors of the Ohio population love to hate Michigan. And it’s not just OSU alums against Wolverines; it’s everything. They hate all Michigan sports teams, Michiganders in general, American-made cars, Motown, and the way Michigan is shaped like a cute little mitten. I think what we all can agree on, though, is that they make a damn fine beer.

Who has the energy for this?!

Last weekend I went with my husband and my parents to Ann Arbor (home of dreaded U of M) to celebrate my father’s birthday. Needless to say this involved visiting EVERY brewery in the town we could get to. Because Ann Arbor is a college town and an especially cool one, at that, this involved a lot of drinking. For those of you not fortunate enough to go out drinking with my father on a semi-regular basis, during these outings he is remarkably both funnier and more embarrassing at the same time.

Ann Arbor is a beer town, and not just because there are nearly 44-thousand newly-legal drinkers there; rather, they have a population that is hip and well-off enough to support at least five microbreweries or brewpubs in the radius of a few blocks. Each of them has their own thing going: premium lagers, unique styles, hooting sorority girls, and more. The first one my father wheeled into specialized in farmhouse ales.

A damn fine beer

The Jolly Pumpkin was an encouragingly crowded, multi-leveled bar and restaurant with fancy-pants local and sustainable American food and spectacular farmhouse ales. Farmhouse is the style from which the Belgian saison originated. Saisons were traditionally brewed in the winter for summer consumption, but I’m here to tell you that farmhouse ales are year-round beers. Every good farmhouse I’ve had has been extremely complex: earthy, tart (sometimes quite a bit), and dry with just a little bitterness. Maybe there’s a reason we get along so well. I tried their flagship beer, the Bam Biere, which was delightfully sour and refreshing. Continue reading →