Mock Winter... Celebrate Beer

This Saturday is the 5th Annual Michigan Winter Beer Festival which will take place at Fifth Third Ballpark north of Grand Rapids, MI. The sold out festival boasts 299 Michigan beers from 51 Michigan Breweries. Some of my favorites include Bell's (Kalamazoo), Founder's (Grand Rapids), Dark Horse Brewing (Marshall) and Short's (Bellaire).

The festival begins at noon but members of the Michigan Brewers Guild will be allowed in one hour early. The festival lasts until 5pm. It is so awesome that an event like this has sold out and that so many people are supporting Michigan beer!

Obama wins Nobel Prize and Motor City Brew Tours...

It sort of comes as a surprise to me that Barak Obama, our president, won the Nobel Peace Prize today.  I think he was shocked too, since one of his aids had to wake him up (at 6am) to let him know he won it.  When I heard that I was like, "Obama sleeps in past six?"  I was up before the president this morning!  I guess he can't be awake 24 hours like I thought.  Anyway, I first heard the news this morning when I turned on the TV.  But there are countless articles about it on the internet, this is just one from the Wall Street Journal.  Obama was awarded the prize for his actions dealing with new countries and nuclear power and also for his commitment to communicating more openly with other world leaders.

Now on to the fun stuff...

Motor City Brew Tours has been in operation for less than a year but I think this is a winning idea.  It was founded by two gentlemen from the Royal Oak area who are salesmen during the day but love beer and want to spread the word about craft beer in southeast Michigan.  Steve and Bryan are currently offering tours of breweries in the Detroit area using the Night Move bus as transportation.  

You can take one of their tours or they will let you customize your tour with three breweries that you want to see.  The tours include a tour of the brewery with the brewmaster, free tastes/pints, lunch, Q&A with the brewer and specials on pints and beer to go (growlers).  

While visiting their website I was able to browse some of their pictures from recent brewery tours.  It seems as though the groups are small (around 10 people) and fun.  The breweries that I saw were Bastone in Royal Oak, Dragonmead in Warren and BNektar in Ferndale.  They have a great video slide show on YouTube.

I have not been to any of the above mentioned breweries and have not been on a tour with Motor City Brew Tours but I would gladly participate in one.  I think this would make for an awesome "mancation" or bachelor party activity.  Kudos to Steve and Bryan for this idea, it's beer-tastic!  What about chartering trips to famous breweries around the country... or even... the world.