Arcadia Ales | Jaw-Jacker

Photo courtesy of Arcadia Ales.

To quote a past professor: I reserve the right to be wrong.

In sixth grade I only once cleaned up after a friend’s Tamagotchi Giga Pet. I belonged to a school district around a farming community and found it was not uncommon for students to walk through cow or horse or pig manure in the morning before school. We knew what sticks were for and this egg-looking pixilated-dog toy had no use-stick button. I had cast aside my childhood then and welcomed cynicism. Since then, I have not succumbed to fads: my first cell phone was out of necessity at twenty, as apartment landlines became expensive and impracticable and employers immediately threw away applications without a phone number; I still have a flip phone, find the constant use of smart phones offensive; I avoided Twitter for eight years; I still don’t exactly understand Tinder or Reddit or what a millennial is or what their duties are or why one young man felt the need to tell me not to whistle while doing laundry because I was appropriating unpaid-labor culture; only now do I think a Tickle-me-Elmo would be fun (however, Gak was great, though I never owned any). And as of recently, I had no desire to fill the void in my life with anything pumpkin-spiced.

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A Beer and BBQ Lover’s Destination, Fitzgerald’s Hotel & Restaurant (Eagle River, MI)

We’re going to take you away from our usual Brewery Showcase feature to fill you in on a little secret, something just as good, if not better than your neighborhood brewery. If you want craft beer in Michigan, look no further than Fitzgerald’s Hotel & Restaurant.

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Mackinaw Brewing Co. | Red 8 Ale

ABV: 5.2%

What I know about tailors is from the “here’s what they won’t tell you about tailors” had-to-be-there stories from friends I’ve never seen in fitted suits. I leave work late in the evening to drive to Traverse City, Michigan, expecting early the next day to stand bare-assed in front of a five-sided mirror and a woolen man with circular glasses and pins in his teeth. He’ll shift my inner thighs someplace more manageable, while muttering, “No, no, this won’t do.” Read More

Petoskey Brewing Company | Cranium Crush Waffle Cone Raspberry Cream Ale

7.0% ABV

The Sunday evening before Memorial Day brought rain, but it let up when I was feeling most productive. When the clouds broke and the western skies opened, I walked to the laundromat, washed, and exchanged a dollar for dryer quarters. Read More

Brewery Showcase | Keweenaw Brewing Company (Houghton, MI)

There must be a phrase (I’m assuming in German) for the relief felt when seeing the chaliced lines of a passing lane. This would be a feeling I don’t have often; driving … Read More

Cheboygan Brewing Company | Blood Orange Honey

Photo credit: Alicia Lemorie, Cheboygan Brewing Company

5.7% ABV

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Event Preview | Third Annual Festival of the Angry Bear

Northern Michigan practices a winter amnesia that convinces us November through March wasn’t all that bad. It’s moronic and ignorant and we buy it in bulk and then we stay here. By June or July, rarely any of us can remember what the official first day of spring would have been, whether it was mid-April or late-March, or that one person who reminds us February once hit 60. That person is an optimist and Machiavellian.

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Brewery Showcase | Cognition Brewing Company (Ishpeming, MI)

It is late June, 2014 and my friend and I are asked to volunteer for the Ishpeming Historical Society by giving scripted tours to the second story of a Victorian-style home. My name tag reads Gerald and my tie does not match my shirt. I’m missing a shoelace and nobody notices until the middle of the day when I catch a twenty-something woman staring intently at my shoe. She would be my favorite patron of the day, for we shared a similar disinterest: she, with what I had to say; I, with what I had to say.

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Ore Dock Brewing Company | Ski Bum Wheat

5.5% ABV

I don’t ski in the same way I don’t bowl or attend weddings—if I have to rent special footwear, it’s not worth my time. This nonparticipation can be traced back to 1998, specifically Sonny Bono’s skiing accident. His death fueled a fear within that kept me from a middle school trip to a local hill. My paranoia was further confirmed when a friend returned to school the following Monday with a gash and stitches above his eye; he had caught a tow rope with his face. By springtime, he wore a scar that said he had done (and survived) something substantial. I, however, relishing in my newfound neuroticism, was about the same. Unimpressive as ever.

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