Beer & Wine

Three friends created a website highlighting local happy hours across Grand Rapids, Michigan in real-time. Kalamazoo residents would love to be included.

Whether it is because of the nice weather, more available options for venues, or the possible luxury of relatives and friends having available time for the festivities; the summer season is filled with weddings. With this annual season's festivities returning after Covid-19 put so many restraints on social gatherings, weddings are back in full swing in Southwest Michigan.

It's funny how real estate and areas change. Twenty-five years ago, Food Dance at Michigan and Pitcher Streets in Kalamazoo was a fairly new restaurant on the cusp of what would become a thriving downtown restaurant and bar/beer scene in Kalamazoo.

The World Beer Cup gold medal winner in the group is from The Mitten Brewing in Grand Rapids. Its a brown ale, Triple Crown Brown.

If there was any question about whether beer is a big deal in this part of Michigan, consider this: Warner Wines in Paw Paw has opened a Brew Haus.

Owner Brad Wilcox says his Brewsters Smokehouse location in Otsego, MI was targeted by robbers just months after his Portage, MI location was broken into.

It would be easy to dismiss three people discussing the beer history of Kalamazoo as simply another "talking heads" show, but given it's beer and beer's prominence in both terms of a local industry and how much of the product people consume now in both Kalamazoo and Michigan, it's a fascinating look at how we got to "here".

This photo posted by Bad Brewery in Mason (Michigan) reads like it's an item begging to be on Antiques Roadshow.

The craft beer business is showing no signs of slowing down, according to an industry website.

"We saw that the brewery out in Ukraine, Pravda Brewery was making Molotov cocktails. They had to shut down operations of brewing beer to do that because of everything going on".