If You Seek a Tasty Beer, Look About You.
March 24, 2008
My goal for this blog is to create awareness in my hometown of Monroe, MI of the great beer that is brewed everyday right here in our home state. The recent release of the greatly improved Michigan Brewer’s Guild directory brought home the importance of supporting locally owned companies and local agriculture – in particular, beer.
It may be a surprise to some people but Michigan has a world-class brewing industry. On
Ratebeer.com Michigan is home to 7 of the top 57 breweries in the world. Michigan breweries won 7 medals at last year’s Great American Beer Fest. On Beer Advocate, Founders has the sixth ranked beer in the world with Kentucky Breakfast Stout. And whenever a list of the best beers in the world is comprised, you will find beer from our state all over the list. We have over 70 breweries in this state which puts us at sixth in the nation. When was the last time you heard our Michigan being 6th in something that was positive? Breweries have sprung up from Detroit to Calumet. The Michigan brewing industry pays over $24 million dollars in wages with an overall economic contribution of $133 million. We have a “Great Beer State”.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure what impact all of this has had here in Monroe. Only a few bars have local craft beer and only one has a particularly good selection. This is especially frustrating since the advent of Monroe’s buy local campaign last summer. Basically a bunch of business owners decided to get together and advertise the benefits of buying local. One of the problems with this, for people like me who really believe in supporting our local community, is that buying from their businesses seems to be where this commitment to buying local ends. There is little consideration for where the products that they sell come from. Beer is a perfect example of this. Most bars and restaurants in Monroe doesn’t sell Michigan beer. Therefore, with the exception of bar food, Sarah and I are forced to drive out of town (I would dare say the county) if we want to eat a nice sit down dinner paired with a Michigan beer. The same beer that is known world-wide and sold from here all the way to Japan. That’s right - Jolly Pumpkin, brewed in Dexter, Michigan, is sold in Japan and yet I can’t find it in Monroe.
People from Monroe are extremely civic minded. We buy our cars from Ford, GM and Chrysler and we do it because most of the people here know someone who works for one of those three. We know what an integral role the auto industry plays in our state economy and take a certain pride in the fact that our state is home to the Motor City. Why can’t this pride translate to other things that we buy? As consumers we have the power of the pocketbook. It is this power that drives the market and this power can be used to dictate the kind of community we want to live in.
Why don’t these business owners sell Michigan beer? More than likely they don’t know what a great product it is or they think of beer as a second-class citizen to wine. If this is the case, then how do we go about changing that mind set? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Please feel free to add any restaurant that serves great beer to the comments.
”Si Quaeris bibere Amoenam Circumspice”
Posted in Beer and Food, Michgan products, local food
March 24th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
First of all you guys have a great site and using the state slogan.. brilliant. You are terrific Ambassadors.
I’ll send out the flying monkeys and report back on places that serve great Michigan Beers for your wonderful blog.
March 24th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
What, Coors Light and Bud Light aren’t good enough for ya?
Excellent post and argument. Hopefully it won’t fall on deaf ears.
March 24th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
I can’t agree with you more! We are lucky here in Grand Rapids to have several brewery’s located here, and lots of bars that sell these local beers.
One of the newer ones is the HopCat, which has 20-25 different Michigan beers on tap.
Keep up the good work.
March 25th, 2008 at 5:34 am
Awesome an army of flying monkeys at your disposal, how can you fail to find MI beer? “Fly my pretties, fly” I guess the real quote from WofO was “fly,fly,fly” but I prefer the myth.
Yes Freddy, those beers aren’t good enough for me. I have to admit, I drank Coors Light in Las Vegas. But a lot of people do things they are ashamed of in Vegas.
HopCat is exactly the kind of beer bar I’m wanting in Monroe. Grand Rapids is a great city. I wish the Hideout was walking distance from my house.
March 25th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Knowledge is power, and you are wielding a powerful blog.
Cheers from south of the border.
March 25th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Keep preaching the gospel of Michigan beer to all the local businesses in town – bars, liquor stores, restaurants, etc.
In time, you will win over a few of them – especially if you can show them increased profits.
BTW, it took Bell’s pulling out of Chicago to get our local liquor store (in Whiting IN) to finally carry MI craft beer. I told him if he started carrying “Bells”, I would put the word out on Chicago beer forums and he would get a lot more business.
Now we are trying to get him to carry Dark Horse and Founders!!!
May 19th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Kevin,we have occasionally shared a little bar time at the 129 and talk usually warped around to beer (i’m glad I most often had something in front of me from around the Great Lakes ) I didn’t realize I had such an eloquent bar mate (probably to late in the evening,or afternoon) anyway, nice article in the news supporting Michigan .
Mike Chinavare
P.S. what’s the bar in Monroe and is their any hope for Carleton